I am at a loss for how to respond to this posting by fishnet, particularly with all of the incorrect facts. I am on the Steering Committee of the "GSTC" on behalf of Sustainable Travel International (STI), an NGO among a half a dozen or so others directly involved with the Partnership, though you stated that there is only one. And we have been a founding member of the Sustainable Tourism Certification Network of the Americas in developing standards that have been a part of this process for years. As such, we have worked diligently and closely with the industry, governmental and non-governmental organizations throughout the Americas in supporting this development. This includes receiving feedback, suggestions, recommendations and consensus over many years, including small to large travel providers, certification organizations, and indigenous rights to major environmental organizations.
While you may be one who "does feel a lack of community participation" that feeling shouldn't be projected across the board. In fact, to develop the GTSC, the partnership consulted with sustainability experts and the tourism industry and reviewed more than 60 existing certification and voluntary sets of criteria already being implemented around the globe. In all, more than 4,500 criteria have been analyzed and the resulting draft criteria have received comments from over 1000 stakeholders, with many, many thousands more that were contacted. Our own newsletter alone went out to 25 thousand like-minded recipients with our invitation, not to mention our day to day working relationships with industry and NGOs, and we work with a lot of them on sustainable solutions. Your comments about specific criteria and what they (may or may not) fail to do is also largely misinformed. In fact, if anything the criteria go out of their way to provide incentives and trigger mechanisms to actively support local rights, culture, economic development and environmental protection beyond business as usual. And where they haven't, we and other NGOs have worked very hard to ensure they were (re)included. That said, indicators and qualifying parameters are still being developed, and as with the criteria development itself, it is a public process with stakeholder feedback highly encouraged. So if you weren't involved in the last phase, please do so rather than supporting the unproductive approach of bashing something that you really don't have any insight into. We agree that more community based efforts are needed and many of our programs are geared in that direction, but we should all realize that we're working to achieve the same goal, and while nothing is perfect, a move in the right direction is far better than uninformed criticism. Peter D. Krahenbuhl Vice President, Co-founder Sustainable Travel International Leave the World a Better PlaceR Colorado, Oregon, London Phone: 800 276 7764 / 720-273-2975 / +44 (0)779 931 1228 (UK direct) Web: www.sustainabletravel.com / www.sustainabletravelinternational.org <http://www.sustainabletravelinternational.org/> Email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] / Skype: peterkrahenbuhl Fax: 866-624-8303
