Martha Honey:"I see Ecotourism, whose origins trace back to the environmental
movement in the 1970s, as today a far wider and deeper concept -encompassing
more countries and having more dimensions than in the past "
The
ECOCLUB Interview with Martha Honey
Co-Director, Center on Ecotourism & Sustainable
Development (CESD)
Martha Honey, co-founder and
Co-Director of the Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development (CESD),
heads the Washington, DC office. She has written and lectured widely on
ecotourism, travelers' philanthropy, and certification issues. Her books include
Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise? (Island Press, 1999
and 2008) and Ecotourism and Certification: Setting Standards in Practice
(Island Press, 2002). She worked for 20 years as a journalist based in Tanzania,
East Africa and Costa Rica, Central America. She holds a Ph.D. in African
history from the University of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania. Martha Honey was Executive
Director of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) from 2003 to 2006.
The Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development
(CESD) , founded in 2003, is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary research institute
devoted to eco- and sustainable tourism. The only one of its kind in the United
States, the institute operates out of bi-coastal offices in Washington DC and at
Stanford University, and partners with agencies and institutes around the world
to monitor, evaluate and improve sustainable tourism practices and principles.
Its policy oriented research leverages tourism as a tool for poverty alleviation
and biodiversity conservation. CESD’s areas of focus include “green”
certification; travelers’ philanthropy; indigenous rights; transportation,
climate change and carbon offsets; impacts of cruise tourism and resort and
residential tourism; and research on market trends in the tourism industry and
related areas.
(The Interview follows:)
ECOCLUB.com:
As the former head of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), how satisfied
are you about the progress of Ecotourism as a global phenomenon between Quebec
2002 and Oslo 2007, and what is your vision for the future? Do you see
Ecotourism also playing a meaningful part in the political ecology/ green
movement (with which it seems to shares a taste for the environment, human
rights, pacifism and multilateralism), or do you see it merely remaining a
trendy holiday/lifestyle option for the mainstream?
Martha Honey:
In general, I remain positive about the progress and direction of ecotourism. I
see ecotourism, whose origins trace back to the environmental movement in the
1970s, as today a far wider and deeper concept -encompassing more countries
and having more dimensions than in the past. For me, the UN's 2002 International
Year of Ecotourism (IYE) signalled that ecotourism had grown from a good idea
into a global movement. The UN recognized that in countries around the world,
ecotourism was being put forward as a cleaner, greener alternative to both
extractive industries (logging, mining, commercial agriculture) and to mass or
conventional tourism.
There
were, however, strong concerns voiced during IYE about the benefits of
ecotourism to local communities and particularly indigenous peoples. We
can think of ecotourism as having three primary principles: it should
1) benefit conservation, 2) respect basic rights and benefit host
communities, and 3) be educational as well as enjoyable for the
traveller. On the first, ecotourism has brought increased resources to
protected areas and an emergence of ‘green’ architecture that is
lighter on the land. One the third, we have seen, for instance, the
emergence of the importance of good naturalist and cultural guides in
interpretation and enhancement of the visitor experience. However, the
second principle – ecotourism and host communities - that is both the
most difficult part of the ecotourism equation and where, I feel, we
have done least well.
In the years between the 2002 IYE and
the 2007 Oslo global ecotourism summit we saw ecotourism grow in a number of
ways. Just to name a few: certification, travelers’ philanthropy, and new
variants of ecotourism. During these five years, certification moved squarely
onto the agenda, with the proliferation of 80-odd certification programs that
measure the environmental, social and economic impacts of tourism businesses.
Led by the Rainforest Alliance and backed by several UN agencies, we are now
close to the launch of the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council (STSC), a global
accreditation body that will “certify” these certification programs against
common standards. This is a big step forward.
Travelers’ philanthropy –
or the flow of development assistance from tourism businesses and travellers to
host communities and conservation – has also increased. And we’ve seen the
emergence of a number of variants of ecotourism, all with slightly different
emphases. There is, for instance, geotourism that emphasizes the entire
destination rather than individual businesses, pro-poor tourism to bring
benefits to local communities, and agri-tourism that seeks to protect and
strengthen family-owned farms and rural lifestyles. One of the most exciting
variants is sustainable tourism which is applying the principles and good
practices of ecotourism to larger, more mainstream tourism businesses such as
beach resorts, city and chain hotels, airlines, and cruise ships.
Ultimately, of course, the goal is that entire tourism industry follow the sound
principles of environmental and social sustainability that have been honed and
ground tested through ecotourism. Clearly we have a long, long ways to go and
there are many challenges to achieving this goal. One of the ongoing tensions
within the field of ecotourism over whether, as you say in your question, it is
a political ecology movement or simply a lifestyle trend. Clearly, I believe it
is the former. I see ecotourism as inherently a ‘revolutionary’ concept that,
properly done, holds out the possibility of transforming the way the travel
industry operates and the way we travel. Ecotourism is, I believe, a part of
efforts to build healthier, happier, more equitable, just and peaceful
societies.
ECOCLUB.com:
In recent years you are developing
and steering the concept of "Travelers’ Philanthropy". For many, philanthropy is
elitist and reminiscent of late 19th century and early 20th century, rather
ruthless industrialists. What is 21st century philanthropy with reference to
travel, and in what way is it different, progressive and for the majority of
travellers?
Martha Honey: I believe that the concept of travelers’
philanthropy is integral to ecotourism – even though I agree with you that the
name may be misleading. “Philanthropy” can conjure up images of 19th century
mega-millionaires such as Henry Ford or Andrew Carnegie seeking atonement for
ruthless or destructive activities by creating philanthropic foundations. The
21st century practice of travelers’ philanthropy is a form of ‘give back’ or
development assistance from tourism businesses and individual travellers into
host community and conservation projects. The first practitioners of
travelers’ philanthropy were ecotourism businesses who saw real needs in the
host communities and responded by providing material and financial support and
expertise. Initially the owners and staff of many businesses helped to support
local schools, health clinics, micro-enterprises, conservation projects, etc.
Gradually, a number have begun to involve their guests in these projects,
offering them opportunities to donate “time, talent or treasure” to community
projects.
My organization, CESD, has had a Travelers’ Philanthropy
program since 2004 which is helping to bring together under one umbrella these
tourism businesses that are involved in providing assistance to projects in the
host communities. We have a website (www.travelersphilanthropy.org)
that, among other things, offers a way to make tax deductible donations to local
projects that are featured on the site. We are also organizing the next major
conference on travelers’ philanthropy. This international conference will be
held December 3-5, 2008 in Arusha, Tanzania, with a special focus on Africa.
We are pleased that ECOCLUB has become the first media sponsor of this
conference. Our special website –
www.travelersphilanthropyconference.org – has all the details.
ECOCLUB.com:You are an accomplished journalist,
academic and author. In your best-selling, seminal book, "Ecotourism and
Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise?" you argue that "Ecotourism should
support human rights and democracy". This is of course beyond the "leave only
footprints" dictum included in many guidelines. What happens however, if the
local culture / people / system / government do not share the western perception
of parliamentary democracy and sort the long catalogue of human rights by a
different rank? How do we avoid looking like the scout who helped the old lady
across the street, or worse like the priests who facilitated the demise of
Amerindians?
Martha Honey: Good question. Yes, as indicated above, I think
ecotourism means far more than “leave only footprints.” It is also not
about advocating western perceptions of parliamentary democracy. Rather, it is
about supporting the universal human rights, labour rights, indigenous rights,
and democratic principles that the world community, via the United Nations, has
articulated. They have also been well articulated in the UNWTO’s Code of Ethics
for Tourism. These should be the guide for what are best practices for the
tourism industry and for what principles should be promoted in the host
countries.
ECOCLUB.com:You are also quite familiar with Africa.
Watching conflict and disease increasing rather than decreasing, and the cold
war over, it seems the west has decided to give up on Africa, (with new
powers arriving to fill the vacuum). Until recently countries such as Kenya were
seen as quite successful countries, with a strong Tourism sector. One can
imagine that without Tourism, Africa would have been a lot worse. However, is it
and was it ever realistic that Africa could survive on Tourism alone? Did
Tourism bring about much needed social and political reforms, or did it delay
them, by supporting corrupt and authoritarian structures?
Martha Honey: Tourism is important in Africa. It is the
principle foreign exchange earner for 83% of developing countries and, along
with oil, the top foreign exchange earner in the 40 poorest countries, most of
which are in Africa. But too often tourism has mainly benefited local and
foreign elite. In East Africa, for instance, there have been land grabs by
powerful elites of tourism rich lands around the game parks and along the
coasts. To be a tool for sustainable development, tourism needs to adhere to
the social and environmental principles and good practices of ecotourism. We see
some fine examples of ecotourism operations in Africa, but there needs to be
much more effort, by governments, the private sector, NGOs and development
agencies to plan and implement nationwide strategies for socially and
environmentally responsible tourism. In addition, it is risky for countries to
rely too much on tourism or any other single industry. To be healthy, vibrant
and sustainable, countries need a diverse mix of economic activities.
ECOCLUB.com:It is not unheard of in Africa, for
whole peoples to be evicted from ancestral areas, baptized as 'national parks',
so that these can be visited by nature tourists, hunting tourists, and more
importantly mining and diamond extracting companies. Should the ecotourism
community become more vocal about such human rights violations? And how?
Martha Honey: Yes, definitely, the ecotourism community can play a
more active role in working with local communities who were evicted from
their lands to create national parks. We see some important initiatives to do in
East and Southern Africa. In South Africa, the restitution movement, launched
after the end of apartheid, has permitted communities to petition the government
to get back their lands. The government has returned some lands with the
condition that they be used for only ecotourism. There are a number of
partnerships between ecotourism companies and local communities to run lodges
inside or on the edge of the parks. More, of course, can be done but we do have
some promising models in southern Africa. In Kenya and Tanzania, there are
examples of safari companies, camps, and ranches that are working with local
communities to involve them in locally owned or managed tourism projects. Some
companies have worked hard to establish formal agreements with Maasai and other
local communities to provide jobs and pay fees for use of their lands. And there
have been some efforts by local governments to funnel a portion of the park
entrance fees to social welfare and conservation projects in the surrounding
communities and to train and hire more local people as park rangers and guides.
A lot remains to be done, and many peoples who were evicted from their lands to
create parks continue to feel they have not received fair compensation.
ECOCLUB.com:Costa Rica, and Central America at
large, is considered as one of the birthplaces of Ecotourism. You have lived and
worked extensively in the region and indeed authored a book "Hostile Acts: U.S.
Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980's". Was the emergence and success of Ecotourism
in Costa Rica an accident, or a result of its progressive, pacifist policies?
And what now for Costa Rica?
Martha Honey: The rise of ecotourism in Costa Rica and elsewhere in
the region began when the wars in Central America ended in the late 1980s. The
most important moment was when President Oscar Arias received the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1987. Peace is a prerequisite for successful international ecotourism.
Costa Rica had, in addition, other ingredients -- the “right stuff” -- that made
it possible for ecotourism to grow rapidly and to involve many local people.
Costa Rica has, for instance, a fine national parks system around which
ecotourism developed. It had abolished its army and nationalized the banks in
the late 1940s and had pumped government funds into infrastructure, education,
health, small farms, and other social welfare programs. Costa Rica has the
largest middle class in the Americas, good public education through university,
and a high quality national health care system. So it has a healthy, well
educated, and entrepreneurial population capable of owning, managing and working
in a range of ecotourism businesses and activities. This is supported by a
stable, peaceful political environment, relatively well functioning and
enlightened government, and close proximity to the North American market. So
ecotourism wasn’t an accident. Rather all these factors combined to make Costa
Rica, by the mid-1990s, the leading ecotourism destination in the Americas.
Indeed, over the last 20 years, Costa Rica’s commitment to ecotourism and
environmentalism as become as important to the national identity as the
country’s non-militarism.
But the picture has become more complex.
There is another type of tourism rapidly growing in Costa Rica. It is coastal
resort and residential tourism of large typically gated complexes with hotels,
golf courses, marinas, vacation homes, and other facilities that are often owned
by and catering to foreigners, particularly from the U.S. My organization, CESD,
is currently involved in the first large study of tourism development along
Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. We are examining the economic, social and
environmental costs and benefits of this type of resort and residential tourism
and will assess how it compares with Costa Rica’s ecotourism model.
It
is fair to say that there is much concern in Costa Rica about what is happening
along the coasts and how to maintain the country’s reputation for high quality
ecotourism. The current government, which is once again led by Oscar Arias, has
launched an innovative Peace with Nature Initiative, with tourism as one of its
central components. Among other aims, it seeks to make Costa Rica a carbon
neutral country by 2021. All of this is hopeful, and signals a determination to
try to protect Costa Rica’s successful ecotourism model.
ECOCLUB.com:
Should Ecotourism Certification
stick to measuring environmental impact, or can it credibly incorporate
socio-political criteria & beliefs?
Martha Honey: Of the 80-odd ‘green’ certification programs around
the world today, the best ones include environmental, social and economic
criteria since all three are vital for sustainable development. In Europe and
the U.S, however, many of the certification programs include only environmental
criteria. They do not deal with fair working conditions, benefits to surrounding
communities, and other social issues. The proposed global accreditation body,
the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council (STSC) will require certification
programs to include certain basic criteria that measure the triple bottom line
of economic, social and environmental impacts.
ECOCLUB.com:
Many tourism & travel conferences are
little more than networking events, and a chance to engage in parallel
monologues, with most speakers praising themselves and their successes. In what
way will the Travelers Philanthropy Conference seek to be different, and what
key discussions and decisions could be made at this gathering?
Martha Honey: Networking is only one objective of the Travelers’
Philanthropy conference taking place December 3-5, 2008 in Tanzania. The
conference will bring together practitioners from socially responsible tourism
businesses, experts in the field of sustainable tourism and philanthropy,
global, regional, and community-based organizations doing development work, the
United Nations and other development agencies, philanthropic foundations,
government, and the media. The workshops will facilitate discussion of the
tools and capacity needed to effectively run and evaluate community projects, in
order to improve the impacts and outcomes of tourism industry investments in
development projects. A goal is to identify a set of best practices for
Travelers’ Philanthropy projects. More generally, the conference will build
media and public interest in supporting worthy community and conservation
projects as an important component of socially responsible travel.
The theme of the
conference will be “Making Travelers’ Philanthropy Work for Development,
Businesses, and Conservation.” As such, the conference’s program will
emphasize key conceptual and strategic elements of Travelers’ Philanthropy which
enables these initiatives, and the operators and clients who support them, to
deepen their social and environmental impact in a sustainable way. Keynote
speaker Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Laureate from Kenya, and a diverse
line-up of other speakers, presenters and panelists will address key Travelers’
Philanthropy issues, especially in Africa.
These include: Making Linking Designing Addressing Using Developing In addition to
effective, lasting, and strategic investments in social initiatives such as
public health, HIV-AIDS prevention and treatment, and education;
tourism businesses and Travelers’ Philanthropy to the conservation of
wildlife, biodiversity, and marine resources at the local level through
financial support and economic incentives;
development projects that target the root social and institutional causes of
poverty in Africa and other parts in the world, through social movements for
justice, equity, and political voice;
climate change and carbon footprint issues facing the travel industry
through innovative off-setting and other Travelers’ Philanthropy strategies;
Travelers’ Philanthropy to provide specific training and capacity building
for communities, emphasizing local participation and empowerment;
and spreading tourism business models that fully incorporate ethical and
sustainable tourism with Travelers’ Philanthropy as a central element.
these issues, which will form the basis for the conference’s sessions and panel
presentations, CESD will also run a short technical seminar for businesses
interested in developing Travelers’ Philanthropy programs. At this “how to”
seminar, CESD and representatives from companies with well developed programs
will cover questions such as how to identify which community project to assist,
what sorts of corporate involvement and support are appropriate, how to develop
a program to involve guests and travellers, and how to set up the legal
structures and oversight mechanisms. The conference will also feature the
premier of the first ever video documentary on Travelers’ philanthropy. The
documentary, which is being filmed and edited by a team Stanford University
graduate students in video production, will highlight projects from around the
world, with specific emphasis on Tanzania, Kenya and Costa Rica. Finally, CESD
together with leading East Africa tour operators is offering eight optional
safaris before and after the conference. The tours showcase the best of
Tanzania’s ecotourism attractions, including its world renowned game parks
(Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara), Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the
island of Zanzibar. They also include visits to community and conservation
projects that are supported by tourism businesses - to demonstrate Travelers’
Philanthropy in action. ECOCLUB.com:
Finally, what would be other
ecotourism-related future plans for you or your organisation CESD?
Martha Honey: CESD is committed to high quality and cutting edge
research and projects around critical issues facing the tourism industry. We are
a bi-coastal institute, with offices in Washington, DC and at Stanford
University (which is headed by CESD’s co-director, Dr. William Durham). We
began with certification and travelers’ philanthropy. Over the last several
years, our focus has grown beyond ecotourism to encompass the broader tourism
industry. We have carried out, for instance, a number of studies of the impacts
of cruise tourism on ports-of-call and destination countries. (The studies on
Costa Rica, Belize and Honduras are posted on the CESD website.) We have
recently completed a study of global trends in coastal tourism (also on the
website) and are now doing an in-depth assessment of resort and residential
tourism along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. We are also working to create and
strengthen a network in the Americas of ecotourism businesses run by indigenous
peoples, and we are exploring expanding this model to other geographic regions.
Our major long term project is called Travel STAR (Sustainable Tourism and
Reinvestment) and it involves creating a one stop shop web portal for ecotourism
holidays, carbon offset, and travelers’ philanthropy and marketing holiday
packages to employees of socially responsible businesses and institutions in
North America. CESD’s portfolio of projects, some of which generate income, are
all aimed , as our tagline says, at “transforming the way the world
travels.”
ECOCLUB.com: Thank you very much!
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complete list of ECOCLUB Interviews here
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