SUBJECT: Biodiversity Research: the key to achieving sustainable tourism
AUTHOR: John Shores, Sustainable Development Consultant, San Jose, California, USA.

SUMMARY: Biodiversity-friendly tourism risks becoming just another tourism commodity because green-washing and whitewashing efforts in the broader tourism industry blur any distinctions on the supply side. The research challenge is discover how to grow the demand for biodiversity-friendly tourism by designing education and marketing programs to change consumer behavior and build support for sustainable tourism.

KEYWORDS: Travel, certification, monitoring.

From the islands of the Pacific to the grasslands of Africa to the rain forests of South America to the tundra of the Arctic, these spectacular ecosystems are fascinating places for research on biological diversity. For better or worse, they are also prized travel destinations. Yet these are just the most obvious points of interface between tourism and biodiversity - and therefore certainly excellent candidates for research. Just as important for biodiversity research could be studying the global effects of the tourism industry, often acting on biodiversity in places far removed from any mass tourism and perhaps not regarded as prime destinations for nature-based tourism. It is much more than just lions in the Serengeti or tortoises in the Galapagos.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) guidelines on sustainable tourism and the Killarney Recommendations for Biodiversity are important steps in guiding and improving the policy and public sector aspects of the tourism industry. But these declarations and guidelines seem to be directed mostly at the supply side. Much more attention and research is needed on the demand side – educating tourists and would-be tourists, and motivating them to create real demand in the travel market for biodiversity-friendly products and services.

We need to assess and monitor the ecological footprint of the complete supply chain of the tourism industry. We need to begin to think outside the destination. Too often in our efforts to green the tourism industry, the central focus is on the destinations: ecolodges, locally grown produce, sustainable energy, trained guides and guidebooks, etc. The 900-pound gorilla in the travel industry is transportation, especially long-haul air travel. Global climate change brought on by green house gases generated by travel and tourism in one part of the globe could have impacts on biodiversity on the other side of the globe. Much of the tourism bubble might disappear if the travel component had to be biodiversity friendly.

One element on the policy side that needs more study is the controversial area of certification programs. We still don't seem to have any convincing evidence, other than anecdotal, that certification makes any difference at the biodiversity level, nor for that matter any evidence that it makes a difference to the tourist in choosing a vacation. If certification doesn't have any real or apparent meaning, it’s been reduced to a commodity where the rule of "cheapest is best" may be the traveler’s decision.

The tourism-biodiversity research agenda needs to broaden in at least two dimensions. Along the time dimension, we need to identify efficient indicators to monitor in the short term that can predict the status of biodiversity conservation over decades and centuries, and the useful policies and practical actions that can be used to shape those futures. Along the supply chain dimension, we need research that assesses the impacts on biodiversity from the entire spectrum of the travel and tourism industry, not just from the activities at destinations. Achieving a comprehensive view in time and in space will not be easy, but it should supply valuable information and support for the growing movement toward a sustainable tourism in all of its aspects.