Souvenirs: Can three pieces of coral inspire tourism towards ocean regeneration?

Three pieces of cor­al, and the memor­ies they evoke, inspire K Michael Hay­wood to con­sider how travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers might con­trib­ute to ocean regeneration. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. [You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Every souven­ir deserves a val­ued space in our homes. As gathered from the beach in Sao Mar­tinho do Porto, Por­tugal, my recently found objects are gor­geous stones that now line the base of a birdbath. 

But the souven­irs that have become renowned for their value and wis­dom are “three pieces of cor­al rest­ing on my win­dow sill”; memen­tos of Bahami­an beach-life enjoyed with two of our grand-daughters.

To this day they remind me of the lap­ping of waves, the end­less sand­castles that washed away, the aromas of beach-bar­be­cue jerk chick­en, Bob Marley’s nat­ur­al mys­tic-pos­it­ive vibra­tions, and the rhythms of the people that char­ac­ter­ise the sen­sa­tion­al awe of island life. 

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged ‘Coastal and mar­ine tour­ism and cruises’

These pieces of cor­al rep­res­ent a con­stant remind­er of my youth. Hav­ing grown up in the Bahamas, my love of the Carib­bean Sea and its reefs know no bounds. 

Unfor­tu­nately the reefs’ abil­ity to main­tain found­a­tion­al and evol­u­tion­ary advant­age is under con­stant threat and neg­lect, well-artic­u­lated in this pro­gramme on Carib­bean Sur­viv­al in the Anthro­po­cene.

Hope­fully the means through which people can change their memor­ies is by pre­dict­ing the ocean­’s future; a future requir­ing foresight, an eth­ic­al frame of ref­er­ence, a reli­ance on sci­ence, hope, and the care­ful recon­sid­er­a­tion of past memor­ies, lead­ing to more poignant scen­ari­os for thrive-abil­ity, bey­ond mere sustainability. 

Memories in future tense: Activating ocean regeneration

The more I exam­ine these three pieces of cor­al I’ve noticed lately that they are no longer rest­ing. They have become rest­less and shrill.

“Three pieces of cor­al rest­less on my win­dow sill” demand­ing res­ol­u­tion to the plight of the seas that is push­ing cor­al reefs towards pre­cari­ous tip­ping points. 

It’s obvi­ous to all of us. Wheth­er at the beach, fish­ing, diving, or on a cruise, we can­not help but be dis­mayed, as we wit­ness our ego­ist­ic use, mis­use, and abuse of the seas. 

Also read Kriszt­ina Elefther­i­ou-Hoc­sak’s “GT” Insight ‘One tour­ism beach at a time: Loc­al action can help turn the tide on mar­ine plastic’

The pol­lu­tion from our garbage and coastal devel­op­ments, rep­re­hens­ible, des­troy­ing the reefs and their sound­scape, res­ult­ing in a struggle for sur­viv­al of all spe­cies therein.

Sure, the Nature Con­servancy and the Cent­ral Carib­bean Mar­ine Asso­ci­ation may be in action mode, but it would help immensely if we amp­li­fied their work by link­ing our col­lect­ive sens­ory exper­i­ences to ocean con­ser­va­tion. 

Not simply by dis­cuss­ing, describ­ing, and depict­ing what’s hap­pen­ing, but by:

• Becom­ing war­ri­ors in the defence of the seas;
• Determ­in­ing how our future is play­ing out;
• Resolv­ing the UN’s con­cerns regard­ing our oceans;
• Apply­ing Blue Ocean Lead­er­ship;
• Chan­ging the game in order to change the world;  
• Encour­aging every private and pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tion to come to their senses; and
• Help­ing each to refor­mu­late their own ‘per­petu­al pur­pose’ with the seas in mind; a task demand­ing changes in beha­viours and how we frame the chal­lenges.

We’re for­tu­nate for the multi-dis­cip­lin­ary col­lab­or­a­tion and reform­a­tion of the Blue Eco­nomy in the Bahamas. While their efforts need to be emu­lated, there has to be a call-out for a slew of even more pro­gress­ive sea-changes.

It begins, believe it or not, by re-estab­lish­ing our belief in demo­crat­ic cap­it­al­ism so that tour­ism, as the Caribbean’s eco­nom­ic power­house, can be repur­posed and re-val­ued as the means toward recog­nising its inter-depend­ence with the sea, by re-con­cep­tu­al­ising how it util­ises the sea, by fig­ur­ing out how to price its price­less­ness.

Read more “Good Tour­ism” Insights by K Michael Haywood

It’s going to be a drawn out pro­cess, requir­ing the use of cata­lysts for change.

To this end, as we live our lives for­ward, I foresee: 

• Coali­tions of organ­isa­tions apply­ing sci­ence and a sense of awe for deep­er appre­ci­ation for, and con­ser­va­tion of, the sea, coastal areas, and mar­ine life;
• Por­tray­al of their indis­pens­ab­il­ity and explor­a­tion through stor­ies, film, and media;
• Ensur­ing governments/organisations hon­our their budget alloc­a­tions to envir­on­ment­al, social, and cor­por­ate gov­ernance (ESG) issues; 
• Pri­or­it­ising ESG require­ments — meas­ured and man­aged — for all enterprises;
• Cur­tail­ing waste and pur­su­ing re-engin­eer­ing to cor­rect oper­a­tion­al deficiencies;
• Encour­aging and pro­mot­ing cir­cu­lar economies;
• Cor­por­a­tions and SMEs sup­port­ing ocean char­it­ies;
• Nov­el applic­a­tion of Blue Fin­ance for repair­ing pol­lu­tion-prone infrastructures; 
• Sand­boxes, sensor toolkits, and empath­et­ic design think­ing util­ised for tour­ism and des­tin­a­tion innov­a­tion, its demo­crat­isa­tion and co-cre­ation pos­sib­il­it­ies;
• Every island vis­it as an immers­ive, intim­ate, and sen­sori­al sea exper­i­ence; our senses expan­ded to cla­ri­fy real­ity;
• Souven­irs util­ised to foster future memor­ies about the sen­sori­al seas;
• Build­ing know­ledge of the seas through­out all levels of education;
• Skills devel­op­ment for con­ser­va­tion of the seas e.g. Island Schools;
• Pro­mot­ing cause-con­scious des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing and brand­ing to save the seas;
• On-going cel­eb­ra­tions regal­ing the value of the seas and sea cultures;
• Attun­ing everyone’s sens­ib­il­it­ies towards action-ori­ented regen­er­a­tion; and
• Expand­ing the desire for Future Seas as cata­lysts for value-laden outcomes. 

Once achieved I can only ima­gine those “Three pieces of cor­al feel­ing rest­ful, relieved, and revived”, thank­ful that the UN’s High Seas Treaty will actu­ally be hon­oured and imple­men­ted by all.

Until then, it is essen­tial that we take ‘just’ action, do what is right, and get on with the tasks at hand.

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

“GT” is where free thought travels.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Can travel & tour­ism con­trib­ute to ocean regen­er­a­tion? Brain cor­al and diver image by Vlad Tchom­pa­lov (CC0) via Unsplash.

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Prof Hay­wood has recently writ­ten an e‑book “Aston­ish, Smarter Tour­ism by Design”. Find Michael on Linked­In.