Can Nature-based Tourism Help Conservation?
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012Concern has been expressed worldwide about the continuing global loss of biodiversity and socially acceptable policies are being sought to slow its rate of loss. Nature-based tourism adds economic value to the stock of wild biodiversity and is seen by many (especially when it involves ecotourism) as being an effective contributor to nature conservation. The fact that tourism is the world’s largest industry and that nature-based tourism is its most rapidly growing component suggests that it has a major impact on the state of natural environments. However, nature-based tourism (depending on its attributes) can be supportive or destructive of biodiversity, or may even have little impact on it, as Clem Tisdell and Clevo Wilson have discovered.
In our book ‘Nature-based Tourism and Conservation’, we identify and explore the type of factors that enable tourism to make a positive contribution to nature conservation, and also discuss its limits as a means for conserving biodiversity in the wild and possible negative environmental consequences.
The complete blog can be obtained from the Edward Elgar Blog site.