Green Fork in the Road (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine, March 2003

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Green Fork in the Road (Cont.)

TAMING THE BEAST

Espen: Why should Outside readers consider the distinction between conventional forms of tourism and ecotourism when they're making their travel plans? What's the pitch?

Martha Honey: The short answer is that we're going to ruin all these places. I think one of the things that we've failed at, is that we haven't done enough to find the places that are environmentally and socially responsible, and ones that have great guides, who will give visitors a better experience.

Espen: Trying to inspire behavior that's based on altruism in the marketplace is a risky proposition, isn't it?

Oliver Hillel: When you have a trained local guide accompanying you on a wilderness experience or natural history experience, it really adds exponentially to the quality of the experience. You're able to see and experience a place through the eyes and the ears and nose of somebody who's always lived there. The cultural dimension, as well as a much deeper natural connection, really enrich the experience for a visitor on an ecotour, as opposed to a conventional tour. And also typically, ecotour operators will have a much lower guide-to-tourist ratio.

Costas Christ: Fifteen or 20 years ago, the organic food industry was a strange thing. It was off the corner —you had to go look for it. Only certain people had heard of it. Today we find that the mainstream marketplace is embracing organic food. Ecotourism without question is still an evolving field. We are finding ourselves up against a brick wall here and there, and then we've got to figure out how to scale it, and how to move beyond it.

But there's a clock ticking. And that clock is a very large, very demanding, and in many respects, very destructive industry called tourism and travel. And in terms of its footprint on the earth, it has been devastating in a number of places, and it's continuing to grow. We need to find a way to tame this beast, or we will find that like fire, it will burn the house down. We're just beginning to scratch the surface. I don't think we have a lot of time to waste.

Espen: Local communities are being asked to make choices between different temptations: between extractive industries and ecotourism, between more intensive development forms of travel and this light footprint of ecotourism. How well are we succeeding in making local cultures our partners?

Martha Honey: That's been the weakest part of the equation. Ecotourism has done well in terms of giving travelers a better experience. But the local communities, that's the most difficult part. To bring them into an industry like tourism, which is international and fast-paced and so on, is extremely challenging and in many ways unrealistic. In many of these places, the first order of business is poverty alleviation. In many of these places, ecotourism is just one small drop or part of a solution, and we certainly can be doing it much better than we have.

Espen: The world seems like a much more dangerous place since 9/11. How can ecotourism play a role in pointing the correct way for travel to go?

Martha Honey: The current uncertainty and fear points to the fact that even with the best of planning tourism can be thrown off by circumstances beyond its control, like the recent bombings in Kenya and Bali. Tourism is a volatile industry. But I think also that the current tensions in the world are an argument for traveling more along the lines of ecotourism.

Oliver Hillel: I thinks ecotourists, and probably Outside readers too, are more discerning travelers in general than mainstream, conventional tourists, and so less likely to be thrown by the slings and arrows of outrageous foreign policy. They're more resilient, they're more thoughtful, they put more effort into planning their trips. They go to more remote places, and to areas that at times are volatile. Developing countries, by and large, are living in constant states of crisis, and yet somehow they manage to be great hosts for ecotourists. I think that's something that we can factor into this discussion. Ecotourism can sometimes come through even in times of instability on a global level.

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