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Promises and Challenges of Ecotourism |
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By Dalia Acosta*
Just three to seven percent of the 680 million travelers worldwide are considered ecotourists, but this sector of tourism has great potential for growth.
HAVANA - Ecotourism in Latin America promises a great deal, ranging from the creation of jobs in the local communities to attracting funds for protecting natural areas. But weak laws and the lack of certification systems could turn this "green" industry into a mere illusion.
Worldwide, three to seven percent of the 680 million tourists engage in ecotourism, representing a tiny share of the industry's global annual revenues of 200 billion dollars.
It is a small but growing segment of the market, and goals and challenges are being discussed at the World Ecotourism Summit, organized by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Tourism Organization, under way in Quebec, Canada, until May 22.
According to the UNEP definition of ecotourism, to qualify as such it must contribute towards the protection of biological diversity, and ensure that local communities have a voice in sustainable development, that they benefit positively from revenue flows through small-sized ecotourism operations, infrastructure is operated by them, and requires the least possible consumption of non-renewable resources.
To distinguish ecotourism from activities disguised as environmentally-friendly excursions, certification systems must be enacted, with oversight of granting environmental certification. But such systems are in only a nascent stage in Latin America.
In Cuba, visits to the monolithic, vegetation-covered vertical mounds in the western Valle de Viñales National Park, tours of their caverns and bird-watching constitute a vacation option that competes with the Caribbean island's best beaches.
According to Cuban officials, ecotourism has been growing at an annual rate of 12.6 percent. In 2001, the island received 1.7 million tourists, of which 32,000 were ecotourists, while another 300,000 opted to take part in nature-related excursions.
As in other Latin American countries, ecotourism's expansion is not free of contradictions.
"The tourists prefer to stay in a nice hotel in the capital and then come here on their own for a day or two," Nena González, 42, who rents her house near Valle de Viñales to visitors, told Tierramérica.
The travelers provide income for those who manage private businesses on this socialist-run island, but they also pay the improvised guides who take tourists through the valley even though these self-proclaimed "experts" lack basic knowledge about protecting the area.
"They throw garbage wherever they want, they capture rare birds, hunt animals or set fires in the forest," said González.
There are at least 100 areas in Cuba of great natural and cultural value for developing environmental or adventure tourism, but sustainable exploitation of these sites requires an environmental license and activities must take place within guidelines for conservation.
However, it is not always possible to achieve the ambitious ideals of ecotourism, and sometimes promoting this activity even endangers the natural resources upon which it depends, warns the UNEP tourism program, directed by Oliver Hiller.
UNEP says that environmental tourism is often co-opted as a label for public or private entities that claim to be green to promote their own interests, while tourists themselves are ambiguous about their own environmental commitment: they like the idea but are often unwilling to pay for it or to "rough it" and face the related inconveniences.
Most countries of the Americas have basic ecotourism policies in place, but they tend to lack the legal instruments for their implementation and regulation, according to a study by the Organization of American States (OAS).
For every 460 dollars a tourist pays for a four-day visit to the Cuyabeno nature reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon, only 40 dollars goes to the local community and 22 to the National System of Protected Areas, according to figures from the Ecuadorian Ecotourism Association.
In the Mexican resort city of Cancún in the Dominican Republic's Punta Cana, for every dollar a tourist spends, just 10 cents remains in the country. In Costa Rica, meanwhile, local businesses hold onto 48 cents of every tourist dollar spent.
According to the independent Central American Institute of Business Management (INCAE), based in Costa Rica, ecotourists consume more and leave more revenues in the hands of local companies than do tourists who seek the traditional vacation of sun and beaches.
In 2000, Costa Rica - a pioneer in ecotourism - attracted 1.1 million of the 4.4 million tourists that visited the Central American region. According to unofficial figures, environmentally-friendly vacations accounted for 65 to 70 percent of all visits to Costa Rica.
"We are talking about no less than 700 million dollars a year," Jorge Cabrera, author of that country's 1998 biodiversity law, told Tierramérica.
Mexico drew 19.8 million foreign tourists in 2001 and collected more than 8.4 billion dollars in that sector. But true ecotourism represents just five percent of the total visits and income, says Héctor Ceballos, head of the Program of International Consultancy on Ecotourism (PICE).
Although Mexico's potential is enormous because it holds 127 protected natural areas, "the activities that truly entail ecotourism have been very limited," said Ceballos.
Brazil faces a similar situation as a country that occupies six percent of the world's total land surface and holds the planet's greatest biological wealth. The Brazilian population reaches 170 million.
One of the stumbling blocks is the fact that the available statistics are not reliable, Ariane Janer, an expert on Brazil's ecotourism market, told Tierramérica.
In 1998, of the 38.2 million domestic tourists, an estimated 800,000 to 2.3 million engaged in ecotourism, and of the 4.8 million foreign visitors to Brazil, no more than 450,000 were ecotourists, said Janer.
With backing from the Inter-American Development Bank, a program is under way to encourage and foment environmental tourism in the Brazilian Amazon.
On Brazil's Atlantic coast, where just seven percent of the original forests remain intact, there are projects aimed at stimulating ecotourism in order to boost income for the small and medium-sized farmers in the area and to protect and reforest the "mata atlantica" or Atlantic forest, one of the country's most devastated ecosystems.
* Dalia Acosta is an IPS correspondent, as are Diego Cevallos (Mexico), Néfer Muñoz (Costa Rica) and Mario Osava (Brazil), who contributed to this report.
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