(4) Post

04.12 |

The Problem With...Tourism

The human race is a race of travellers; we have imagined, discovered, explored, charted and opened up almost all of the Earth's land surface, and are rarely content to stop moving. Given the time and (usually) money, we have an instinctive urge to travel; whether this be to feed our imaginations, stimulate our senses or satisfy some less clear urge that we do not fully understand, we travel. Six and a half billion humans with itchy feet is not something we should take lightly.

Whilst tourism originally began with cultural and educational trips for the wealthy, it is almost always referred to now as an economic operation involved with moving large numbers of people to different places for short periods of time. The Problem With Tourism is that it is run by an industry far more concerned with short term commercial gains to recognise, let alone do something about, the huge environmental damage that it causes.

As with many large-scale commercial ventures, the users of tourism are being promised a dream. That dream comes with few strings attached. That dream can be expensive, but the potential returns are good memories for life. And we are addicted to that dream; the one fantastic holiday that we want to repeat over and over again; the sense of "getting away from it all", enjoying better weather, great entertainment, a chance to meet different people, and the cachet that goes with having done all this; all essentially selfish things, but none of them harmful as such.

As we continue to be enchanted by the riches that tourism has to offer, we fail to see the stream of people coming with us that grows ever wider, feeding on the same dream, taking advantage of the richly polluting cheap flights that deposit the hoards of people who engulf delicate habitats with concrete and suck dry the natural riches that so attracted them in the first place.

Source: http://earth-blog.bravejournal.com/entry/17456

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