Ecotourism: Pros and Cons

• DEFINITION: Environmentally, socially, and culturally responsible recreational travel intended to preserve ecosystems and improve the well-being of local populations

Supporters claim that ecotourism dollars help save endangered wilderness areas that might otherwise be subject to indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources. Detractors note that even the most conscientious ecotourism can contribute to the destruction of fragile ecosystems and cultures, and poor ecotourism practices can wreak even more havoc.

Improvements in travel after the end of World War II in 1945, especially the development of jet aircraft, dramatically increased the numbers of tourists in all areas of the globe. With this trend came increased interest in visiting exotic locations to enjoy unspoiled landscapes, view unusual wildlife, and participate in recreational adventures. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), by the late twentieth century tourism had become a main income source and the top export category for many developing countries.

The rise in tourism as a leisure activity brought economic benefits such as development and employment opportunities to many areas, but it was sometimes accompanied by negative social, cultural, and environmental impacts. Local communities and lifestyles were sometimes displaced, and ecosystems were altered with the building of hotels, roads, and other amenities for guests. The growing numbers of tourists threatened the very vistas and wildlife that lured visitors in the first place.

Despite these problems, environmentalists recognize tourism as a means to benefit preservation efforts. While low-income countries or regional governments have the option of exploiting their natural resources to provide revenue, preserving those resources can provide an ongoing alternative source of income—tourist dollars—that gives governments an incentive to protect wilderness areas. Coupled with a "no-impact" ethic, ecotourism is seen as a method of saving ecosystems that are quickly disappearing. This can also foster a conservation mindset among the local population and visitors.

Ideally, ecotourism operations employ practices that have minimal negative impacts on the environment and local cultures. Tours focus on natural destinations and rotate the routes they travel and the sites they visit. Participants gain an understanding of their surroundings and how human activity—including their own—affects the ecosystem. Local communities and Indigenous populations are involved in managing ecotourism and reap economic benefits from it. The revenues produced by ecotourism are used to help preserve the natural environment.

Ecotourism proponents point to regions that have successfully used ecotourism to preserve environments and support local communities. Ecotourism in the Ecuadoran rain forest helped staved off oil exploration and provided income to Indigenous people in the area. A former director of a mountain gorilla project in Africa credits ecotourism with the survival of mountain gorillas and their habitats; gorilla ecotourism has also provided significant revenue for local communities. In Costa Rica, the market demand for pristine wilderness has led to the establishment of national parks and protected areas accounting for more than 25 percent of the nation's territory. In Kenya, hundreds of millions of annual tourist dollars provide a powerful incentive to ensure the survival of the country's elephant and rhinoceros populations. Ecotourism initiatives in Bhutan provide much-needed jobs to younger populations in rural communities that have faced severe economic challenges, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Negative Impacts

Ecotourism is not without its drawbacks. Observers in Costa Rica, for example, have noted that although some national parks are large, most visitors want to see specific sites, which leads to overcrowding, trail erosion, and pollution at those sites. Also, scientists have noted changes in the behavioral patterns of local wildlife that appear to be linked to human activity. In many protected areas, the feeding and breeding behavior of wild animals, such as birds, has been affected by tourists. In national parks of the United States, the natural feeding habits of bears are affected by the presence of humans, and bears that search for food left by visitors are occasionally injured or killed by vehicles. In Africa, the proximity of ecotourist groups to mountain gorillas puts the great apes at risk from human infectious diseases such as measles, polio, influenza, and tuberculosis.

Growth in ecotourism also promotes development outside protected areas, with attendant environmental degradation. An increase in the number of ecotourists is generally accompanied by an increase in the number of hotel rooms to accommodate them, which results in higher water consumption and wastewater disposal. In addition, not all of the people who participate in ecotourism activities have a deep understanding of the no-impact philosophy and a full appreciation of its importance; some of these people contribute to negative impacts through their actions in sensitive areas.

To complicate matters, some purported ecotourism is little more than greenwashed tourism. The burgeoning popularity of ecotourism has led to a proliferation of companies offering purported ecotours that actually fail to employ sustainable practices. In the absence of regulation or even consensus on what constitutes ecotourism, some operators sell their products as ecotours despite the fact that they do not meet the standards of the term as it is usually understood. For example, one Costa Rican tourism project touted as an ecodevelopment included environmentally unfriendly amenities such as a shopping center and a golf course.

Furthermore, studies indicate that local communities often do not benefit from activities in their surrounding areas touted as ecotourism. In many countries, foreign interests own tourist facilities and recreational sites, thus ensuring that profits flow out of the local area. In Nepal, for instance, local families earn little money while serving as porters for tourists. Even in areas where locals do profit, problems can still arise. Some communities in Costa Rica, for example, have moved from a subsistence to a market economy, a transition that belies the ethic of maintaining the integrity of local cultures. In Kenya, some Indigenous Maasai communities have developed resentment toward ecotourism, which they see as favoring only a few people and causing social divisions between those who benefit and those who feel affected by the intrusion of tourism. In the Ecuadorian Amazon, ecotourism has caused conflicts within some of the Secoya and Siona Indigenous communities. Some see the distribution of benefits from tourism as unfair, and the adoption of customs and technologies introduced by tourists also is viewed negatively by members of these communities.

Even some practices with clear environmental benefits have proven controversial. Indigenous tribal communities in South America, Asia, and southern and eastern Africa have at times been forcibly displaced from their homelands after the areas were conserved for ecotourism. Conservation measures such as protections against poaching, while well-intentioned, can result in Indigenous peoples being barred from traditional hunting or fishing grounds.

Critics maintain that the concept of ecotourism is inherently flawed. They argue that ecotourists merely pave the way for mass tourists, people who demand the comforts of home, such as hot showers, electricity, and plastic shopping bags, while they visit remote areas. Moreover, the developing nations that offer ecotourist attractions are often the least able to invest the funds necessary to counter the negative impacts of tourism. Only a small percentage of tourist dollars may go toward the management of natural resources.

Opponents of ecotourism assert that it is merely a variant of tourism that will inevitably despoil the very areas it is intended to protect. One example is the deluge of tourists visiting the Galápagos Islands. The annual number of visitors to the islands surpassed the Ecuadorean government's target limit of 25,000 people decades ago; by 2015, the number of visitors per year had swelled to more than 200,000. Economic development to accommodate the tourist traffic caused appreciable damage to the fragile island environment, while tourists and the vessels that transport them have brought exotic, potentially invasive species with them inadvertently. In 2007, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre added the Galápagos Islands to its list of endangered sites in part because of the damage done by tourism, though the islands were removed from the list in 2010. Environmental advocates recommend that potential ecotourists carefully review the literature of any organization that offers ecotours to be sure that its practices and philosophy are in keeping with the goals of environmental and cultural preservation.

Travelers have become increasingly aware of commercial ruses regarding greenwashing. New forms of rating a tourism site include its carbon usage, the origination of food served, and employee well-being. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s, some travelers began placing greater emphasis on sanitation and other health-related aspects of their accommodations. By that point, many travelers had begun making greater efforts to identify eco-friendly hotels and transportation options.

A non-traditional trend that emerged in the 2020s has been termed regenerative travel. The concept is based on a desire for travelers to minimize tourism's negative impacts and improve travel sites. Such tourism experiences include activities such as clean-up or gardening efforts. Additionally, a percentage of revenues are directed toward local infrastructure enhancements or low-interest microloans to small businesses or nongovernmental organizations.

Emerging Standards

Interest in ecotourism's role in sustainable development and concerns regarding the detrimental effects of ecotourism's mismanagement led to the first World Ecotourism Summit, held in Quebec, Canada. A joint initiative of the UNWTO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the summit was held in 2002, designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Ecotourism. The summit laid the groundwork for the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC), introduced in 2008 by the United Nations Foundation, the UNWTO, UNEP, and the Rainforest Alliance. The first international criteria for sustainable tourism practices, these voluntary standards were based on four key elements of sustainable tourism: effective sustainability planning, maximum social and economic benefits for local communities, minimum negative impacts on cultural heritage, and minimum negative impacts on the environment. The criteria were meant not only for ecotourism, but also to guide the tourism industry in general toward sustainable practices.

In 2010, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), a membership body sponsored in part by the UNWTO, began developing an accreditation program for the world's existing ecotourism certification bodies to bring ecotourism businesses into compliance with universal standards. The GTSC's accreditation criteria, the second version of which was published in 2013, use measurable indicators of environmental and socioeconomic impacts, cultural effects, and sustainability—such as electricity and energy consumption per serviced area, freshwater consumption and waste production per guest per night, and the quality of water discharged from on-site wastewater treatment facilities—to distinguish true ecotourism businesses from greenwashed enterprises. The GSTC has also devised sets of criteria for hotels, guides, and tourism destinations themselves. Other international criteria and accreditation regulations for ecotourism have also been developed or proposed, with varying levels of influence. In 2023, Forbes Advisor developed criteria—including the number of plant and animal species found in a country, the percentage of protected land it had, and the amount of UNESCO Natural Heritage Sites located there—to rank the best countries for ecotourism. Based on that criteria, Forbes named Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica as the top five countries for ecotourism in the world.

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