Introduction to the Biodiversity & Tourism session

Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries. It is one of the major sources of foreign exchange earning and employment and contributes to socio-economic achievements by constituting an opportunity for economic development, diversification and the growth of related activities.

Tourism can be segmented by the type of destination and by tourist characteristics. Types of special interest travel that are on the increase include: Nature travel, Adventure travel, ecotourism. Given that a high percentage of tourism involves visits to naturally and culturally distinguished sites, generating large amounts of revenue, there are major opportunities for investing in the maintenance and sustainable use of biological resources.

The potential adverse effects of tourism are divided into: Socio-economic impacts (imposed on local & indigenous populations); Environmental impacts; Tourist industry impacts; and Biological impacts.

While various entities including the World Tourism Organisation have already undertaken studies and works to pave the way toward sustainable tourism, many are the challenges still facing humanity in a world where consumerism and profit-making dominate the scene. To counter-balance this, various recommendations and guidelines that have come out from the IUCN (1996); the Council of Europe (1997); the Ecotourism year (2002); the World Summit (2002); the Convention on Biological Diversity – Tourism Development (2003); the V World Park Congress (2003); and more recently the Killarney Recommendations for Biodiversity, have constantly stressed the need for direct and effective biodiversity conservation action, which includes use of accurate and adequate information coming out from well planned research and monitoring.

Therefore in our search for biodiversity research that matters for effective conservation, the aspect of tourism needs to be addressed. Tourism, with its increasing economic role and its increasing focus on diversity and nature, demands greater research and implementation in the areas of cultural and natural diversity.

The far-reaching dimensions of biodiversity to be considered in this conference need to be looked at from the tourism perspective too. The variations in the scales at which biodiversity plays its role in our everyday lives and economies also need to be considered. Our discussions and contributions should span these dimensions and scales in order to come to terms with the different types of research requirements and consequences for biodiversity conservation. Therefore biodiversity and tourism should be considered at: the micro and macro levels; local and global scales; from genes to landscapes; from gastronomic to life-sustaining systems; from environmental managers to community workers and developers; from socio-economic to ecological perspectives; from planning to implementation and monitoring; from the rich to the poor; from country of origin to destination; from policy to effective action.

The integration of various types of research may well be the target of our search, however for this integration to work, the gaps in knowledge and in research that matters needs to be considered as a vital toward understanding how Biodiversity and Tourism inter-relate and influence each other.

Some provocative questions that come to mind are:

- What tourism load and what tourists’ behaviours are harmful to various biodiversity, landscapes and vulnerable habitats? Is there a threshold in numbers and/or careless behaviours above which most habitats are in danger? What indicators may be considered to reflect the natural environment’s health and the impacts of the tourist? At what levels have research arrived to in order to answer these questions?
- How important is the education and empowerment of local communities and populations toward local monitoring, management and implementation of policy and sustainable tourism guidelines? Should research in assessing the human knowledge of such policies and determination to implement guidelines and recommendations of any use?
- What research may assist tourism in assessing and addressing the social, economic and environmental status of ongoing activities in a holistic and integrated way?

Over the next three weeks the BioPlatform e-conference will allow a number of valid keynote contributions to pave the way toward discussions within the aim of the conference itself: Biodiversity Research that Matters.

In this tourism session of the conference, each keynote contribution will allow for participants to focus on relevant issues pertaining to the conference from the tourism perspective. We encourage participants to contribute stimulating discussions with their own experience and thoughts.

Adriana Vella (University of Malta), Biodiversity & Tourism session Chair.