Eco-travel

First I would like to express my impressions on the film we watched in class about Jamaica. I believe that even though the movie was slightly outdated, it would be a fallacy to believe these types of things don’t still happen. People go on vacations all the time to locations that have gorgeous resorts, while the rest of the country suffers from environmental degradation and an unsanitary atmosphere. Jakarta, Indonesia is an example of a popular vacation spot that provides its tourists with gorgeous 5-star hotels and resorts, while there is a problem with open sewage in the water. I believe that many Westerners turn a blind eye when they visit places like this. I know that they aren’t on vacation necessarily to go and help out with problems in third world countries, and even that their tourism may be helping the economy of that country, but I also think doing nothing about it is a problem. As for the Jamaica movie, the problems in this country were not only on the outside, but internal as well. The IMF conditional loans were unfair to the people and causing more problems than helping.

A type of solution for the problem of tourists going to countries where you should stay on the resort and are considered crazy if you venture off is called ecotourism. It is defined as “travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strives to be low impact and (often) small scale”. It is a program that could actually help the environment and tries to take the negative impacts out of commercial tourism like what was seen in the movie. It usually focuses on areas that provide nature as the sites. This sounds like a great alternative, but sometimes the eco-tourism goals backfire. One example of this is that the groups that promote eco-tourism are foreign investors or corporations that get some of the benefits of this practice, and of the little profit they bring in, the locals hardly get any of it. A huge problem in the world today is money and what goes with it, in this case, greed. It seems like this is a program with great intentions, but it got into the wrong hands, and now it has just turned into another industry where the proceeds do not go to the people that really need them.

I definitely am a proponent of trying to help the environment as much as I can, but travel is a big part of my life, and I honestly cannot think of a way to avoid flying as much as I do. I would say I take about 7-10 plane trips a year, mostly to visit my family, but I do minimal travel in the car. Even though there is a lot of room for improvement in my travel habits, I just don’t see how I could cut down the trip more than one or two flights. I think if the cost of flights were a lot more expensive because they included the actual pollutants you are putting into the air, then I would think twice about flying, but then I might turn to train travel, and then would I be doing more harm than good anyways? I think this answer is what most people say when they talk about helping the environment: if I can’t do one thing, I’ll think of another way.