[Coral-List] Sustainable Tourism!?

Tue Dec 6 02:30:04 EST 2011

I note the disproportionate efforts to organize a sustainable overcrowding
of coral reefs. What would one not to transport the tourists? In the
tropical countries in defence of coral reefs, tourism is always presented by
economists as the real alternative to traditional fishing practices. With
the coral tourism, urbanization is growing, changing natural habitats
increases, land speculation gnaws the lagoons ... He is accompanied by
excessive consumption of water and energy and infrastructure operations
deadly for coral. 
But as tourism does not directly killing the fish and is admiring the
turtles, it is "virtuous." We moved into an unlimited recreational use of
coral reefs.
François Féral 
CRIOBE

-----Message d'origine-----
De : coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
[mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] De la part de Monika Franck
Envoyé : lundi 5 décembre 2011 18:11
À : martin pecheux; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Objet : Re: [Coral-List] Sustainable Tourism!?

Dear Martin

 The water engine (HHO) car is another existing cleaner technology that
could be used instead of burning fossil fuels. The electric car is not the
only option of existing technology that does not burn polluting fossil
fuels. 

 And yes of course, logic suggests that if electric cars are used instead of
water engine cars, then electric cars should be charged using solar, wind or
hydro-electric energy instead of electricity from power plants burning
fossil fuels or nuclear energy. 

 My point was that various new cleaner energy technology options do exist,
but they are being stopped by oil business and governments supporting oil
business, so that they can keep making high profits from un-informed
consumers while oil stocks last.

 It is more feasible that the oil business and governments supporting oil
business are pressured to reform by energy consumers and scientists, and not
the tourism industry by labelling it unsustainable due to flights high in
emissions. Calling tourism unsustainable would be going after the red
herring.

 The tourism industry is not guilty of stopping cleaner travel/energy
technology from being made available; oil business and governments
supporting oil business are the real sustainability barriers and should be
stopped by energy consumers who are paying the high price, and having the
"oil cloth" pulled over their eyes in this game.

 best wishes
 Monika
----- Original Message -----
From: martin pecheux
Sent: 12/02/11 02:07 AM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Sustainable Tourism!?

 Dear Monika, NO. Electric cars must use electricity, which is made in great
majority in plant burning fossil fuel, so its the same pollution. Even
worse, as it is often coal which emit more CO2 than oil for a given energy.
I am even opposed to electric cars in country like France where 75% of
electricity is nuclear, as their is important residual emission,
fabrication, battery pollution, risk of exportation, only a transition.
DON'T BE WRONG. We are facing the 6th mass extinction. Cheers, Dr. Martin
Pecheux IPCC 2007, 2013 Institut des Foraminifères Symbiotiques 16, rue
Lafontaine 92160 Antony, France martin.pecheux at free.fr +33 9 5324 3374 Le 1
déc. 2011 à 17:58, Monika Franck a écrit : > Dear Jeurgen > > You make a
good valid point in that most tourism is unsustainable. However
sustainability certification of coral reef destinations/exploiters (dive
operators/hotels/sports fishing etc) could go a long way in changing that,
as public/divers etc. become more "sustainabil!
 ity aware", they have the power to
 influence impacts through consumer choices and turning the market towards
sustainability. Taking this direction and harnassing the power of informed
individual consumer choice has great untapped potential in motivating
sustainable use of natural resources. > > Flying long distances to
"pristine" holiday destinations does little for sustainable use of natural
resources, but it can not be held against tourism alone. Successful
alternative technology besides burning fossil fuels exists; like the
electric car and the water (HHO) engine. However these excellent
technologies have been subdued and kept quiet to enable oil corporations and
governments too continue making big profits from consumers via old polluting
energy and fuel technology. Patents for electric cars have been bought up by
wealthy oil corporations and destroyed to enable oil business to continue
making high profits from oil. There is an entire award winning documentary
film on this : http://www.whokilledtheelectri!
 ccar.com/ > > Here is a police sta
tion converting their vehicles to a hybrid water engine to save fuel
consumption:http://youtu.be/MUgUF5M3FTI This water engine technology given
some political will could also be placed in aeroplanes and make a huge
contribution toward less polluting global air travel. > > Non-pulluting
energy/fuel technology is there why are people not using it? Why are
inventors not given the funding to launch their excellent pollution free
technology? Because it's in direct conflict with the huge profits oil
corporations make. There is more dirty money and effort behind stopping new
non-polluting technology in its tracks, than there is money and support
backing clean and low cost energy technology to launch into public consumer
use. > > Many third world countries live off tourism, or it makes up a large
part of their GNP. Thus discouraging tourists from flying long distances to
support them is also not much of a fair solution, but addressing old
polluting fossil fuel burning technology whi!
 ch hampers travelling sustainably 
sounds more feasible, especially since these technologies already exist but
are being subdued by wealthy oil corporations chasing profits. > > Sure
coral reef ecosystems should not just be preserved for divers who want to
see more fish or bigger fish on dives, it belongs just as much to local
communities and fishermen who fish it for a living, and they should be
compensated (receive a cut of the diver/tourist fee for not fishing a
protected area if this is the case). Raising awareness with and compensating
local fishermen or marine resource harvesters for not fishing a protected
area would go a long way in helping communities to support sustainability
efforts too. There are many sustainability stakeholders not just the
diving/tourism industry. > > There is some evidence and work in this
direction to prove that protecting coral reef and its associated habitats
(mangroves, seagrass beds and estuaries) from fishing provides benefits for
fishers, because as fish/marine life are !
 allowed to breed up, they spill ov
er and move to unprotected areas where fishers and other exploiters benefit
from protected areas too. If you want evidence of this look at the vessel
tracking logs of fishing fleets operating near protected areas where fishing
is excluded, you will find fishermen tend to fish along the borders of the
protected area as they are catching more fish there (I call that a benefit).
See also /Benefits Beyond Boundaries/ by Gell and Roberts 2003:
www.panda.org/downloads/marine/benefitsbeyondbound2003.pdf There are other
papers on this subject to support that protecting appropriate marine areas
from human activity such as fishing/harvesting marine resources has benefits
for all users. > > Needed is an internationally recognised
indicator/certification system, similar to the 5 star status system of
hotels, to enable consumers of coral reef destinations to make informed
choices: e.g. pick a hotel that has not cleared coral to create bathing
beach and uses solar panels to supplement ene!
 rgy use, over a hotel that only ru
ns generator, and pick dive operators that actively contribute to their
sustainable dive sites. > > Something simple at the user interface, so that
when a diver/tourist looks at a dive/holiday destination on a travel agent's
website; - tourists/divers can at a glance deduce whether it is a
sustainable destination through the certification status destinations have
been rated with, through internationally agreed scientific, philosophical
and the methodological means necessary. > > If a users/consumers don't know
how to tell the difference, or how they are impacting destinations; - they
can hardly be expected to make a difference through their actions toward
sustainable tourism or consumerism can they? > > best wishes > Monika > >
----- Original Message ----- > From: Juergen Herler > Sent: 11/27/11 05:05
PM > To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov > Subject: [Coral-List] Sustainable
tourism!? > > Dear listers! I really like some of the ideas, especially that
well-managed coral reef!
  destinations should be certified 
and financially rewarded by visitors. However, the main problem why I
believe that tourism cannot contribute much for sustaining ecosystems in
general is that tourism in itself is highly unsustainable. If you fly across
half the world to spent one or two nice weeks in one of the luxury resorts
of the Maldives, which takes an enormous amount of gasoline every day to be
run in a comfortable way, how can that ever save their coral reefs in the
long term and not do major damage to these and other ecosystems in the
world? It of course would be great if tourism would become more 'eco' (based
for example on some of the good suggestions in previous posts) but in terms
of energy consumption, there is no such thing as 'eco'-tourism. Sustainable
holidays will unfortunately only be the ones that are spent in the own
garden. But since people will certainly not accept t! > hat, it is of course
good if they > prefer short- versus long-distance trips and destinations,
which perform good con!
 servation and are highly efficient
 in terms of water and energy consumption, but such destinations are usually
expensive and restricted to the more wealthy people, which do not represent
the majority of tourists. I have been doing research in the Red Sea of Egypt
for more than seven years and this country has experienced a tremendous
tourism boom, especially along the Red Sea coast, but unfortunately they
receive many tourists which carry little money to Egypt and do not care much
about corals reefs at all. The great majority are even not divers and do not
like corals (because it hurts when they step on them during swimming). I
also doubt that it is is a very humane approach that we preserve ecosystems
(especially those of third world countries) because wealthy people from
other countries - who can afford to travel there - would like to see them
untouched. Very often you meet tourists who wish t! > hat, for example,
fishing is banne > d from reefs so that they can see more fish while diving,
but this fish ve!
 ry often feeds the local people (a
lthough they very often also do not fish sustainably). This all may apply
less to destinations (just for example) like the Caribbean, when visited by
US-tourists from the southern USA or to the Great Barrier Reef, visited by
eastern Australians, but what I want to say is that it is just not correct
to tell people that they do something good for an ecosystem if they travel a
long distance to see it, instead of not visiting it, at least as long as
tourism is run the way as it currently is (usually starting in pristine
areas and degrading those areas quickly). I know this is a dilemma, but
Ulf’s suggestion of a sustainability index could be applied to holiday trips
also, and tax the travel and service providers according to that would be a
necessary thing. So people could not easily shift to cheaper and
unsustainable travels or destinations (and there are far too many o! > f
those in the world), if the sust > ainable ones become even more expensive
(and some of the previous s!
 uggestions would of course cause t
hat). People with less money would probably have to make shorter-distance
trips and stay there longer, which for sure would still enable nice
holidays. Today, people are 'fined' if they decide for more sustainable
holidays. From my point of view, this cannot be the right approach. Best
wishes Juergen -- <°))))>< Dr. Juergen Herler Faculty of Life Sciences
University of Vienna Althanstraße 14 A-1090 Vienna/Austria/Europe e-mail:
Juergen.Herler at univie.ac.at http://homepage.univie.ac.at/juergen.herler
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