Where’s the ‘Eco’
in ‘Ecotourism’?

As the $3.5 trillion travel industry turns ‘green,’
there are plenty of excellent adventures but few panaceas

By Martha Honey

Illegal sea-cucumber fishermen have had their way in the cradle of ecotourism, the Galapagos Islands. Can the Ecuadoran government regain control? (Photo by M.H.)

IN THIS REPORT Greenwashing     Costa Rica Cuba     Galapagos Islands

In Cuba’s western Pinar del Río Province, the four-star Moka Ecolodge opened in October 1994. Just an hour outside Havana, the project is a world apart from the capital’s fast pace and steamy urban decay. The air around Moka is sweet and gentle. The rolling hills form a kaleidoscope of variegated greens. The tempo of daily life harmonizes with nature.

Nestled into a hillside, the 26-room lodge consists of white stucco, wood and glass. No forest was cut down or hillside razed to build it. A tiny stream runs through its lobby, and large trees shoot through the roof. Part of its electricity comes from solar panels, and some of the food it serves was grown in hydroponic, organic gardens. Moka’s $82 double rooms, as well as the environmental and cultural sensitivity it encourages, contrast sharply with Cuba’s typical low-budget, high-volume hotel.

The lodge sits between the community of Las Terrazas and the Sierra del Rosario tropical mountain forest. Among the first visitors, I was part of a U.S. group that took guided hikes through the biosphere, lunched at a restored 19th-century coffee plantation, met with scientists at a research station, and visited a health clinic, an herbal medicine garden, a day-care center, schools, craft workshops and a small museum that detailed the community’s history. We also chatted with young people at the communal game area and joined community members crowded into an open-air boathouse for an evening of singing.

Moka is the brainchild of Tourism Minister Osmany Cienfuegos, an architect, environmentalist and confidant of President Fidel Castro. In 1990, as the Soviet Union’s collapse rapidly submerged Cuba into economic crisis, Cienfuegos proposed the lodge to help provide dollars to Las Terrazas and maintain the community’s ecological and social goals. The community gave the green light and created a special neighborhood council to help run the project.

The Tourism Ministry financed and built the complex for an estimated $6 million. The community is scheduled to pay back this sum over the next 15–20 years. Forty percent of hotel profits goes into a community development fund overseen by the neighborhood committee, and another 10 percent goes to the clinic. About 150 of Las Terrazas’ 850 residents now work at Moka, guiding visitors through the reserve or working in a tourism project such as a bakery, a coffee shop, or a small restaurant. Through projects such as a recycling program, Moka has also raised environmental awareness in the community.

The lodge provides the textbook example of ecotourism — responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people. Hailed as an environmentally friendly form of “adventure” or “nature” travel, ecotourism is aggressively sold as a panacea. It funds conservation and scientific research, protects fragile and pristine ecosystems, promotes rural development in poor countries, and enhances ecological and cultural sensitivity in the travel industry. It also educates and satisfies the discriminating tourist.

But a close look reveals much more complexity. The cases of Costa Rica, Cuba and the Galapagos Islands show that ecotourism lives up to its name only when local communities have significant control, when governments plan carefully, and when the tourism industry goes beyond marketing ploys.

GREENWASHING

If tourism were a country, it would have the second-largest economy, shadowed only by the United States. The $3.5 trillion industry is the world’s largest employer, providing 10 percent of global jobs and vying with petroleum as the largest industry. The most rapidly expanding tourism sector is ecotourism. Estimates of ecotourism’s annual growth range from 10 to 30 percent, a pace expected to continue for years to come.

The ecotourism concept emerged in Latin America and Africa in the late 1970s. In Latin America, it was viewed as a tool for protecting rainforests from logging and oil drilling. In Africa, it evolved as an alternative to a failed protectionist philosophy of wildlife management that separated local people from national parks. Amid rampant elephant and rhino poaching, some scientists and park officials began arguing that wildlife would survive only if area residents had a financial stake in both the parks and tourism.

Today, ecotourism is the core of many Third World national economic development strategies and conservation efforts. In the Americas, nearly every country is promoting it. International conservation groups have initiated ecotourism-linked departments, programs, studies and field projects, and many are running tours for their members. International lenders and aid agencies pump millions of dollars into ecotourism projects under the banner of sustainable rural development, local income generation, biodiversity, institutional capacity building, and infrastructure development. Travel-industry organizations have established ecotourism programs, guidelines and awards, while many of the leading resort chains, cruiselines and airlines purport to be “greening” their operations. The United States alone has scores of magazines, consultants, public-relations firms, and university programs specializing in ecotourism.

The variety of players has produced two conflicting currents. The first current, while relatively weak, tries to put ecotourism principles into practice. It springs from the creativity of tour operators, travel agencies, architects, builders, national park and tourism officials, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and community activists. Across Latin America and Africa, ecotourism experiments show a variety of ownership schemes involving local communities, NGOs and the private sector. From Kenya to the Amazon, the most intense rural struggles center around control of national parks and tourism profits. The frequently proposed economic alternative is ecotourism.

The second and stronger current is known in some quarters as “ecotourism light.” It’s promoted by multilateral lending agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as much of the travel industry and a segment of the traveling public eager for superficially “green” activities such as a rainforest walk as part of conventional hotel or cruise packages. The hallmarks of “ecotourism light” are feel-good slogans such as “take only photos, leave only footprints” and “tread lightly on the earth,” and minor but much-publicized reforms such as the British Airways program, “Keep your towels — and help save the world.”

With much fanfare, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), made up of travel industry CEOs, launched a Green Globe program, through which companies voluntarily pledge to work toward more environmentally sound practices. For as little as $200, travel firms can purchase the right to use the Green Globe logo in all their publicity, thereby implying they’re “going green.” But the WTTC requires no public disclosure of purported “reforms” and provides no standards, on-site performance checks, transparency or accountability.

Behind “ecotourism light” are the forces of free trade and economic globalization. The big players in tourism have joined the multinational lending agencies, using nature travel to push developing countries to accept foreign investment, privatization, lower trade barriers and travel deregulation.

In 1995, the WTTC issued ecotourism guidelines that implored nations “to promote an open economic system in which international trade in Travel and Tourism services can take place.” The guidelines condemned “protectionism.”

Similarly, the Travel Industry Association of America, another lobbying group, applauds ecotourism but opposes “governmental initiatives that would impede travel by discriminating against the traveler or the travel industry.” In developing countries, such prescriptions for open borders in trade and investment often clash with local efforts to benefit from tourism. Real ecotourism, as Cuba’s Moka Ecolodge illustrates, takes careful government planning at both the national and local level.

Promoters of “ecotourism light” talk a lot about “public-private partnerships.” What they mean is government funding for infrastructure (roads, airports, electricity and so on) and a restructuring of national policies on investment, banking, tax and currency.

The demands come even after years of structural adjustment programs that the international lending agencies have imposed on nations. The programs cut government bureaucracies, infrastructure projects and social programs.

COSTA RICA

During the decade I lived in Costa Rica, I witnessed its evolution from a 1980s staging area for the U.S. war against Nicaragua into a 1990s poster child for ecotourism. Over the last few years, nearly everyone in the United States, it seems, has visited this tiny Central American country. The foundation of Costa Rica’s ecotourism is an extensive national parks system, which remains impressive despite threats from logging and budget cuts (see page 2). Ecotourism also benefits from the nation’s large coterie of scientists, environmentalists and conservation organizations. In addition, Costa Rica has a sizeable local business class, a well-educated and healthy population, good infrastructure, and close proximity to the United States.

With a handful of exceptions, such as Las Tortugas Lodge at Playa Grande, which helps protect nesting leatherback turtles on the Pacific coast, Costa Rica’s best ecotourism projects are not found along its beaches. Rather, they flourish near the national parks or a growing number of private reserves. Attractions include volcano views, wind surfing, hot sulfur springs, white-water rafting, bird watching, hiking, butterfly farms, and a motorized aerial tram and wooden walkways, through the rainforest canopy. Some ecotourism projects, such as Monteverde, La Selva and Wilson Botanical Gardens, have links to scientific stations and offer high-quality educational opportunities.

While many of these upscale projects are owned by foreigners, tens of thousands of Costa Ricans have ascended the ecotourism ladder. They range from a former president who owns a private rainforest reserve and one of the most authentically Costa Rican lodges, to rural campesinos who have built a few cabinas and hiking trails on their fincas, opened small restaurants serving comida típica, or set up concessions for handicrafts, horseback riding, trout fishing, orchid and organic farms, and so on. Costa Rica’s countryside is now dotted with locally owned tourism enterprises, many wisely combined with other economic activities such as farming. Increasing numbers of Costa Ricans have also been trained as naturalist guides, park rangers, hotel managers, tour drivers, and multilingual tour operators. In addition, many agencies specialize in ecotourism packages.

But not everything marketed as ecofriendly passes muster. Costa Rica’s most hideous example is “Ecodesarrollo (Ecodevelopment) Papagayo,” a Cancun-style complex of golf courses, condos and large, cinder-block hotels. Wise ecotourists can spot such phonies using the excellent guidebook The New Key to Costa Rica (Ulysses Press, 1997).

While the government markets the nation’s ecotourism, it also promotes huge hotel complexes owned by international chains. By 1997, Costa Rica’s fastest-growing tourism sector consisted of these mega-resorts. While visitor numbers have soared, most of the profits have flown out of the country. Since image is so important, it seems unlikely that Costa Rica will get away with selling this dual identity over the long haul.

CUBA

Unlike Costa Rica, Cuba is far off the beaten path of U.S. tourists, thanks to the U.S. government’s trade and travel embargo. Tourist arrivals to the island tripled between 1989 and 1996, yet only a few thousand of the nearly 1 million visitors each year come from the United States. Most are Canadians, Europeans and Latin Americans.

In pre-revolutionary Cuba, in contrast, 95 percent of the tourists came from the United States. Most hotels, gambling casinos and cabarets were owned by U.S. citizens, many with close links to organized crime. When the United States broke ties with the island after Castro’s 1959 victory, the Cuban government quickly shut down this type of tourism and only gradually built up a bargain-basement, low-quality “enclave” tourist sector of designated beaches and Havana hotels. Much more interesting was the extensive network of small beach resorts, lodges, chalets, health spas, camp grounds, fishing camps and parks that the government developed for vacation by Cuban workers, soldiers and state functionaries.

The 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union, and the ensuing cutoff of Soviet-bloc aid and trade, plunged Cuba into its worst-ever economic crisis and threatened to undo the revolution’s most popular achievements: high-quality health care, education and social programs. To restore economic stability and curb political unrest, the government has turned to tourism. Like Costa Rica, Cuba has pursued a two-track policy.

On one hand, the government has signed several hundred joint ventures with foreign companies to manage,
refurbish and build beach and urban hotel complexes geared to package tourism. These operations extend from a backbone of both the pre- and post-revolutionary international tourism infrastructure. The tourism sector now generates more hard currency than even sugar. Cuba is not alone among former Soviet-bloc nations pushing tourism.

But Cuba is unique because its economic liberalizations have not been directed by a structural adjustment program from international lending agencies. The government has retained more control over the pace and components of the transformation. Through environmental impact studies and other forms of monitoring and planning, Cuba is trying to make mass tourism more environmentally responsible. And the government has been able to use its share of the profits to purchase fuel, medicines and other urgently needed imports, as well as to pay the national debt and prevent a collapse of the country’s day-care centers, clinics and schools.

On the other hand, Cuba is developing ecotourism, a sector that rests mainly on the foundation of the domestic tourism infrastructure. After the economic crisis hit, the government stopped offering free vacations to workers, and it began refurbishing and upgrading the small hotels, spas, cabins, chalets and camp grounds for international visitors. The government put standards and systems in place to encourage environmental sensitivity. As for new ecotourism facilities such as Moka, the government is beginning to hold them to much higher standards to ensure a low-impact blend into their surroundings. So far, Cuba’s ecotourism has been totally state-financed and planned, which has facilitated enforcement of the standards.

Unfortunately, overseas marketing of the ecotourism packages has been limited. Another drawback is Cuba’s reputation in Canada, Europe and Mexico for low-budget, sun-and-fun tourism.

As Cuba shifts away from state ownership and central planning, the future and the process for getting there are still unclear. Many Cubans worry openly that the island is on a slippery slope toward the foreign-owned tourism that characterizes the rest of the Caribbean. They fear that ecotourism is simply window dressing.

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS

Unlike Costa Rica and Cuba, which have moved into ecotourism over the last decade, Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands is one of ecotourism’s birthplaces. Located 600 miles off the nation’s coast, this Pacific cluster of 70-odd volcanic islands has one of the world’s most scientifically important, yet fragile, ecosystems, a fact noted by biologist Charles Darwin during a five-week visit in 1835.

In 1959, the Ecuadoran government declared 97 percent of the Galapagos landmass a national park and restricted humans to living in the remaining 3 percent. At the same time, international conservation groups set up the Charles Darwin Research Station next to the national-parks headquarters on Santa Cruz Island, and they have since maintained a symbiotic relationship in scientific research, protection and educational programs. In 1986, the government set up an enormous marine park around the islands.

The first commercial air links came in the 1970s. Between 1979 and 1996, the number of visitors jumped five-fold. Yet wildlife remained nearly undisturbed thanks to scientific research, sound park management, well-trained naturalist guides, and a fairly well-regulated and responsible tourism industry. The Galapagos now accounts for half of Ecuador’s tourist earnings, and much of this goes to protect the islands.

Most foreign tourists see the islands aboard boats — low-impact “floating hotels” that must follow National Park–set itineraries restricting tourist numbers per site. Most islands are off-limits to tourists. Naturalist guides, many of whom are biologists fluent in several languages, must accompany all tourists, serving as both educators and guards. The floating hotels are often foreign-owned, so most of their profits leave the islands. The less expensive Ecuadoran-owned day boats and on-land hotels do pump money into the local economy, but also frequently circumvent building codes and park regulations, thereby causing environmental damage.

Three other problems, all linked to tourism, present much graver threats. The first is an increase in non-native species, ranging from fungi and insects to dogs, goats and rats — all brought by boat or plane. The National Parks has undertaken costly eradication campaigns against the goats, but the government has been slow to implement a quarantine and inspection system to control new introductions.

The second threat is a flood of immigrants, making the Galapagos Ecuador’s fastest-growing province. The arrivals, lured by tourist dollars, seek a share of the island’s scarce land, water, electricity, medical facilities, and jobs. Many have ended up working illegally as fishermen inside the marine park.

This causes the third and most serious problem. The last few years have seen an explosion of unauthorized and highly destructive fishing for lobsters, tuna, sharks and, most recently, sea cucumbers. These operations are frequently tied to foreign trawlers who export to Asia. Fishermen and local businessmen have physically blockaded and attacked the National Parks and Darwin stations as well as tourism installations. The financially and politically weak Ecuadoran government has not responded decisively.

But recent months have seen some promising signs. Propelled by mounting internal conflicts and international pressure, the government has consulted all concerned parties and drafted a comprehensive law that limits Galapagos immigration, bans industrial fishing within the marine reserve, and implements a quarantine system. While the law is not yet on the books, and its effectiveness is unclear, the balance appears to have shifted toward conservation and sustainable development.

The Galapagos, once viewed as an ecotourism model, now serves as a warning about ecotourism that expands too rapidly and that lacks sufficient planning and controls.

March 1998

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