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.

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

Elephants are smart. What if tourism jobs were good for them?

March 14, 2019
5 Comments

A mahout feeding an elephant at the Elephant Nature Park, near Chiang Mai, Thailand. By Adbar (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mahout_Elephant_Nature_Park.JPG

Work, includ­ing offer­ing tour­ists rides, is “not bad” for ele­phants — in mod­er­a­tion — so long as it takes into account the work­load, stress, and wel­fare of each indi­vidu­al ele­phant, accord­ing to Dr Pakka­nut Ban­siddhi, Research­er, Cen­ter of Excel­lence in Ele­phant Research and Edu­ca­tion, Chi­ang Mai Uni­ver­sity. Dr Pakka­nut revealed this at the Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil con­fer­ence in […]

Read More Elephants are smart. What if tourism jobs were good for them?

Most want to do the right thing for sustainable tourism. What is it?

March 3, 2019
One Comment

Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) CEO Randy Durband. Image: World Travel & Tourism Council (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Randy_Durband,_CEO_Global_Sustainable_Tourism_Council_(26228765681).jpg

In two sen­tences the CEO of the Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC) per­fectly summed up the com­mu­nic­a­tions oppor­tun­ity and chal­lenge facing sus­tain­ab­il­ity advoc­ates.  “Most people want to do the right thing. They just need to know what the right thing is.” Randy Durb­and said this dur­ing the theme-set­t­ing plen­ary ses­sion on the open­ing day of the […]

Read More Most want to do the right thing for sustainable tourism. What is it?

Most elephant tourism activities are “not bad” in moderation: Experts

February 28, 2019

ACEWG appears to be tackling the valid concerns around elephant tourism head-on. Image: ACEWG

If there was a defin­it­ive point to come out of the ses­sion on ele­phant tour­ism at the 2019 Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC) Asia-Pacific Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Con­fer­ence today in Chi­ang Mai, it would be that there are no defin­it­ive points. Exactly what con­sti­tutes appro­pri­ate, prag­mat­ic stand­ards for ele­phant wel­fare is yet to be determ­ined. Given […]

Read More Most elephant tourism activities are “not bad” in moderation: Experts

Galapagos tourism threatens native wildlife

November 2, 2017

Galapagos tourism threatens wildlife. Image by By Agencia de Noticias ANDES (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Flickr

While the Galapa­gos tour­ism industry relies on nat­ur­al and his­tor­ic­al and nat­ur­al his­tory attrac­tions, it is also one of the threats to that same her­it­age … By Veron­ica Tor­­al-Granda, PhD can­did­ate, and Steph­en Gar­nett, Pro­fess­or of Con­ser­va­tion and Sus­tain­able Live­li­hoods, Charles Dar­win Uni­ver­sity, writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion. Nat­ive spe­cies are par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­able on islands, because […]

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