Wildlife and other (non-human) animals

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “wild­life and oth­er (non-human) anim­als” as they relate to travel & tour­ism des­tin­a­tions and industry stakeholders.

Tags are inform­al. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog tries not to get bogged down with ter­min­o­logy and defin­i­tions. You may dis­agree with tags applied (or not applied) to a post. Feel free to com­ment on any post you think has been incor­rectly or insuf­fi­ciently tagged. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and discussion.

Keeping elephants healthy under the cloud of COVID-19


Dr Wachiraporn Toonrongchang and team at at a private camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Image supplied by Dr Nissa Mututanont of the GTAEF Foundation.

News from the field — from the Ele­phant Health­care Emer­gency Life­line Fund in Chi­ang Mai, Thai­l­and — by Hol­lis Bur­b­ank-Ham­­marlund of Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al. What’s the say­ing? An ounce of pre­ven­tion is worth a pound of cure? For Thailand’s tour­ism ele­phants con­fined to lock-down mode — along with the facil­it­ies and people who care for them — the need for routine and […]

Read More Keeping elephants healthy under the cloud of COVID-19

Elephant health experts seek emergency funds for unemployed tourism elephants


Dr Sarisa Klinhom (L) & Dr Tittaya Janyamethakul (R) attend to Mae Noi in Thailand. Image supplied by author.

The expres­sion “an ele­phant in the room” means an uncom­fort­able truth we can­not ignore. With tour­ism cash flows stemmed, many Asi­an ele­phants and their mahouts in Thai­l­and and else­where are in deep trouble. Hol­lis Bur­b­ank­-Ham­­marlund of Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al tells us why that’s the case and how we can help. COVID-19 has suddenly […]

Read More Elephant health experts seek emergency funds for unemployed tourism elephants

How tourism & fishing help to save Irrawaddy dolphins in Myanmar

January 21, 2020

Fisherman standing in canoe holding net, waiting for the right time to cast it. Burma, Myanmar, Mandalay Division, Irrawaddy, Ayeyarwady river, fishing with dolphins.

The Liv­ing Irrawaddy Dol­phin Pro­ject (LIDP) is a social busi­ness sup­port­ing the pro­tec­tion of Irrawaddy dol­phins in Myanmar’s Aye­yar­wady Dol­phin Pro­tec­ted Area. LIDP is devel­op­ing a mod­el for dol­phin con­ser­va­tion through com­munity-based eco­tour­ism. Co-founder Paul Eshoo wrote this great “Good Tour­ism” Insight. UPDATE, June 2021: Giv­en the polit­ic­al situ­ation in Myan­mar and COVID-19 “GT” was […]

Read More How tourism & fishing help to save Irrawaddy dolphins in Myanmar

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

Thailand says “No” to ivory in two-tusked campaign funded by USAID

September 21, 2019

Cindy Bishop featured alongside Thai writing with the message "beautiful without ivory"

A two-pronged cam­paign to reduce domest­ic con­sumer and for­eign trav­el­ler demand for ivory and ivory products launched in Bangkok, Thai­l­and yes­ter­day.  While much of the focus of the launch event was on the domest­ic con­sumer cam­paign and the celebrity influ­en­cers who are the faces of it, of greatest rel­ev­ance to the tour­ism industry is the […]

Read More Thailand says “No” to ivory in two-tusked campaign funded by USAID

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 […]

Read More How tourism in India can help protect olive ridley turtles