Ethics of trekking and ecotourism

[dryad]

This topic came up in the "worlds best mountains to trek though" thread and I thought it deserves its own. Here are the relevant posts:

 

Beck said:

remember what Sir Edmund Hillary said about trekking in Nepal? "Don't go." Deforestation, and catering to westerners, are rapidly deteriorating their traditional way of life. I imagine it's only a matter of time until a McDonalds opens up in Kathmandu. it could serve McMao burgers, placate the rebels while feeding the tourists...

 

Lambone said:

There might be one now...there was a Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors when I was there 4 years ago...

 

Still, the times have allready changed and now many of the local mountain people rely on the tourist industry as their main income flow. I'm sure they are hurting with travel on the decline in Nepal.

 

dryad said:

Get off your high yak, Beck. Hillary is just pissed that other people are tresspassing on what he likes to think of as his own personal little mountain fiefdom. The Sherpas have to support themselves somehow after trade with Tibet (their main source of income for centuries) pretty much completely dried up after China took over Tibet and did their best to close the border. It's true that there has been a lot of irresponsible development, but it is getting a lot better. For example, wood burning is completely banned. I wish they would also ban plastic bottles, or that the stupid tourists would quit buying them. Everyone I saw with one got a talking to from me.

 

I feel especially sorry for the lodge proprietors living between Jiri and Lukla who are really hurting. Trekking in that area was always a small percentage of the total, and now it's almost non-existant thanks to the Maoist presence in the region. There is a sad running joke that the the only 2 sources of income that Nepal has are tourism and foreign aid. Sadly it's true.

 

And no McDonalds in KTM yet, thank goodness.

[lummox]

dryad. you have to realize we cant read your mind. what is the point you are trying to make?

[Crackbolter]

Good morning Dryad!

 

My rrommate just got back from India and this was her biggest concern to Americans traveling to foreign countries. There was a big need for bottled water because of our inability to cope with contaminated water but there was no recycling available. Also the exchange rate was so good that even though her income here was at poverty level (student), it was easy for her to live well above her means for an extended period of time.

 

I have also seen a couple of National Geographic shows that cover some of the aid that Tibet has received for schools and restoring historical monuments by Westerners. It seems that they are accepting quite a bit of help in hopes to gain political strength through the UN to gain independance from China.

 

I believe Western occupation could very well benefit Tibet, at least more so than communist rule but less than their own political independance.

[catbirdseat]

I guess what she is asking is tourism always negative in a cultural sense? I think it can be economically beneficial. If your belly is empty, you tend to place more emphasis on getting more food as opposed to preserving your own culture.

Edited June 3, 2004 by catbirdseat

[skyclimb]

If the country that is partaking in eco-tourism has capital investments, and a pre-existing infrastructure before ecotourism occurs the coutnry will be much better off.

Look at costa Rica- privatized infrastructures and parks. Good management techniques.

Bhutan-200$ fee per day.

Infrastructure is the key to preserving carrying capacity both socially and ecologically in developing and developed countries.

Theres my rant for the day

[cj001f]

I guess what she is asking is tourism always negative in a cultural sense? I think it can be economically beneficial. If your belly is empty, you tend to place more emphasis on getting more food as opposed to preserving your own culture.

Most of the "cultures" that are being discussed here were subsistence - the essence was/is putting food in their belly. It's the emergence into a higher standard of living - access to good quality medicine, good travel infrastructure, places to eat out that people seem to object to.

[catbirdseat]

It seems to me that Americans more than any other people insist on having their familiar cultural icons wherever they go. Why is this? Are we more conceited? Are we just less exposed to other cultures? Why don't we better appreciate differences. I think it is horrible how the rest of the world seems to be trying to emulate us culturally. The world is trending towards the same numbing sameness that we find in this country.

[skyclimb]

So if tourism emerges in a culture that is based primarily around subsistence living- lets use amboseli national preserve in kenya for instance, and a boom and bust cycle occurs over two generations around tourism. What happens to the second generation who has lost the methods of subsistence living??

Infrastructure both culturally and physically is necissary to create sustainable tourism both socially and economically for HOSTS .

Ecotourism can prove to be sustainable, and can help the enviornment greatly. It has been proven in places such as africa and the galapagos that preserving species instead of killing them is more profitable with the emergence of eco-tourism. In fact a lion in Kenya has a head price of 568,000 dollars(on average) for the amount of tourism dollars it generates. Instead of deforestation people in costa rica have found that if they create a PRIVATE preserve, they will make more money, and can help the enviornment at the same time. Sounds like a pretty cool thing to me.

However if eco-tourism isn't controlled and carrying capacities aren't looked at you will create both social and ecological chaos.

[texplorer]

damn skyclimb, well thought out.

[cj001f]

So if tourism emerges in a culture that is based primarily around subsistence living- lets use amboseli national preserve in kenya for instance, and a boom and bust cycle occurs over two generations around tourism. What happens to the second generation who has lost the methods of subsistence living??

They start shooting the game. Like Zimbabwe & the Sudan.

 

I'm not sure Americans are the only culture that likes familiar icons - look at the British. There's a pub in every town the world over it seems, and half the people there are from the UK.

[Lambone]

dryad. you have to realize we cant read your mind. what is the point you are trying to make?

 

Yeah dryad, intrested in your perspective considering you were recently over there...

[Lambone]

I think it is horrible how the rest of the world seems to be trying to emulate us culturally. The world is trending towards the same numbing sameness that we find in this country.

 

At the same time how can you blame them (them being locals in "underdeveloped countries")?

 

I mean, you wanna have your nice house for your family, clean water, transportation + gas that runs it, yummy cheeseburgers and everything else...why shouldn't everyone want to have access to those same luxuries?

 

You can go to almost any place in the world that has electricity and log onto the internet somewhere and see all those nice things that so many people have now, and I can't say that I wouldn't want to emulate that also, because I do.

 

I'm not saying it is right, i'm just saying it's reality, and it may seem sad to us that people are losing their cultural traditons...burning yak dung in their stove and eating rancid yak butter. But that is our veiwpoint, from their prospective, at least the youths perspective, I think there are millions who are very bitter that they cannot have those things. That was part my experience in Nepal, talking with my peers in Nepal who wanted nothing more in life then to get out.

 

The real problems arise, and will arise in the future when access to these luxuries that we have become more and more available, but systems of good resource custodianship (like we have in the US...to some extent, i.e. Recycling, Environmental Protection, etc.) are not available. For example, China- huge economic boom and fast growth, coupled with environmental exploitation and degredation on a massive scale.

 

As far as the ecotourism thing, I think skyclimb is pretty right on. Although I would say that there are alot of ecotourism buisnesses out there which cause alot of impact. Especialy in places where there are no guidlines or systems of control in place that are enforced, Costa Rica being a prime example. It's pretty easy for any resort type buisness to put on the guise of "ecosystem friendly" and wow guests with first impressions and bathroom labels that say we wash our towels properly, when in reality there are alot of bad things going on behind the scenes. Not that I am authority on the subject, just something I studied for a short time...

 

China is on a big push to develop ecotourism in the western Part of the country right now. For example, Panda refuges in the Sechwan (sp?) province.

 

[dryad]

Sorry, didn't mean to make you read my mind. I thought my feelings on the subject were pretty clear from my post on the original thread, and I didn't want to engage in a long-winded monologue on this subject that is pretty dear to my heart. So here's more.

 

The Khumbu has not been a wilderness area for millennia. It is widely inhabited. The trekking routes are centuries-old trade routes, not hiking trails put in there for the amusement of hikers. The landscape is shaped by farming and yak herding as much as it is shaped by wind and water. If you are looking for some kind of pure wilderness experience, you are simply going to the wrong place.

 

The Sherpas are people just like everyone else who want the best lives for themselves. If you ask them, they will tell you that they consider tourism a big net positive. They feel like their lives are infinitely better with it than without it. I think it is pretty damn self-centered for us westerners to begrudge them some basic development like education and electricity in order to preserve some romanticized vision of their traditional culture.

 

Is it all positive? Of course not. Deforestation is a big problem. Pollution is a big problem. The area did get developed too quickly and without enough controls. But the damage that was done is slowly getting remedied. Wood burning has been banned completely, and the forests are coming back. The availability of electricity at the lower elevations has also helped reduce the need for wood burning. I think that better facilities to deal with garbage are on their way. There is a lot more that needs to be done, though.

 

A lot of the blame has to rest on the shoulders of the trekkers themselves. For example, the use of bottled water is heavily discouraged in every guidebook and every publication, but people do it anyway. Nepal has no facilities to recycle the bottles, so they just accumulate, and there is absolutely no reason for anyone to use them. You can get boiled water anywhere, or you can filter it or treat it with iodine. Very easy things. People who refuse to live without certain luxuries that they are accustomed to have no business trekking in the first place as far as I'm concerned. This is just one example. I was really disgusted with how obnoxious and demanding some of the other trekkers I encountered were. And they were not Americans, by the way. Americans are expected to be obnoxious, but I observed that the Euros, Aussies, and Kiwis are not any better.

 

A country to look to as a model is Bhutan. They opened themselves to tourism recently, and limit it to only something like 5000 visas a year. Their goal is to avoid the problems with overdevelopment that Nepal has had, and I would like to see how they manage.

[Crackbolter]

Lets not forget what kind of impact eco-tourism has in our own country. Take a look at Maui or Yosemite for example. Both places are loaded with people who just want to get away from home and spend lots of money on stuff. There is environmental damage and cultural destruction all over our own country. Both places were very sacred lands for indigenous people yet now that are packed with tourists who could care less who lived there or what they did while they lived there. Before we citicize other countries, we need to address what is going on at home so one does not create a hypocracy. If there was anything we could do, it would be to stay home and clean up our own act. Now would be a good time to overt the discussion and address the FS, NPS and BLM. Wolves are endangered, salmon are endangered and bird of prey are endangered in our own woods folks.

[Lambone]

yeah well, like...duh

 

no reason why we can't talk about other countries too though, since that is where this particular conversation began...

[jjd]

Read this book for a little perspective on the cultural changes that take place when cultures are "Americanized."

 

Link

 

 

A grad student here at Davis has a pretty decent working paper on the tourism industry of Nepal:

http://www.agecon.ucdavis.edu/graduateprogram/ourgradstuds/Student-pages/zetland/nepal.pdf