How Tourism Helps Animals and the Environment ? By Urvashi Arya

How Tourism Helps Animals and the Environment?

By Urvashi Arya

#Wildlife

#wildlifetourism

#naturalspecies

#jungleretreat

#wildlifeholiday

#holiday2nature

The magnificent Barrier Reef. Yellowstone. Amazonian Rainforest. The abundance of wildlife and distinctive sceneries in these places is among the main factors luring people there.

It's understandable why we frequently hear about how humans endanger the environment and ruin wild areas. Humans have adversely affected over 75% of the land habitats, and species are vanishing up to 1000 times faster than natural. While there is no doubt that irresponsible tourism is a significant factor in this destruction, we shouldn't undervalue the critical role that responsible, sustainable tourism plays in promoting conservation and safeguarding our planet's priceless ecosystems. By stopping tourism as a result of the present COVID-19 problem, these advantages have only been strengthened.

In this blog post, we've only touched on a few ways tourism helps the environment and animals to entice you to book your next leisurely weekend at the Satpura Jungle retreat. Learn more by reading on!

Consolidating Local Support for Conservation:

The rising popularity of wildlife tourism and its associated financial gains have the potential to alter local attitudes toward conservation. Without tourism, local populations could only value natural resources for human consumption and see wild animals threatening their farms and families. Yet, when wildlife and natural places generate income and jobs for their community through tourism, it can help locals understand the significance.

Sustainable Livelihoods Creation:

Beyond altering attitudes, tourism may stop ecosystem degradation by giving local communities more sustainable means of subsistence. Employment like tour guides, cooks, or housekeepers provides an alternative to revenue sources that harm the environment, such as forestry, slash-and-burn farming, quarrying, or illegal hunting.

Increasing Visitors' Environmental Awareness:

In addition to changing local attitudes and behaviors, tourism has the power to increase environmental consciousness among visitors. Tourism offers various possibilities for people to learn about and interact with the natural world, from hiking to relaxing on the beach.

Travelers' encounters with nature can increase their appreciation and motivate them to preserve it. Interpretative approaches like informative pamphlets, exhibitions, guided excursions, tours, parks, and other travel experiences frequently facilitate this environmental learning. For instance, it has been demonstrated that whale viewing increases tourists' awareness of aquatic creatures and their support for whale protection. Guided boat excursions and lectures on marine biology have also been shown to impact tourist behavior and lessen their harm to the Great Barrier Reef.

Promoting Protected Areas & Conservation Policy:

Governments and organizations may be strongly motivated to implement environmental regulations and conservation measures by the tourism industry. The preservation of their biodiversity and the accompanying increase in tourism attractiveness involves the establishment of national parks, nature reserves, and other protected areas.

Reef-based activities like scuba diving, snorkeling, boat cruises, and whale watching are vital sources of economic profits because of how popular coastal tourism is. It's estimated that coral reefs contribute $36 billion to the world economy each year through tourism. Several nations recognize the value of safeguarding their coastlines, coral reefs, and beaches because they rely on the revenue from marine-based tourism.

Monitoring Ecosystems with Help:

Although park rangers and guards are vital for protecting delicate ecosystems, keeping tabs on ecosystem health, and fending off threats, it is frequently impractical for them to keep an eye on such huge areas by themselves. Tourists' simple presence in natural regions can safeguard animals by adding more eyes to the ground.

Assisting the Restoration of Habitat and Ecosystems:

Visitors and tourism-related enterprises can assist conservation by participating in ecosystem restoration and donning their scientific hats.

Non-native species that wreak havoc on local habitats can be removed and eradicated with the help of tourists and businesses in the tourism industry. Divers and tour guides assist in hunting invasive lionfish in Mexico, which pose a significant danger to the Mesoamerican Reef. 

Green technology advancement and innovation stimulation:

Due to its economic significance and sway, tourism can spur environmental innovation by advancing green processes, infrastructure, and technology. For instance, the development of renewable energy infrastructure, such as wind and solar farms, in distant islands or rural areas that would not typically have access to clean energy can be sped up by tourism.

There is still work to be done:

Of course, the advantages above will only materialize when tourism is well-planned and carried out sustainably. Significant advances have undoubtedly been made toward eco-friendly tourism as we have learned more about how humans affect the natural environment. Nonetheless, there is still more to be done. To optimize tourism's positive effects on the environment, businesses, governments, communities, and visitors all have many opportunities for improvement.

To discover more about how our work at Satpura Jungle Retreat is assisting in enhancing the environmental advantages of tourism and ensuring that tourism protects regional ecosystems.