Ecotourism

Is ecotourism really eco-friendly? The travel and tourism industry is the largest sector of the world business economy and is responsible for over 230 million jobs and more than 10% of the gross domestic product worldwide.¹ Tourism is especially important to developing countries: according to the Global Ecotourism Factsheet, “for the world’s 40 poorest countries, tourism is the second most important source of foreign exchange, after oil.”²Unfortunately, the residents of these countries often embrace tourism with the same zeal with which they also clear cut forests and hunt endangered animals. Even a model country like Costa Rica sometimes sees the shortsighted pursuit of maximum profit overwhelm sustainable practices. For instance, Costa Rica’s Manuel Antonio Park takes in an average of 1000 people a day during the high season, and visitors to Arenal Volcano are sometimes treated to a “guide” breaking into its reptile park to harass tortoises and Camans.³

The rise of ecotourism—defined by the International Ecotourism Society (TIES) as “Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and promotes the well-being of local people”⁴ —in Costa Rica and elsewhere, should be laudable. However, praise must be tempered with realism, as many “ecotourism” outfits are not exactly eco-friendly. To fix this problem, the option of using a single governing body to hold companies worldwide to the same standard has been explored and turns out to be a bad idea, but the American Society of Travel Agents and similar bodies need to do more than issue the Ten Commandments of Ecotourism on recycled paper. Until they do, however, it is up to you, the consumer, to educate yourself and hold the ecotourism industry under a magnifying glass. It is only in this way that the truly green companies will be separated from the chameleons.

Costa Rica is perhaps the country most often associated with ecotourism, and for good reason: 2.1 million tourists, most of them of the eco variety, visited Costa Rica in 2008, representing a 7% increase from the previous year. An impressive statistic, but the Costa Rican Tourism Institute, or ICT, was hoping for an increase closer to 15%. The impressive growth of tourism in Costa Rica has been helped by many factors, not least of which is its proximity to the United States. US citizens constitute 54% of the tourists who visit Costa Rica,⁵ with more coming from nearby Colombia and Mexico and, further north, Canada. Costa Rica’s varied landscapes—ranging from cloud forests to Caribbean beaches to volcanoes—haven’t hurt it either, nor has the stunning biodiversity that is found within this terrain. Ecotourism in Costa Rica has also benefited from the tremendous amounts of aid it has received from the IMG, World Bank, and the United States.⁶

The Costa Rican government realized early on the benefits of protecting its environment instead of sacrificing it to the logging, farming, and mining industries as so many of its South American neighboring Nations had done. In 1963, it designated its first environmental protection reserve. Since that time, Costa Rica’s “conservation initiatives have expanded to include 70 protected areas or national parks covering 21% of the nation’s territory.”⁷ Visitors to these national parks often employ local, indigenous guides to lead them on treks, and homestays, in which visitors get the opportunity to live with a local family for a period of time, have become an increasingly popular option. In general, Costa Rica has been “careful to encourage small scale development over the construction of high-rise luxury hotels,”⁸but exceptions, such as the Papagayo Project, do exist.⁹ In an effort to further promote ecotourism, Costa Rica began the “Certification of Sustainable Tourism program, which aims at identifying the most environmentally friendly parks and resorts.” However, through simple measures such as the use of biodegradable soap and avoidance of pesticides, a high-rise hotel can receive the same rating as an eco-lodge.¹⁰

Worldwide, the tourism industry has more than 100 certification programs that assess everything from health and safety standards to quality and service to sustainability;¹¹ only seven of these programs are global. While some are commendable, others, like the Green Globe Program, amount to little more than “greenwashing.” (For more on consumer products and “greenwashing,” check out: http://www.wordpress-837916-4114959.cloudwaysapps.com/GreeniacsArticles/Greenwashing.html). The Green Globe Program was introduced in 1994 by then president of the World Travel and Tourism Industry, Geoffrey Lipman. In order to “earn” the right to use the Green Globe Logo—said to represent a “commitment to sustainability”—in company advertisements, a company simply had to pay a fee of 200 dollars.¹²

Since then, the Green Globe Program has tightened its membership standards. The rights to the Green Globe logo now follow a successful “onsite evaluation,” and an annual membership fee of $2800 has replaced the comparatively humble, one time fee of $200. However, “offsite” audits are also possible, and there is an “alternative pathway towards certification with the Green Globe Program”¹³ through EarthCheck Lite. As its name would imply, EarthCheck Lite is far from rigorous: in order to receive the EarthCheck Lite Achievement Logo, one simply registers their company, completes a “Health Check” by answering an online survey, and pays a fee.¹⁴ The right to use the logo and green credibility are subsequently gained.

With such an abundance of certification programs available, and many with standards far too low, one wonders whether the ecotourism industry might benefit from a universal standard. The answer is that such a standard would prove too unrealistic. According to Ayako Ezaki, director of communications for The International Tourism Society, “‘A global standard would be very difficult to do,’ [as] ‘[t]here are social and political differences between countries and states. For example, the businesses in Portland, Ore., don’t have to sort their recyclables because the city does it, but they don’t do that in Washington, D.C.’”¹⁵ To hold the ecotourism industry in Costa Rica, a developing country of 4 million, to the same standards as those in the U.S., an industrialized nation of more than 300 million, would create as many problems as it would solve.

Ultimately, promoting sustainable ecotourism comes down to you, the educated individual. The first step is to read our guides on how to take an eco-vacation and an eco-daytrip, but you already have, right? Continue to ask rigorous questions. Scrutinize: if a place looks like it engages in overly waste-creating practices, move on. Green Globes and catchy slogans don’t benefit the environment; sustainable practices do.