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Wildlife conservation and wildlife tourism
Also
see wildlife
conservation,
ecotourism, animal
welfare and environmental
education
Sustainable
wildlife
tourism has the potential to introduce many hundreds
of thousands of
people to the wonders of this planet's wildlife, but
there is always a
risk of disturbing or even destroying the very
animals we seek.
Potential problems include:- disturbance
of
habitat
-
e.g.
over-gathering
of
logs for firewood, clearing
vegetation for tourism accommodation or new roads,
trampling of
understorey plants
- disruption
of important behaviours - e.g. repeatedly scaring
animals from favoured
feeding or nesting grounds, artificial feeding of
animals causing
dependency, diet of inappropriate foods or a
population increase in one
species to the detriment of others, separating
mothers from infants
- direct injury or death - e.g. by careless driving, inadvertently trampling nests or burrows, or deliberate illegal killing of less popular animals such as snakes
- all
of the
above can include negative impacts not only on the
animals tourists and
guides are conscious of, but of shy or cryptic
species that may
disappear or be impacted in some way without
anyone noticing
Wildlife tourism can also bring benefits to wildlife conservation:
- protecting land that may otherwise be stripped of its native habitats for other pursuits
- restoring
appropriate habitat
- donating
money to wildlife conservation
by operators or
tourists
- conservation breeding of threatened species to be returned to the wild
- education
about ecological
needs of wildlife, and awareness of animals
many do not
know the existence of
- keeping an eye on possible illegal activities involving wildlife or their habitats
- monitoring the occurrence, abundance and behaviour of wildlife to check for any changes from year to year
We need to maximise the positive and minimise the negative impacts
She is also chair of the Scenic Rim branch of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (see Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/Scenic.Rim.Wildlife)
Araucaria Ecotours is a member of Ecotourism Australia (and we have achieved advanced eco-accreditation for all our tours), and we are personally members of the Lamington Natural History Association, the Australian Orangutan Project and the Logan and Albert Conservation Association
Ronda
has
been
leading
tours
and field excursions
into wildlife habitat
for
many years,
always
very
mindful
of
the
value
of experiencing nature
and helping
others to do so while
not unduly disturbing
the animals and their
environments.
She has also conducted
extensive literature
research plus
interviews with
tourists, tour
operators and
conservation managers
for
the
Sustainable Tourism
Cooperative Research
Centre, published (with
co-author
Karen
Higginbottom)
a report on 'Negative
Effects
of
Wildlife
Tourism
on
Wildlife'.and
several
other
related
publications.
She was also second
author ( with Karen
Higginbottom and
Chelsea Northrope) on
'Positive
Effects
of Wildlife Tourism
on Wildlife.'On behalf of Wildlife Tourism Australia Ronda contributed some years ago to the wildlife guidelines for Ecotourism Australia's eco-accreditation process and has led various related workshops including one leading to WTA's policy statement on the feeding of wildlife. She was to have led a workshop on maximising contributions of wildlife tourism to conservation at a national conference in 2010, but the conference was cancelled due to insufficient registrations to cover costs.
See also a presentation by Ronda Green at the 2002 International Ecotourism Conference in Cairns.: The tour operator's dilemma: Keeping the customer happy while not disturbing the wildlife - also other relevant publications and presentations by Ronda. plus numerous publications on wildlife tourism by other authors in the Sustainable Tourism CRC series.
There is much of relevance also amongst Wildlife Tourism Australia's bibliography