Tourism and environment - Essay Example

? Tourism And Environment Full s Full [Day Month Year] TOURISM Tourism is a major industry for many of the countries. Their economies are thriving on it and major share of GDP comes from this industry. Today countries have started to join the rat race to enjoy the benefits that come up with tourism. The main issue is that countries try to develop their tourism at the cost of their own environment. Tourism today is the fastest growing industry anywhere in the world. With the current situation of the economies of the world, tourism has proved to be a great source of relief as an alternate source to attract foreign investments and FDI’S. Every country is trying to increase their own tourism industry to boost their foreign investments and increase their foreign reserves. Although countries trying to promote their tourism industry claim that they are doing it for the betterment of their country they fail to account for the environmental and the social changes that will follow. It has usually been seen that countries fail to account for the environmental changes that come to their country as a tag along gift with all those tourists coming in. The profits although apparently outweigh the cost that come with it, but the major issue is that the cost that is incurred has its effects in the long run. It has been believed that tourism as an industry can be controlled even at the international level. United Nations has formed a committee to foresee that tourism does not have any negative impact on the environment. They organized this “dialogue” so that countries all involved in this industry should come forward and pitch in ways to make tourism a safe industry and to reduce its adverse effects on the environment of the country. The forum includes government; respective ministries, local activist parties and international NGO’s that are working to protect the environment. They believe that sustainability is the key to a better world. Increasing globalization is the best catalyst that can ever be provided for the promotion of sustainability in the tourism industry. It has been seen from quite a lot of time that the people who are supposed to protect the environment are usually the ones who are working to gain profits from it. Even governments who on the front are working for the protection are the ones who sanction and allow the cutting down of forests to make way for building apartments and residence complexes. It is very important that the government as well share the same views for the protection of environment. Environment is defined as the surrounding area that an organism lives in. It includes the atmosphere that we live in, the plants that are growing around and the animals that are living in that environment. Tourism and environment have a very strong link with each other. Tourism is an industry that is totally based on the kind of environment that you have. Environment with respect to tourism is the nature gifts that your country is bestowed with. It has been seen that in order to promote the tourism industry the government goes to any lengths to make it work. Government promotes tourism for the sole purpose of creating jobs. It is one very big advantage of having an established tourism. Also, an established tourism industry promotes a positive image of any country and increases the value of the local produce. It creates opportunities for the local entrepreneurs too. The locals get better returns for their products and it generally reduces the poverty level in the country. Although there are thousand and one economic benefits of tourism, but tourism never goes well with the environment. The one thing that suffers most when the tourism is being promoted is the environment of that place (Hall, Page, 2002). The main problem that is faced by the environment is by the work on infrastructure that is done for supporting the tourism industry. For the proper construction of roads the paths are made, for those trees are cut down. Cutting down of trees results in loss of nature and at the same time it causes the animals to lose their shelters. Trees house many different kinds of animals and birds, and thus their cutting down means increasing the chances of having increased number of endangered species. For the development of tourism industries, hotels are built up, these hotels cause quite a chaos, as once again for the purpose of them being built forests or other green areas are cut down so as to make place for the development of plush hotels, and other such facilities for the tourists flocking in. The animals and birds all lose their natural habitat and thus end up fighting a war for their survival. There was once an incident when a Thailand forest minister very calmly quoted that, animals have been designed in such a way by nature that they can easily migrate and adapt themselves to any environment that they start living in, while humans cannot just start living anywhere. This kind of attitude from the authorities increases complacency and lack of concern from the builders. When the forests or a green patch are cleared the whole ecosystems are destroyed the animals lose their homes and hence it becomes difficult for them to survive. It has also been seen and often proved through research that when a green patch or similar form patches are cleared, many a times, there are some rare herbs or some rare kind of medicinal plant that gets destroyed as well (Kabia, 2005). The birds and animals that live on the trees get evacuated from their homes; they get deprived of their natural habitat. This affects their breeding process, once this occurs;their whole breeding process gets disturbed and which ultimately leads to a decrease in their kind which if not taken care of leads to extinction (Holden, 2003). There were quite many global environmental initiatives that were taken by UNEP so as to enforce a better environment. They have in effect with the countries that heavily bank on tourism as a support to their economy has introduced schemes like buy a shirt and donate for tree. The tourists are there to enjoy and they prefer to buy local artifacts as souvenirs. This is what UNEP is using to collect funds to increase input towards sustainable tourism. One very major problem related to environment that tags along with tourism is pollution. Pollution of all kinds can be seen in nearly every tourism spot nationally as well as internationally. It has become such a major issue that the rest of issues are considered minor ones in comparison. Pollution in all kinds and forms occurs and the effects are very damaging. First of all, the major kind of pollution is the noise pollution. Once the population of the place goes beyond the natural limit due to tourism, the noise that occurs is the noise pollution. The influx of tourists increases congestion in the normal roads and hence the abnormal high rise in the noise levels. These noises apparently seem to cause no harm except to the human but play a very major role in the interference in communications among animals. The congestion also causes the human form of living to cross its boundaries and limits and start encroachments in the animal habitat. Despite the fact that authorities place numerous warning in the city related to throwing trash into the dustbins, even then people tend to overlook it and keep throwing the trash around the area. This although makes the area look and dirty and mars the natural beauty of the area, but a very big issue is that animals who live around and have already been displaced from their homes, find trash as easy food. They pick up the trash lying around and consume it. This results in health related issues for the poor animals. The most major part that pollution plays is the ruining of the scenic areas. People tend to be very selfish and destroy the natural looks of the place by engraving names on the trees, going to camping trips and not being careful enough with fires, which sometimes catch up and major parts of forests end up burning down. Vandalism also increases, the local pollution how much ever destructive it may be still has respect and love for the place, but the tourists who are coming in have hardly any kind of emotional attachment to the place and hence they misuse the facilities and natural spaces they move about in. The increase in tourism means that increase in the means of transportation that is required by tourists to travel. These buses are usually though brightly painted, but are usually in a rundown condition, and hence emit fumes and gases into the atmosphere, which makes the atmosphere heavy with harmful gases. These gases are very harmful for the plants and the animals, which find it very suffocating and simply start dying out as their survival is highly dependent on the existence of oxygen in the air. The influx of tourists also spoil the beautiful and naturally clean water sources of the area as they are not careful their litter, they cast it off in the lakes and the rivers and spoil the resources of the place (Briassoulis, Straaten, 1992). Placing signs and instructions all over the place doesn’t help a bit as people usually overlook such signs and tend to do what they find more easy and comfortable for themselves. The throwing of litter in the water sources causes a very damaging impact on the plant in lakes and rivers. The fishes and other sea creatures also suffer. It is evident from many sources that the rivers after the expense of five to six years become so dirty that they are irreparably damaged. This means that the country ends up losing a certain set of ecosystem to the promotion of tourism. The hotels strive to provide the best of accommodation to the tourists and in that case they allow cellular companies to establish their towers on the roof tops of the hotels. This causes some massive hindrance in the animal communications, as many animals communicate with each other through sonic air waves. The towers interfere with their communication program. The hotels even discharge their affluent waste into the rivers; this causes a serious threat to the marine life (Holden, 2003). One other major issue that is very commonly suffered by the neighboring towns or cities is with respect to the water supply. The increase in traffic of tourism causes the use of higher quantity of water in those areas and thus the increased consumption of water in the area. There has also been a major complaint that the water that’s coming in from the tourism spot is so dirty that it is not fit for consumption at all. Thus, the land, water and air pollution are some of the major impacts of tourism in environment (Kabia, 2005). The first and the foremost way is to increase awareness in people and make them responsible enough to be careful not to affect the environment they are visiting. They should keep in mind the ethics and be obedient of the signs that are placed in nearly all sites. The authorities should place notice boards and a sign all over the areas so that people do not have any complains that they weren’t informed about the conditions. Secondly, a major role to increase awareness would be to introduce fines or similar penalties to the people and hence the tourist themselves will remain careful and mindful at the same time. Authorities must provide alternate artificially grown forest somewhere nearby this will be in the form of compensation of the forest that is cut down. The construction companies should be accountable for anything damaging that they do the environment. The fines should be quite high in figures so that people will think twice before committing some sort mistake. Even at the international there has been increased awareness related to preservation of environment where newer methods to overcome issues related to environment are discussed (Hall, Page, 2002). UN in collaboration with various countries of the world, in lieu of global environmental initiatives has introduced the concept of celebrating different environmental causes by naming the years as the year of the initiative thus various years like the year of Mountains, and initiative has also been started for the protection of coral reefs, which is known as the International Coral reef initiative. Similarly there have been some other initiatives as well that have been done to protect biodiversity and prevent plant species throughout the world. REFERNCES HALL, C. M., & PAGE, S. (2002). The geography of tourism and recreation environment, place and space. London, Routledge. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=70432. COMMONWEALTH AGRICULTURAL BUREAUX.(1984). Tourism and environment.Farnham Royal, Slough, UK., Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux. KABIA, S. K. (2005). Tourism and environment.New Delhi, Mohit Publications. HOLDEN, A. (2003). Environment and tourism. London, Routledge. BRIASSOULIS, H., & STRAATEN, J. V. D. (1992).Tourism and the environment: regional, economic, and policy issues. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Read More