---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 10:57:40 +0700 From: Paul Gonsalves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: marcus endicott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: 0Peter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Friends of the Earth International SUSTAINABLE TOURISM: CAN FoEI LEAD THE WAY? by Daniel Mittler London, December 5th 1997. Unsuspecting travellers leave the Eurostar train at Waterloo station. A pleasant surprise awaits them: FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland representatives offer them free chocolates and thank them for not having flown. Meanwhile, travellers at Heathrow airport are subject to less friendly treatment. FoE London holds up banners asking: "Is your trip really necessary?" and alerts passengers to the enormous environmental impacts of flying. Both actions formed part of FoE Europe's The Right Price for Air Travel action day (see LINK 81), and were great media successes. The Challenge of Tourist Travel But both actions are but very small drops in the sea, as tourism travel statistics make for increasingly grim reading. While green commuter plans are slowly starting to take hold in Europe, leisure travel is booming - globally. In Britain and Germany, 60 percent of car travel is leisure-related. Flying is increasingly becoming a normal part of the holiday experience. Air travel is rising by 6 percent every year, and is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, transport campaigns must address the impacts of tourism -- which is already the biggest industry in the world and is growing 23 percent faster than the global economy as a whole. A Role for FoEI? As tourism is always about social justice as well as the environment, it is a perfect topic for FoEI to consider as we broaden our campaigning along the lines of sustainable development. The links to social justice are clearest in the South, where for example tourists flying to Tanzania are forcing Maasai communities off their lands. But in the North, too, the links between tourism, the environment and equity are obvious. It is a well documented fact that the poor suffer most from traffic fumes and noise; and in places like the Scottish Highlands, elite grouse-shooting tourists have access to countryside which is off limits to local people. Avoiding the Eco-Tourism Trap When addressing tourism, however, FoE should guard against legitimizing the booming "eco-tourism" industry. While some worthwhile projects exist under the eco-tourism banner, it is usually simply a trendy way to justify wildlife tourism. Currently, eco-tourism is highly dependent upon air transport. Net gains for the environment and local communities are offset by the impact of the flight and the volatility of the tourism economy means that permanent jobs for local communities are not guaranteed. The Way Forward? FoEI should thus focus both on localizing tourism and on avoiding it altogether! Although "Is your trip really necessary?" may be an unfriendly question, it is also a crucial one. The sheer ease of travel encourages people to jump into cars and planes without a second thought. Yet, what Wolfgang Sachs calls "the tourist gaze" should not be accepted as the dominant way in which we interact with landscapes. We must reinstill a sense of perspective. A call for restraint must, of course, be linked with positive message too: life should be less hectic and more enjoyable all year round. Current industry ads like "Let's get out of here" must lose their appeal, as we move towards more sustainable and less stressful lifestyles. Localizing tourism can also help to mitigate the negative impacts of the industry. The German NGO Naturfreunde has set a good example by declaring a different European region each year as Landscape of the Year. Working together with local companies, hotels and restaurants, they ensure that there is adequate public transport and that restaurants serve locally sourced food. The results are promising. Tourists cherish this genuinely "different" experience, and local farmers, shopkeepers and restaurant owners profit as well. Leading by Example? As an environmental federation, FoEI must also reduce its own travel impact. Environmentalists, including FoE activists, spend a frightening amount of time on planes. A Greenpeace activist boasted to me that during the Brent Spar campaign, Greenpeace employees were regularly on the same flights between London and Amsterdam as their Shell foes. This irritated me. It seemed ironic to burn so much fossil fuel in a campaign directed against the oil industry. But are we really different? If we are serious about our concept of environmental space, we must start thinking about how we can stay within our limits as an organization! Daniel Mittler has worked for FoE Germany and was a volunteer at FoE Scotland. He currently volunteers at FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and is a PhD candidate at University College, London. ---------------------- Fwd by Paul Gonsalves Oxfams in Cambodia P O Box 883 Phnom Penh, Cambodia tel/fax: (855 23) 720928 / 720036 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
