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. There are numerous potential problems :

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, separaring mothers from infants
direct injury or death - e.g. by careless driving, inadvertantly trampling nests or burrows, or deliberate illlegal killng 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 sthat may otherwise be stripped of its native habitats for other pursuits
restoring appropriate habitat by operators
donating money to wildife conservation by operators or tourists
conservation breeding of threatened species to be returned to the wild
education of public about animals they may not know the existence of or are unaware of their ecological needs

We need to maximize the positive and minimize the negative impacts

Araucaria proprpietor Dr Ronda Green 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, On behalf of Wildlife Tourism Australia she contributed some years ago to the wildlife guidelines for Ecotourism Australia's eco-accreditation process and led various workshops including one leading to WTA's policy statement on the feeding of wildlife.

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. and publications on wildlife tourism by other authors in the Sustainable Tourism CRC series.

Ronda is vice-chair of Wildlife Tourism Australia, the mission of which is to promote the sustainable development of a diverse wildlife tourism industry which supports conservation.

We are also members of Ecotourism Australia, Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (Ronda is acting chair of the Scenic Rim group),and the Logan and Albert Conservation Association