Watching the video in class on Tuesday, "Life and Debt," I started to feel really guilty. It made me think about the last time I went on vacation to a tropical island. When I go on vacation, it's true that I, like most members of the first world, usually think mostly about how excited I am to be in this beautiful place, and how relieved I am to have a break from work and school. I think about the great time I am going to have exploring the island, swimming in the sea, drinking tropical drinks and in general participating in activities which do not give credence to the fact that the island is inhabited by people who are trying to make a living but are having difficulty due to the increasingly globalized world and the pressures the first world puts on the third world in terms of loans with lots of restrictions and other manners of global economy which prevent the global south from keeping up in the global economy.
The narrator's voice in "Life and Debt" really brought some thoughts home to me about the types of trips I take and the types of issues going on in the places I visit that I miss because I am too busy thinking about how excited I am to be on vacation. I left the movie feeling a little bit disheartened to tell the truth, because I wasn't really sure what to do to change my travelling habits or to become a more consciencious traveller who understands the impact she is having on the place she is visiting in terms of the people and the environment. The movie showed me that the type of experience that I have on a tropical island during a vacation is very different from the experience that the islanders are having in many cases, especially due to the now globalized economy wherein small nations are forced to compete with first world economies, which is an impossible feat and therefore drains the economy and lifestyles of many of the people living in small, less developed nations.
I first heard about eco-tourism last year in my Travel Writing class. We discussed how eco-tourism is a form of tourism wherein the traveller minimizes his or her impact on the environment by staying in an eco-friendly hotel made out of eco-friendly materials and in general trying to travel in a way which is not as harmful to the environmental as regular tourism. Eco-Tourism sounded like a good idea, but I definitely thought that it would be hard to find trips which are ec0-friendly and that it would be more expensive to travel in that way. Also, even if I found a trip that would be environmentally sustainable, I would still have to fly to the location, and the environmental costs of my transportation would be high. Although the idea of eco-tourism seems nice, there were a lot of considerations to think about in terms of eco-tourism.
It's important to keep in mind that, like the video "Stop! That's Not Eco-Tourism" says, many tours that claim that they are "eco-tours" are often not particularly environmentally friendly. The business just says that the tour is eco-friendly in order to get your business because it thinks that environmentalism has become something that is "trendy" or "in vogue," and that more people will want to go on a trip which is sustainable in terms of the environment. This reminds me a lot of the blog question from last week about food, wherein I discussed briefly how difficult it is to actually know whether or not a product is truly organic, or whether the company just did the minimum to get organic labelling. If there are not good enough checks on these requirements to be able to call your trip "eco-friendly" or your product "organic," then it is extraordinarily difficult for the consumer to be able to make informed decisions which are helpful to the environment.
Don't get me wrong... I think that eco-tourism is a great idea. It's really cool that so many eco-tours are offered today, and that more and more people are considering their environmental impact when they decide to go on vacation. I am definitely interested in trying to be more environmentally and socially conscious when I travel. But there are many factors which make eco-tourism seem less feasible, such as the fact that transportation, food, etc. need to be considered when making these sorts of choices. The only way for an entire trip to be truly eco-friendly would be if the vacation location was within driving distance and you took a hybrid or other eco-friendly car and did not have electricity during your eco-tour. This means that in order to travel to another country, it is very difficult to remain eco-friendly because the flight to that location will be environmentally detrimental, as well as the rental car you use to take you to the location spot. Once you are there, you will be eco-sensitive unless the tour lied and is not actually particularly eco-friendly, but when you leave the transportation costs will crop back up again.
So is it possible to go on a truly eco-tour? It could definitely be done if you scrutinize every minute detail of your trip, but honestly most people will probably not consider (or even think of0 every single variable which could make their trip not entirely eco-friendly. Most people might think of one or two or the variables, and try to weave that aspect of eco-tourism into their vacation, and I think that that's okay. "Stop! That's Not Eco-Tourism" says that as long as you are attempting to be eco-friendly when you plan a trip, than that is still better than giving no consideration at all to the impact you have on the environment when you travel. I agree with that assessment, and I think that it is the most practical way to approach eco-tourism: as a set of guidelines to take into consideration but which will most likely not completely fit into every trip that you take.
I see hope for eco-tourism in the future, especially as more alternative energies are created, transportation becomes more environmentally friendly and stricter rules are put in place over which trips can call themselves "eco-tours."
I also think that if eco-tourism is viewed in another way, it could be beneficial. When I travelled to Denmark this summer, I learned about a lot of really awesome and easy ways to help the environment that the people in Denmark do every day, such as usually take public transportation (their car tax is really high!), recycle cans and bottles for cash, and ride their bikes on a regular basis wherever they need to go in the city. Simply observing these practices were beneficial for me and showed me small ways in which I could make a difference. I think that travelling to countries which are progressive in terms of environmental initiatives and lifestyles could be eco-friendly in the way that they give people from less environmentally friendly places some ideas about how they can better help the environment and slow climate change.
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