The dark side of Costa Rica’s environmental tourism.

Costa Rica is often touted as an environmental paradise. It may have been true in the early years. But mass tourism has brought misery to the region. An investigation by Christian Science Monitor has come out with alarming facts.

Water quality tests conducted by the Costa Rica Water and Sewer Institute (AyA) over the past year found faecal contamination far above levels considered safe by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The biodiversity that has long lured visitors is disappearing. 97 percent of Costa Rica's sewage flows untreated into rivers, streams, or the ocean. Illegal well drilling is running aquifers dry. Monkey populations, symbols of the rain forest and a charismatic tourist attraction, declined by an estimated 50 percent in little more than a decade. Sea turtles are also threatened.

Costa Rica has 11,450 species of plants, 67,000 species of insects, 850 species of birds, and the highest density of plants, animals, and ecosystems of any country in the Americas. It is a shame if these disappear by pandering to tourism. What is needed is levelheaded planning. Judiciously used tourism is a great driver of economic prosperity. But the hen that lays the golden eggs has to be protected.

Read the full story here

Link - 2008 Green Spaces Travel awards

I have received couple of mails asking for a link to the original article in TimesOnline
Here it is guys
Click here
Please send your entries to Greenspaces@thetimes.co.uk

The Times’ Green Spaces Travel Awards – 2008

Leading UK newspaper, The Times, has launched Green Spaces a new award for green travel. This is your chance to have your say about Green Spaces and gets rewarded to boot. You could win a copy of Alaister Sawday’s Green Places to Stay. Travellers around the world can nominate a favourite Green Space that they have encountered on holiday in the UK or abroad. You can nominate a hotel or villa, a park, a beach, a city, an area of natural beauty, a restaurant, a bar, a method of transport, a tour or holiday. Deadline is September 2008.

Pro-poor Tourism: Who Benefits?

Pro-poor tourism is the buzzword nowadays. It is part of the sustainable development strategies in the less developed countries. But is it a really effective development tool or lot of hogwash? Here is a book that does a detailed analysis with case studies.

Pro-poor Tourism: Who Benefits?

Perspectives on Tourism and Poverty Reduction

Edited by: C. Michael Hall

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

List price: £34.95

Format: Hardback (pp: 176) ISBN: 1-84541-075-0

Green Travel - The World's Best Eco-Lodges & Earth-Friendly Hotels

Here is a great book coming your way. People who had sneak preview say it is money’s worth. Green Travel is a guide to eco-lodges & green hotels around the world. It features 100 eco-lodges & green hotels that support local communities in their endeavour to deliver clean, green, holistic experience. It also tackles issues like questions about poverty, the politics of boycotting certain destinations, and the environmental impact of travel. First-hand accounts of green travel experiences on each continent and practical information about the greenest ways to get there are great additions. If you are in to travel business or happens to be an inveterate traveller go ahead and buy it when it hits the stand in April.

Green Travel: The World's Best Eco-Lodges & Earth-Friendly Hotels

Written by Fodor’s
Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Fodor's
ISBN: 978-1-4000-0753-0 (1-4000-0753-4)
Pub Date: April 29, 2008
Price: $25.00

Galápagos Islands - Perils of Mass Tourism

Galápagos Islands, the world’s first World Heritage Site is under threat due to mass tourism. Galápagos Islands has unique native species that are said to be the instigation behind Darwin’s theories on evolution and natural selection. Visitor numbers to the islands have grown phenomenally. The crisis afflicting the islands is not only a direct result of the rise in tourism but also from a change in the type of travellers visiting the area. Nature-loving tourists, who were easily accommodated by smaller, locally owned tour operators characterized early tourism in the Galápagos. The new type of tourists often prefers high level of comfort available from large tour operators and vessels. Tourists coming by big vessels are not staying in locally run hotels or eating in the local restaurants. Local guys are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the mainly foreign-run large-scale operators. Out of $418 million generated by tourism annually in the Galápagos, only $63 million is estimated to enter the local economy. Increased risk of infection and introduction of non-native plant species looms large. The delicate ecosystem is in great danger.

Top 10 Eco-friendly Destinations of the world

IgoUgo, (owned by Travelocity) selected the following 10 Eco-friendly Destinations as real top class and money’s worth. If you are a green buff these are the destinations you should plumb in for.

1. Buck Island Reef National Monument – St Croix, US Virgin Islands
2. Sea Turtle Watching in Rekawa – Rekawa, Sri Lanka
3. Napo Wildlife Center – Quito, Ecuador
4. Artisans D’Angkor Silk Farm – Siem Reap, Cambodia
5. Celestun Biosphere Reserve – Yucatan, Mexico
6. Rainforest Hike to Middleham Falls & Ti Tou Gorge with Ken’s Hinterland Adventure Tours – Dominica
7. Sadie Cove Wilderness Lodge – Kachemak Bay State Park, Alaska
8. Volcano Trekking at Gunung Batur – Gunung Batur, Bali
9. Strokkur Geyser – Geysir Center, Iceland

10. Canopy Tour – Quepos, Costa Rica

National Geographic Green Guide

National Geographic has come out with a new publication called National Geographic Green Guide. It is what you expect from National Geographic. Class stuff.

The Green Guide offers advice on living green and tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint. The magazine is printed on recycled paper and uses ink, which contains no heavy metals and is derived from renewable sources like soy, corn and linseed.

The blurb says “Written for general consumers, not for enviromaniacs, Green Guide is chock-full of simple, useful ideas, broken down into achievable steps that make "going green" a gradual and affordable process rather than an all-or-nothing plunge.”

carbonfootprints

Couple of guys has requested me to give tips on how to calculate carbon footprints. The site carbonfootprints.com gives excellent tips on how to go about it based on your house, flights ,car, bus, motorbike, rail, food preferences, fashion, packaging, furniture and electricals, recycling, recreation, finance and other services. So go ahead and calculate your carbonfootprints. Click here to go to their site.

Here is another good site. Click here

Yet another site. Click here

Where NOT to Go

Travelling the world in an environmentally responsible way is getting easier every year but there are pitfalls that you should avoid. You must have read articles giving recommendations about where to go. Here is something different. Plenty mag has some advices about where not to go. I found it interesting reading. Go ahead have a look at it here