Ecotourism and nature-based tourism

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “eco­tour­ism and nature-based tourism”.

Eco­tour­ism is respons­ible travel to nat­ur­al areas that con­serves the envir­on­ment, sus­tains the well-being of the loc­al people, and cre­ates know­ledge and under­stand­ing through inter­pret­a­tion and edu­ca­tion of all involved (vis­it­ors, staff and the vis­ited)” ― Glob­al Eco­tour­ism Net­work, 2016; What is (and what isn’t) eco­tour­ism.

Eco­tour­ism is a type of tour­ism that has a very low impact on the nat­ur­al sur­round­ings. It aims to pro­mote con­ser­va­tion and edu­ca­tion, while provid­ing vis­it­ors with an oppor­tun­ity to exper­i­ence unique nat­ur­al land­scapes and wildlife.

Eco­tour­ism could be though of as a sub-cat­egory of nature-based tour­ism, which the Travel Industry Dic­tion­ary defines as: “Leis­ure travel under­taken largely or solely for the pur­pose of enjoy­ing nat­ur­al attrac­tions and enga­ging in a vari­ety of out­door activ­it­ies.” Nature-based tour­ism includes a wide range of out­door activ­it­ies, such as hik­ing, camp­ing, bird­watch­ing, and wild­life safar­is, that are very much embed­ded with­in nat­ur­al environments.

Both forms of tour­ism focus on explor­ing nat­ur­al envir­on­ments in a sus­tain­able and respons­ible way, with the goal of pre­serving them for future generations.

Eco­tour­ism and nature-based tour­ism are gain­ing pop­ular­ity around the world. They provide oppor­tun­it­ies for trav­el­lers to learn about loc­al eco­sys­tems and appre­ci­ate nat­ur­al beauty. By enga­ging in respons­ible and sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices through eco­tour­ism and nature-based activ­it­ies, trav­el­lers can feel that they are pro­tect­ing the envir­on­ment (and sup­port­ing loc­al com­munit­ies). (Both types of tour­ism have the poten­tial to offer sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fits to loc­al com­munit­ies, as they offer incent­ives and oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­als to con­serve their nat­ur­al resources for a sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic benefit.)

Tags are inform­al; an after­thought to con­tent cre­ation. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog nev­er gets bogged down with tag­ging accur­acy or con­sist­ency. Feel free to com­ment on any post you think has been incor­rectly or insuf­fi­ciently tagged. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and dis­cus­sion and appre­ci­ates help­ful feedback.

Her beauty and her terror … The wide brown land, Australia, is open for business

January 14, 2020

Epicormic regrowth from the base of a Eucalyptus tree, four months after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Strathewen, Victoria. Pic by Robert Kerton, CSIRO (CC BY 3.0) via Wikimedia. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/CSIRO_ScienceImage_10408_Eucalypt_regrowth_after_Black_Saturday_bushfires.jpg

“The best way to sup­port Aus­tralia, Aus­trali­an com­munit­ies, and the tour­ism sec­tor is to keep vis­it­ing,” says Tour­ism Aus­tralia on its bush­fire inform­a­tion resources web page. “If you can­not travel to an affected area due to bush­fires, one of the many ways to help includes res­chedul­ing instead of can­celing …”  If you didn’t already know, your […]

Read More Her beauty and her terror … The wide brown land, Australia, is open for business

How bees, trees, & tourism reduce human-wildlife conflict in Uganda

January 7, 2020

Looking relaxed. Chimp, Kibale, Uganda by Rod Waddington (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rod_waddington/23355595510/

James Nadi­ope estab­lished the Africa Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Care Found­a­tion to address the prob­lem of human-wild­life con­flicts tak­ing place around Kibale Nation­al Park in west­ern Uganda. AST­CF’s first pro­ject was at Kahangi vil­lage, where com­munity con­sulta­tion led to the emer­gence of both tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern solu­tions to old prob­lems. One of those solu­tions was, of course, […]

Read More How bees, trees, & tourism reduce human-wildlife conflict in Uganda

How tourism in India can help protect olive ridley turtles

June 5, 2019
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Olive ridley turtles by Chandan Singh (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/scorius/137320371/

In her second “GT” Insights con­tri­bu­tion, A Lajwanti Naidu shares what she has learned about olive rid­ley turtles and how the Andhra Pra­desh Tour­ism Author­ity does and can con­trib­ute to their con­ser­va­tion. Travel teaches more than books do. With this in mind, Andhra Pra­desh Tour­ism Author­ity organ­ised an edu­ca­tion­al tour to Diviseema and the Krishna […]

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Safari tourism may make elephants more aggressive but is still the best conservation tool

March 22, 2019

"Cranky elephant charges our car in Tarangirie National Park, Tanzania" by Ben & Gab (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/benandgab/29307883562/in/photostream/ "GT" cropped it.

While wild­life tour­ism products such as safar­is can help pro­tect anim­als and their wil­der­ness hab­it­ats by gen­er­at­ing income for con­ser­va­tion and work for loc­als, there are issues. This accord­ing to Isa­belle Szott and Nic­ola F Koy­ama of Liv­er­pool John Moores Uni­ver­sity writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion. Going on safari in Africa offers tour­ists the oppor­tun­ity to […]

Read More Safari tourism may make elephants more aggressive but is still the best conservation tool

On the tiger trail, India’s women unveil and roar ahead in tourism


A group of women safari guides poses for a photo at Pench Tiger Reserve in central Madhya Pradesh state, India on May 19, 2016. Photo credit: Satpuda Foundation http://satpuda.org

Female nature-based tour­ism guides in India, such as at the Pench Tiger Reserve in Mad­hya Pra­desh, are help­ing to upend sex­ist views, accord­ing to a report by the Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion. Bob­bing along a dirt track in a cent­ral Indi­an tiger reserve, Var­sha Hinge sur­veyed the land­scape for paw­prints and listened out for deer calls […]

Read More On the tiger trail, India’s women unveil and roar ahead in tourism

On Kangaroo Island and elsewhere, beware the lure of the luxury ecotourist

March 12, 2019

Admiral's Arch in Flinders Chase National Park on Kangaroo Island. Image by Michael Baragwanath via Pixabay

Cater­ing to lux­ury eco­tour­ism is at odds with the wild and undeveloped nature of nation­al parks that loc­als want, accord­ing to Freya Hig­­gins-Des­­bio­lles of the Uni­ver­sity of South Aus­tralia. Kangaroo Island, less than 130 kilo­metres from Adelaide, is one of Australia’s eco­lo­gic­al jew­els. Tour­ism Aus­tralia describes it as a “pristine wil­der­ness”, with cliffs, beaches, wetlands […]

Read More On Kangaroo Island and elsewhere, beware the lure of the luxury ecotourist