Fun In The Sun: The Green Way
Everyone loves a holiday, the break from work, the de-stressing from everyday life. With the advent of cheap airplane tickets, we can go pretty much anywhere in the world for pretty much nothing. This is partly related to what I wanted to write about today, ecotourism.
If we grab a quick quote from wikipedia:
Eco-tourism, also known as ecological tourism, is a form of tourism that appeals to ecologically and socially conscious individuals. Responsible ecotourism includes programs that minimize the negative aspects of conventional tourism on the environment and enhance the cultural integrity of local people. Therefore, in addition to evaluating environmental and cultural factors, an integral part of ecotourism is the promotion of recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation, and creation of economic opportunities for the local communities.
Eco-tourism is something that have just really been made aware of, so I thought I would share what I had learned with you guys! When we normally book a holiday, we are looking for somewhere that we can relax, enjoy ourselves and forget our normal responsibilities. However one thing most people don’t realise when booking their holiday is the impact that it will have on the environment, both globally and within the community they are travelling.
That’s fair enough really, we can all attest to not giving the environment our first thought when getting our holiday sorted out, but it’s not very green is it, oohhh no!
There are many examples of damage that tourism can cause to the environment. We can use the damage of the Coral Reefs around the Caribbean as an example. Increased tourism to the islands and beaches of the Caribbean has meant more increased levels of fishing, pollution, boat travel and underwater tourism. The Coral Reefs survive in a delicate balance that is easily disturbed, so imagine what damage the pollution, raising water temperatures, boat anchors and human feet and hands are doing to the integrity of the coral reefs!
There is a way around this however, ecotourism. As stated before ecotourism is a holiday that you would directly contributing to reduce the damage on the environment. There are many different types of holidays that you could go on. Ranging from your average holiday experience, of lounging around, relax etc, but in a somewhat exotic location in accommodation run purely by locals. To the complete opposite end in the spectrum, where abouts you spend your time helping local people and getting to know local culture.
You really can have an amazing holidays in these kind of places and in my opinion a holiday like this would be far more morally fulfilling. Anyway let me know what you think. It is a worthless fad, or the one of the biggest green things you can do?
