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Wildlie Watching and tourisma f w



Published by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Secretariat o the Conventionon the Conservation o Migratory Species o Wild Animals (CMS).

Wildlie Watching and Tourism:A study on the benefts and risks o a ast growing tourism activity and its impacts on speciesUNEP / CMS Secretariat, Bonn, Germany. 68 pages.

Produced by UNEP / CMS Convention on Migratory Species and TUI

Author Richard Tapper, Environment Business & Development Group, E-mail: [email protected] & Coordinator Paola Deda, CMS Secretariat, E-mail: [email protected]

Publishing Manager Muriel M. Mannert

Design Karina Waedt

© 2006 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) / Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any orm or educational or non-prot purposes withoutspecial permission rom the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement o the source is made. UNEP would appreciatereceiving a copy o any publication that uses this publication as a source.

No use o this publication may be made or resale or or any other commercial purpose whatsoever without prior permis-sion in writing rom the United Nations Environment Programme.

DISCLAIMER

The contents o this volume do not necessarily refect the views o UNEP or contributory organizations.The designations

employed and the presentations do not imply the expression o any opinion whatsoever on the part o UNEP or contri-

butory organizations concerning the legal status o any country, territory, city or area in its authority, or concerning the

delimitation o its rontiers or boundaries.

Copies o this publication are available rom the

UNEP / CMS Secretariat

United Nations Premises in Bonn

Hermann-Ehlers-Str. 10

53113 Bonn, Germany

Tel (+49 228) 815 24 01/02

Fax (+49 228) 815 24 49

E-mail: [email protected]

www.cms.int

ISBN 3 – 93 74 29 – 10 – 7 Image on next page: Monarch buttery, © Gene Nieminen / USFWS

imprint



“We undamentally depend on natural systems and resources orour existence and development. Our eorts to deeat poverty andpursue sustainable development will be in vain i environmental

degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated.“

KofAnnan,InLargerFreedom.

TowardsDevelopment,SecurityandHumanRightsorAll,2005.



acknoWledgements

Many people helped me by discussing the issues surroundingwildlie watching tourism with various species and providing in-

ormation. Although I have not been able to use all the inormation

I have received, I am extremely grateul to all those people who

have been generous with their time and inormation in helping me

to prepare this report:

Bonnie Abellera, Fred Baerselman, Siddhartha Bajra Bajracharya,

Roseline Beudels, Andre Brasser, Jens Brüggemann, LaurettaBurke, Tom Butynski, Janet Cochrane, Stroma Cole, Glyn Davies,

Richard Denman, Ian Dickie, Sarah Durant, Gina Ebanks-Petrie,

Xavier Font, Barbara French, Sue Gubbay, Sandra Hails, Carolyn

Hayle, Michael Hitchcock, Jonathan Hodrien, Katherine Home-

wood, Ali Hood, Trent Hreno, Corjan van der Jagt, Alex Kaat, Korie

Klink, Cori Lausen, Ashley Leiman, Harvey Lemelin, Bert Lenten,

Mark Manteit, Neca Marcovaldi, Pixie Maynard, Christa Mooney,

Andy Moore, Mike Norton-Griths, John O’Sullivan, AgnieszkaOkzanska, Rolph Payet, Art Pedersen, Margi Prideaux, Christoph

Promberger, Ian Redmond, Bettina Reineking, Sibylle Riedmiller,

Callum Roberts, Anton Roberts, Gerard Rocamora, David Rowat,

Anne Russon, Margot Sallows, Chris Sandbrook, Christina Semeni-

uk, Myra Shackley, Alison Shaw, Mark Simmonds, Mark Spalding,

Colin Speedie, Andreas Streit, Rüdiger Strempel, Jamie Sweeting,

Richard Thomas, Michael Thompson, Vanessa Williams, Liz Wil-

liamson, Matthew Woods.

I also particularly want to thank Paola Deda, and her assistant

Muriel Mannert, at the Convention on Migratory Species or their

support and encouragement on this project.

Richard Tapper



IIt is a sign o the important place wildlie holds or people, thatso many want to watch animals in their natural habitats, and that

the popularity o wildlie watching tourism continues to grow.

As well as providing enjoyment or millions o people, wildliewatching tourism is a signicant source o income and emp-loyment or a growing number o communities, particularly indeveloping countries, and underlines the value o conservation.It also can help raise awareness o a whole range o pressingenvironmental issues that ace us, or the survival o wildlie inits habitats is at risk rom climate change, pollution and land con-version, just as we are.

Tourism is one o the areas where the links between people, theglobal economy, and the environment are clearly visible. Theinternational tourist sees rst hand the environmental, socialand economic conditions o other countries and cultures. At itsbest, tourism can be a powerul way to promote understandingbetween people and cultures. At its worst, tourism can result in

the exploitation o people, social disharmony, and environmentaldegradation.

As tourism continues to grow and expand, more pressures on the environment and wildlie are inevitable. Without proper andeective management and protection, these pressures will de-stroy the very things that people value, and which are key assetsor tourism.

While tourism is expanding, there are limits on how much visitation animal populations can sustain. We must also nd ways to control wildlie watching practices so that tourists can enjoyhigh-quality wildlie watching without damaging the survival o

the animals they watch, or their habitats. This means setting rmlimits, established through impact assessments, on numbers o

tourists, on tourism development, and on the ways in which wild-lie watching is conducted so as to minimise the disturbance itcauses to wildlie. And it requires action by governments and

the tourism industry.

This publication produced by the Convention on Migratory Spe-cies shows that action is needed now to put eective controls

oreWord by dr klaus töper, unep

in place on wildlie watching tourism. There are many good ex-amples o what can be done to manage wildlie and tourism suc-cessully. However, i tourism is allowed to grow uncontrolled,adequate protection o wildlie and the environment is dicult,i not impossible.

In UNEP we are actively working with partners to promotesustainable tourism through a variety o international and regi-onal programmes. The Parties to the Convention on BiologicalDiversity have adopted Guidelines on Biodiversity and TourismDevelopment, and the Caribbean Regional Sea Programme, par-

ticularly through its protocol on Specially Protected Areas andWildlie (SPAW) works with the tourism industry to reduce envi-ronmental impacts. Many other environmental conventions andagreements also involve work with the tourism industry.

I rmly believe that within a ramework o sound planning controls in destination countries, the tourism industry can make asignicant contribution towards the achievement o the target

set at the World Summit on Sustainable Development or rever-sing the rate o loss o biodiversity by 2010, as well as to po-verty alleviation and community development. So I especiallywelcome the act that this publication is a result o a partnershipbetween the CMS and TUI, the world’s largest tourism group, aounder member o the Tour Operators’ Initiative or SustainableTourism Development, and ounder member o the CMS Friends-a non-prot association created in support o the Convention onMigratory Species-, which I have the honour to chair.

Dr. Klaus Töper,Executive Director o UNEP



W Wildlie watching activities play a signicant and growing partin the tourism industry, and create direct and indirect econo-mic benets or many countries and communities – especiallyamongst developing countries. Wildlie watching appeals to amuch wider range o people than the more specialist orms oeco-tourism, and opportunities to participate in wildlie watchingare increasingly a actor in tourists’ holiday choices.

Options to take short wildlie watching excursions – such aswhale-watching days trips – are a signicant and growing ea-

ture o mainstream tourism, and the market or specialist wildliewatching holidays continues to grow. The numbers o visitorswho took whale watching tours more than doubled between1991 and 1998, and they spent over a billion US dollars a year on

this activity, beneting 495 communities around the world romremote destinations to major tourism resorts such as the CanaryIslands. But can tourism activities o this type contribute to theconservation o wildlie?

This orm o tourism can certainly make important contributions to conservation by raising awareness o the animals observedand their habitats, by creating revenues or conservation, and bycreating jobs or local communities.

However, achievement o such contributions is not guaran- teed: wildlie watching activities need careul preparation andmanagement by both the tourism sector and conservation ma-nagers, in order to avoid adverse eects on wildlie and local

communities. Examples o problems that can arise include over-crowding and excessive disturbance, which as well as beingdamaging to animal populations, also detract rom quality o theexperience or tourists; and lack o economic benets or localcommunities or or conservation.

CMS, in collaboration with TUI, a leading private sector travelrm which sold a total o 18 million holidays in 70 dierent coun-

tries around the world in 2004, decided to explore this tourism

niche market, to identiy benets and limits o the activity and setsome principles and guidance to the sector, in order to reduceenvironmental impacts and maximize benets, both to the com-munities and the conservation o species.

oreWord by robert hepWorth, cms

This publication is very timely, as many o dierent internationalorums are claiming that environmental protection is a prerequi-site or a healthy community development. CMS wants to makesure the promotion o development is not done at the detrimento the environment, and wishes to explore how, and i, a sectorin rapid expansion like nature tourism can aect, in both positiveand negative ways, the development o communities in develo-ping and developed countries.

Wildlie watching oers an excellent opportunity to analyze im-mediate benets and impacts and produce a sophisticated andhonest assessment o pros and cons. I believe this publication isa balanced account o success stories and case studies pointingout limits, risks and adverse eects on wildlie and habitats thatneed urgent attention. The potential o developing the activity isgrowing exponentially, and CMS wants to be ready to provideGovernments and the tourism sector in general with recommen-dations on the way orward.

CMS is proud that this publication is the outcome o collaboration with the private sector, as this strengthens the message itcontains and shows that it is in the interest o both the UnitedNations and businesses to promote sustainable activities, pro-ducing economic, social and environmental benets in the longrun.

Robert Hepworth,Executive Secretary o the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species



W Watching animals is an inspiring experience. People are exci- ted by seeing whales or turtles, spectacular bird lie, elephantsor gorillas. Seeing these and many other species in the wild isnot just memorable, but also is a very strong personal motivationor conservation.

Tourism today provides people with numerous opportunities toview animals that in the past they would have only read aboutand seen in pictures and on TV or in zoos and aquariums at best.TUI and other tourism companies are nding a trend amongst

tourists to go beyond traditional ‘sun and sand’ holidays and tolook or more authentic experiences o culture and nature in theplaces they visit.

TUI is the world’s leading tourism group, and we are activelycommitted to sustainable development or lasting economicgrowth and employment, sustainable use o natural resourcesand biodiversity and continuously improving the quality o lieor the people. We have thereore deliberately chosen to play a

pioneering role or the industry. We see the unique potential o tourism, but also the need or tourism at destinations to be wellplanned i it is to be sustainable and have a long-term uture.

Everyone is aware o the problems o ecosystem loss and spe-cies decline. It is vital or destinations to protect their naturalassets, not just or tourism, but to prevent the high social andeconomic costs that result rom environmental damage. Tourismcan create real value or nature, bringing unds and support or

conservation as well as employment. However, to maintain thebiodiversity, ecosystems and landscapes that attract tourists toholiday destinations, it is necessary to prevent uncontrolled de-velopment.

As this publication shows, the demand or new types o tourismexperience in nature is growing ast. Well-planned and eectivemanagement is thereore needed to protect wildlie resources indestinations and to ensure that wildlie watching is carried out in

ways that do not cause damage to the animals and environments that people want to see. This means that we have to understand the eects o tourism on wildlie better, and to provide better mo-nitoring, visitor management and controls on wildlie watching.

oreWord by dr. michael iWand, tui

To achieve this requires a partnership between destinations and the tourism industry, who together share responsibilities or ma-king tourism more sustainable. International tour operators canset standards or the holidays they sell, and can work with theirsuppliers in destination countries to improve perormance. AtTUI, we already do this, or example, working with local authori-

ties and local conservation organisations to raise the standardso local operators providing whale watching tours in the CanaryIslands. When conducting game saaris in East Arica or else-where, TUI companies rely on rm conservation principles tosupport the wildlie and the people.

But or these actions to be eective, there also needs to be agood ramework o land use planning in destinations, that showswhere and how much tourism can take place and which provi-des good protection or nature, through networks o protectedareas and clear regulations. This ramework can best be provi-ded by governments and municipalities in destinations.

On behal o TUI, I would like to say how pleased we are to beco-producing this publication by the Convention on MigratorySpecies on wildlie watching and tourism. It shows what can bedone to manage wildlie watching well, but also that much moreneeds to be done to control wildlie watching in the uture in or-der to protect the animals and their habitats on which it depends.TUI looks orward to playing its part in this, and to ensure thatwildlie watching, and tourism generally, makes a strong contri-bution to conservation and community development.

Wol Michael Iwand,Executive Director, Corporate Environ- mental Management, TUI-AG



contents

1. i .........................................................................10

1.1 Denition o wildlie watching tourism ..........................10

1.2 Relationship o wildlie watching tourism .....................10

to other types o tourism

1.3 Tourism and increasing wildlie watching ....................12

1.4 The range o wildlie watching activities ...................... 14

1.5 The demand or wildlie watching tourism: ..................16 market size and main market groups

1.6 Key stakeholders in wildlie watching tourism .............18

• CASE STUDY: Watching cheetahs in Serengeti ...........20

National Park, Tanzania

• CASE STUDY: Stingrays at the Sand Bar .......................22

and Stingray City in the Cayman Islands

2. e f .....................24 w w

2.1 Economic value o wildlie watching .............................24

2.2 Potential contributions to poverty reduction and ........26

community development

• CASE STUDY: Sea turtles and tourism in Brazil ............30

• CASE STUDY: Little penguins in Phillip Island ..............32

Nature Park, Australia

• CASE STUDY: The Monarch butterfy .............................34

Model orest in Mexico

• CASE STUDY: Bracken Cave & Congress Avenue .......36

Bridge bat colonies, Texas, USA



3. c f ......................................38

w w

3.1 Raising revenue or conservation management ..........40

• CASE STUDY: Bunaken National Marine Park, ............42

Indonesia

• CASE STUDY: Viewing cranes in Müritz ........................44

National Park, Germany

• CASE STUDY: Watching whale sharks ..........................46

in the Seychelles

• CASE STUDY: Gorilla watching tourism .........................48

in Arica

5. c ...................60 w w

5.1 Making wildlie watching tourism sustainable .............61

6. n r...................................................64

4. hw .....................................50

w w

4.1 Eects o disturbance rom tourism on wildlie ...........51

4.2 Risks rom variations in visitation and ...........................52

expansion o tourism

4.3 Managing visitors to minimise impacts on wildlie ......52

4.4 Planning approaches or zoning and visitor .................54

management

4.5 The importance o planning or sustainable .................55

wildlie watching tourism

• CASE STUDY: Managing tourism on ...............................56

the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

• CASE STUDY: Whale watching, ......................................58

Península Valdés, Argentina



10

introduction

W

1.1 df w w

What is wildlie watching and how does it relate to tourism?Wildlie is a general term that technically covers both fora andauna, although in popular use, wildlie is mostly used to reer toanimals in the wild. Perhaps a classic image o wildlie or manypeople is a large mammal or a fock o wild birds, but the term iswidely used to cover all types o animals, including all kinds o

insects, and marine lie.

Wildlie watching is simply an activity that involves the watchingo wildlie. It is normally used to reer to the watching o animals,and this distinguishes wildlie watching rom other orms o wild-lie-based activities, such as hunting and shing. Watching wild-lie and animals is essentially an observational activity, althoughin some cases it can involve interactions with the animals beingwatched, such as touching or eeding them.

Wildlie watching tourism is then tourism that is organised andundertaken in order to watch wildlie. This type o tourism hasgrown dramatically in recent years, and a quick search on theInternet provides many examples o tourism companies thateither market specic wildlie watching tours, or promote theirproducts by highlighting wildlie watching as an optional activity

that their clients can enjoy.

The tourism industry tends to use the term ‘wildlie tourism’rather than wildlie watching tourism. In may cases, the two

terms are identical, but wildlie tourism is sometimes also used to reer to hunting or shing tourism, and in a ew cases to theviewing o captive wildlie in zoos or conned parks where theanimals no longer live a wild existence1.

For the purposes o this publication, the terms wildlie watching tourism and wildlie tourism are used interchangeably, and are

dened as tourism that is undertaken to view and / or encounterwildlie in a natural setting. This denition is intended to inclu-de wildlie watching on large game ranches – such as those insouthern Arica – where species are able to roam widely over

relatively large ranges, and where their behaviour and manage-ment is essentially wild, but to exclude animals kept in connedconditions.

1.2 r w w

Wildlie watching tourism overlaps with many other aspects o tourism. Sometimes wildlie watching may be undertaken by tourists who have purchased a specialist package – such as abirdwatching holiday – with the specic objective o seeing cer-

tain kinds o wildlie. Equally, there are tourists who engage inwildlie watching as part o activities that ocus on adventure inwild places, and or whom watching animals is an added attrac-

tion but not necessarily their main motivation.

Wildlie watching particularly overlaps with ecotourism, whichis a orm o tourism based on the principles2 o making an activecontribution to the conservation o natural and cultural heritage;involving local and indigenous communities in its planning de-velopment and operation, and contributing to their well-being;and interpreting natural and cultural heritage to visitors. Ecotou-rism is oten based on relatively low levels o tourism in an area,and is thereore particularly suited to organised tours or smallgroups, and also or independent travellers.

Wildlie watching can also include appropriately operated mass tourism activities. One example is the ‘Penguin Parade’ on Phil-lip Island, close to Melbourne in Australia, where over 425,000visitors a year watch Little Penguins come up the beach eachevening to their nesting sites on the island.

Ultimately, wildlie watching has links with a wide range o die-rent types o tourism, and tourists participate in this activity or

many dierent reasons. Furthermore, tourism is highly dynamic,and recent years have seen a blurring between various types o tourism. For example, a amily taking a typical mass tourism pa-ckage holiday to a beach resort may nd and engage in a whole

1



11

range o dierent wildlie watching activities rom whale wat-ching to a trip to see glow-worms. Perhaps their main motivationor taking a trip is entertainment – but at the end o a well-orga-nised animal watching trip, they may not only have had un andexcitement, but will have learned a lot about the animals theyhave seen, and are likely to return with a stronger commitment toconservation. In addition, the money they pay or their trip willcontribute to the local economy, and to jobs and businesses thatdepend on conservation or their survival.

Finally, like all orms o tourism, it is important that wildlie wat-ching tourism should be sustainable, and should protect the wild-lie, habitats and communities on which it depends. Sustainabledevelopment is dened as development that meets the needs o

the present without compromising the ability o uture genera- tions to meet their own needs. Sustainable tourism is tourism that puts the principles o sustainable development into practicein tourism. To be sustainable, tourism needs to make a positive

contribution to the natural and cultural environment, generatebenets or the host communities, and not put at risk the uturelivelihood o local people; and to strive to anticipate and preventeconomic, environmental, social and cultural degradation3.

Wildlie watching tourism, too, needs to integrate considerationso sustainable development into the way in which it is operatedand managed, and various organizations – including internatio-nal environmental conventions4, tourism businesses (or examp-

le through the Tour Operators’ Initiative or Sustainable TourismDevelopment5), government agencies, and non-governmentalorganizations – are working to help make this a reality.

The UN World Tourism Organisation’s Denitiono Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism development guidelines and management

practices are applicable to all orms o tourism in all types o desti-

nations, including mass tourism and the various niche tourism seg-

ments. Sustainability principles reer to the environmental, economic

and socio-cultural aspects o tourism development, and a suitable

balance must be established between these three dimensions to gu-

arantee its long-term sustainability.

Thus, sustainable tourism should:

1) Make optimal use o environmental resources that constitute a

key element in tourism development, maintaining essential eco-

logical processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and

biodiversity.

2) Respect the socio-cultural authenticity o host communities, con-

serve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values,

and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.

3) Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-

economic benets to all stakeholders that are airly distributed,

including stable employment and income-earning opportunities

and social services to host communities, and contributing to po-

verty alleviation.

Sustainable tourism development requires the inormed participa-

tion o all relevant stakeholders, as well as strong political leader-

ship to ensure wide participation and consensus building. Achieving

sustainable tourism is a continuous process and it requires constant

monitoring o impacts, introducing the necessary preventive and/or

corrective measures whenever necessary.

Sustainable tourism should also maintain a high level o tourist sa-

tisaction and ensure a meaningul experience to the tourists, raising

their awareness about sustainability issues and promoting sustai-

nable tourism practices amongst them.

UNWTO (2004)



12

1.3 t ww

The growth o tourism and travel over the past two decades hasbeen enormous. From 441 million international tourist arrivals in1990, there were 763 million international tourist arrivals in 2004,with 52 % o these being or recreational and leisure tourism6.This growth is set to continue with an estimated 1.6 billion inter-national tourist arrivals in 20207. In addition, domestic tourism

has also increased around the world as increasing numbers opeople have more money to spend and more time to participatein tourism. Measuring domestic tourism is dicult, but it is esti-mated to be about ten times the scale o international tourism,and is likely to have risen aster than international tourism arri-vals in recent years.

Wildlie watching tourism shows equally large growth. This canbe seen in the number o dierent types o wildlie watching acti-

vities that have been developed linked to commercial tourism, thenumbers o tourism businesses that oer these activities, and thenumbers o tourists that engage in them. More and more tourismagents and operators are emphasising that tourism needs to besustainable, and are developing and marketing tourism products

that are ‘wildlie-riendly’, as well as carbon-neutral, and whichensure that a air share o tourist income goes to local people.

In some places, such as East Arica, the Seychelles or the Ga-

lapagos islands, wildlie has been the oundation on which their tourism has developed. In others, wildlie watching is a new-er attraction that is helping to diversiy tourism and to promotecommunity development in remoter areas. One example o this iswhale watching: in 1991 around 4 million people watched whales– by 1998 this had risen to 9 million people, and the total expen-ditures related to whale watching stood at just over a billion USdollars, more than three times the revenues in 1991, and bene-

ted 495 communities around the world8. Between 2003 and 2004,

one study9

ound that the number o people watching whales inand around Sydney, Australia doubled, and total expenditure lin-ked to whale watching increased more than our-old.

Tuareg in West Arica, © John Newby / SSIG

Dorcas gazelles (Gazella dorcas) in Niger,

© John Newby / SSIG



13

The overall growth o wildlie watching tourism is likely to continue at least in line with the growth rate o international tour-ism. However, in some areas, growth o wildlie watching maybe much greater – as or whale watching in Sydney. This growthderives rom various actors including the long-term interest thatmany people have in wildlie, the afuence and longevity o peo-ple in industrialised countries that enables them to travel to en-joy their interests in wildlie once they have retired, and the gen-eral desire amongst tourists to seek new experiences through

tourism. The tourism industry is highly responsive to market

demand, and is likely to continue to develop tourism products tomeet consumer interests in wildlie.

There is also evidence or a number o trends in internationalwildlie tourism10, including increased involvement by the com-mercial tourism sector, a diversication o wildlie watchingopportunities which are adding a wider range o environments,species and types o activity, increased environmental aware-ness, and increased use o interpretation.

Greater amingo (Phoenicopterus rubber),

© UNEP / Still Pictures

Bird watchers, © UNEP / AEWA.



1

Table 1 : Range o wildlie watching tourism: Some examples*

Main type o animals beingwatched

Tourism activity Example o location

Butterfies Butterfy viewing Monarch butterfies in Mexico, USA and Canada

Glow worms Glow worm viewing Springbrook National Park, Australia

Crabs Red crab migration Christmas Island, Indian Ocean

Corals and sh Snorkel / scuba diving Bunaken, Indonesia; Sian Ka’an, Mexico; Souriere Marine

Management Area, St. Lucia; Bonaire, Caribbean; Red Sea, Egypt

Sharks Snorkel with whale sharks Seychelles; Ningaloo Ree, Australia

Sharks Underwater viewing / eeding o sharks Dyer Island, South Arica

Stingrays Feeding and close interaction with

stingrays

Cayman Islands; Maldives; Australia

Komodo dragons (large

reptiles)

Observing Komodo dragons Komodo Island, Indonesia

Snakes Observing pythons Bharatpur, India

1.4 t w w

What interests people in wildlie? What sorts o species attractmost public attention? People’s interests in wildlie are huge-ly varied, rom scientic study to entertainment value, and maychange over time. Key actors in wildlie watching tourism arebeing able to experience animals in the wild, to observe their ‘na-

tural’ behaviour (although this may be aected by tourism activi-

ties), and to appreciate their beauty. Public attention inevitably tends to ocus on species that are more easily observed – parti-

cularly larger species, that show dramatic behaviours – such aspredators, or that are symbolic, rare or exotic11. However, goodguiding and interpretation can make any species interesting to

the public, and or tourists these aspects oten orm an importantand memorable part o their wildlie watching experiences.

Species that are watched include not just mammals and birds,but corals, sh, reptiles and insects. Table 1 shows examplesrom the range o species that are associated with wildliewatching.



1

Table 1 : Range o wildlie watching tourism: Some examples (cont.)

Main type o animals beingwatched

Tourism activity Example o location

Crocodiles Observing crocodiles Black River, Jamaica; Kakadu National Park, Australia

Turtles Observing turtles Projeto TAMAR-IBAMA, Brazil; Akumal, Mexico; Cape Verde;

Maputaland, South Arica; Sri Lanka; Indonesia

Birds Independent or organised visits to reser-ves or birdwatching

Bempton Clis, UK; Keoladeo, India; Pantanal, Brazil

Albatrosses Independent travellers and coach tours

to see breeding albatross colony

Taiaroa Head, New Zealand

Cranes Observing sand cranes Müritz National Park, Germany; Platte River, USA

Penguins Observing penguins and penguin colonies Antarctica; Península Valdés , Argentina; Phillip Island, Australia

Large Arican mammals Vehicle saaris to see large concentrati-

ons o mammals

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania; Masai Mara, Kenya

Tigers Tiger viewing rom hides or elephant back Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Gorillas Mountain trek and camping in order to

observe habituated gorillas

Bwindi National Park, Uganda; Virunga National Park, Demo-

cratic Republic o Congo; Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda;

Orangutans Observing orangutans Sepilok Orangutan Centre, & Danum Valley, Sabah Semenggok

Wildlie Centre, Sarawak, Borneo

Polar bears Observing polar bears Churchill, Canada

Bats Observing bats Texas, United States

Dolphins Observing dolphins Red Sea, Egypt; Mon Repos, Australia

Whales Observing whales Península Valdés, Argentina; Kaikoura, New Zealand;

El Vizcaino, Baja Caliornia, Mexico; Plettenberg Bay, South

Arica; Canary Islands

* Based on Table 1.1 in Wildlie Tourism, (2004), David Newsome, Ross Dowling and Susan Moore, Aspects o Tourism no. 24, published by

Channel View Publications. With additions.



1

1.5 t ww :

The tourism sector meets the demand or tourism in a range omarket segments. The main segments are the general package-holiday/high volume tourism market, the specialist tourism mar-ket, and the independent travel market. Each o these segmentsoperates in slightly dierent ways, and has dierent implications

or wildlie watching tourism. Because wildlie watching coversa wide range o dierent species in dierent locations – some owhich are easy to access, while others are dicult and costly

to get to – the proles o tourists engaging in wildlie watchingdepend very much on the type o activity and its location.

One way o looking at the main market groups or wildlie watch-ing is to consider the typology o international tourists that visitprotected areas (Table 2). Numbers o tourists are growing in

all these categories. Key actors in the typology are availablebudget, experience o traveling, requirement or comort, preer-ence or traveling alone or in large or small groups, and degreeo interest in local culture and nature.

This typology, coupled with trends in the tourism market, has se-veral implications or wildlie watching tourism, and its potential

to contribute to conservation and community development:

• Firstly, the general expansion o tourism in all categoriesmeans that there will be at least a similar increase in wild-lie tourism activities linked to each o these categories. Thiswill not just aect areas where wildlie watching tourism isalready operating, but will extend to remote areas, as some

tourists in the explorer and specialist categories seek newwildlie watching experiences. Careul planning will there-ore be vital in order to maintain the quality o wildlie wat-ching, to avoid damage to the populations o animals that arewatched, and to keep wildlie watching away rom areas thatare particularly vulnerable or sensitive or wildlie.

• Secondly, like other tourism activities, wildlie watching tou-rism will only succeed where it is compatible with market de-mand in terms o quality, price and type o activities that areoered. This means that wildlie watching activities need

to be planned so that they will appeal to the main types o tourist that predominate in any area, and based on a realisticassessment o market demand.

• Thirdly, well-planned tourism based on wildlie watching canoer signicant opportunities to contribute to community de-velopment and to raise revenues and support or wildlie con-servation.

Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), © Bill Rossiter

/ WDCS



1

Table 2: Typology o international tourists that visit protected areas

Type o tourist Main eatures

Explorer Individualistic, solitary, adventurous, requires no special acilities. May be relatively well-o,

but preers not to spend much money. Rejects purpose-built tourism acilities in avour o local

ones.

Backpacker Travels or as long as possible on limited budget, oten taking a year o between school/uni-

versity and starting work. Hardship o local transport, cheap accommodation, etc. may qualiy

as travel experience, rather than understanding local culture. Enjoys trekking and scenery, butoten cannot visit remote areas because o expense. Requires low-cost acilities.

Backpacker Plus Oten experienced travellers, and generally in well-paid proession. More demanding in terms

o acilities than Backpackers and with a higher daily spend. Genuinely desire to learn about

culture and nature, and require good inormation.

High Volume Oten inexperienced at travelling, preer to travel in large groups, may be wealthy. Enjoy

supercial aspects o local culture and natural scenery and wildlie i easy to see. Need good

acilities, and will only travel ar i the journey is comortable. Includes cruise ship passengers.

General Interest May travel as Free Independent Travellers (FITs) on tailor-made itineraries with a tour operator,

and oten preer security and company o group tour. Usually have limited time available or

holiday. May be relatively wealthy, interested in culture, keen on nature/wildlie when not too

hard to see. May be active and enjoy ‘sot adventure’ such as easy trekking and low-grade

white-water rating. Dislike travelling long distances without points o interest. Need good

acilities, although may accept basic conditions or short periods.

Special Interest Dedicated to a particular hobby, airly adventurous, prepared to pay to indulge hobby and

have others take care o logistics. Travel as FITs or groups. May have little interest in culture.Requires special acilities and services, e.g. dive-boats, bird-guides. Accepts discomort and

long travel where necessary to achieve aims. May have active involvement, e.g. environmental

research project. Preers small groups.

Source: J. Cochrane (2003) in UNEP (2005) Forging Links Between Protected Areas and the Tourism Sector: How tourism can beneft

conservation, (Authors: Richard Tapper and Janet Cochrane) pp. 13-14, UNEP: Paris (available at www.uneptie.org/tourism)



1

1.6 k w w

Wildlie watching tourism involves many dierent groups ostakeholders. A stakeholder is any person or group that is in-volved in or may be aected by an activity. For wildlie watching

tourism, stakeholders include indigenous and local communities; wildlie managers in public and private sectors; nationaland local government; conservation NGOs (especially wildlie

societies which have a role in popularising and raising aware-ness about wildlie and conservation); the tourism sector includ-ing tour operators, local operators, excursion providers, and ac-commodation; and, o course, tourists.

Each group o stakeholders has dierent interests (Table 3) andresponsibilities, and successul tourism in the mid- to long-termdepends on matching tourism activities to the role that eachgroup o stakeholders is best able to play, and to the circum-

stances and benet o indigenous and local communities, aswell as to the market demands o tourists. This can best be done

through a participative planning process that involves all rele-vant local stakeholders, combined with good market research,and is urther considered in Chapter 4.

Arican elephant (Loxodonta aricana), © UNEP / Still Pictures



1

Table 3: Stakeholder groups and their interests in wildlie watching tourism

Stakeholder group Core areas o interest in wildlie watching tourism

Indigenous and local communities Protection o their environmental and livelihood assets; minimisati-

on o disruption to their communities and culture; potential to gain

benets through tourism linked to improvement o local services and

inrastructure, employment and local business opportunities, and

revenue generation

Wildlie managers in public andprivate sectors; Conservation NGOs

Protection o wildlie habitats, biodiversity and the general environ-ment; potential to generate revenues and greater awareness through

tourism to support conservation, and to demonstrate the value o con-

servation to indigenous and local communities, to government, and to

the wider public

National and local government Economic and development potential o tourism at national, regional

and local levels

Tour operators Potential to develop and market tourism products based on wildlie

watching – this depends not just on market demand, but also on local

conditions including inrastructure and site accessibility, suitability

o accommodation and catering, availability o reliable local business

partners to provide on-the-ground services (ground operators and

accommodation)

Local operators and excursion

providers

Potential to develop and market tourism products based on wildlie

watching – this can be done or a mainly local or regional market, but

to reach international markets local operators will generally need to

build links with an international tour operator based overseas

Accommodation sector Potential o wildlie watching as an attraction or guests, to increase

numbers o visitors and their lengths o stay

Tourists Interesting wildlie watching activities, memorable experiences,

good interpretation and guiding (or some tourists, opportunities to

experience the local culture and to have ‘authentic’ interaction with

local communities, are also important)

Source: R. Tapper (2005) incorporating additional inormation rom UNEP (2005) Forging Links Between Pro-

tected Areas and the Tourism Sector: How tourism can beneft conservation, (Authors: Richard Tapper and

Janet Cochrane) pp. 13-14, UNEP: Paris (available at www.uneptie.org/tourism)



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case study: Watching cheetahs inSerengeti National Park is themost popular in Tanzania,and was visited by just over150,000 people in 2002/03,60% o whom were interna-tional tourists. Total incomerom tourism ees to visit thepark was around USD 5.5million.

Over 95% o the visitorscome to the Serengeti towatch wildlie. Lions are thespecies that people reportthat they enjoy watchingmost, ollowed by cheetahs,leopards, elephants, gira-e, wildebeest, and hippos.Each o these species has

dierent behaviours andecological requirements.

O all the large cats, chee-tahs are the most vulnerableto disturbance, because theyhunt during the day, need tohunt daily, and are oten shy.They are largely non-territori-

al and are highly mobile ani-mals. Reports suggest thatthey are now keeping urtheraway rom roads in the Ser-engeti than in the past. Theycapture their prey by stalking- until their prey is within 10-30 metres - beore chasing atspeeds o up to 100 km perhour. Chases last about 20seconds, and rarely longerthen 1 minute. About hal othe chases are successul.

The presence o high num-bers o tourist vehicles candisrupt hunting by cheetahsand reduce their overall hun-ting success – or example,noisy vehicles can alert preyto nearby cheetahs. Thereare observations o cheetahsbeing killed on roads by tou-rist vehicles. In one case in

2003, the cubs o a mothercheetah were scared awayrom her by 15 vehicles, andwere never seen again – pro-bably having been killed bylions or hyenas.

Cheetahs are an endangered species, and exist at rela-

tively low density comparedto other carnivores in Arica.The estimated populationin the entire Serengeti eco-system is only around 250adults, and all losses are se-rious or the population. Tohelp protect cheetahs, con-servation managers are pro-

moting greater awarenessamongst tourists o ‘cheetahriendly’ watching, and arealso encouraging tourists tosend in photos and reportso cheetah sightings as parto a long-term monitoringprogramme. Between 2000-2003 a total o 243 contribu-tors sent in inormation on377 sightings covering 758cheetahs in the Serengeti.

Cheetah in a tree (Acinonyx jubatus), © Patricia Tricorache

Tourists watching a cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus),

© Cheetah Conservation Fund



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serengeti national park, tanzania

important or managing tou-rism around cheetahs. Thethreat o crowding by view-

ing vehicles is reduced in theintensive and low-use zonesby prevention o o-road dri-ving, and the wilderness andno-go zones provide areaso minimal disturbance orcheetahs.

Sources: • Sarah Durant, ZoologicalSociety o London, WildlieConservation Society, andTanzania Wildlie ResearchInstitute

• John Shemkunde, M.Sc.Thesis, 2004 University oWales

• SENAPA Tourism manage-ment and developmentstrategy

• The Cheetah Watch Cam-paign run by the TanzaniaCarnivore Project at theTanzania Wildlie ResearchInstitute. This project isunded principally by theBritish Government th-rough their Darwin Initia-

tive scheme, but also getssupport and unding romthe Wildlie ConservationSociety (WCS) and the Zo-ological Society o London(ZSL).

• The Serengeti CheetahProject

Because o the high levels o

tourism, animals in the areaso the park visited by touristscan be subject to acute dis-turbance. The size o the park makes it dicult or rangersto ensure that vehicles arecomplying with the park’sviewing regulations, and sothe park is tackling this pro-

blem by setting up clear andenorceable guidelines, com-municating these to tourists,and by promoting develop-ment o a national driver/ guide accreditation systemor all o Tanzania’s parks.

A central part o the Park’s

management o tourism is aZoning Scheme or the Ser-engeti, which sets out accep-table types and levels o useand impact in each o threezones, and which also esta-blishes a No-Go Zone wheretourism access or use is notpermitted. In the Intensive

and Low Use Zones gameviewing by vehicles is themain visitor activity permit-ted, with driving restricted todesignated roads and tracks.Short guided trail walks arealso being developed in the-se zones, along with ́ tourismsinks´, which are designatedareas where visitors can getout o their vehicles to un-dertake specic activities,such as picnicking, short

walks, visits to cultural sites,

and viewing water-birds.

No game viewing by vehic-les is permitted in the Wil-derness Zone, with visitoruse being restricted to wal-king saaris o at least 2 daysduration or small groupswith a maximum o 8 visitors

per group. Visitors will campat designated campsite loca-tions during these saaris.

Throughout the park, theonly new accommodationpermitted is permanent ornon-permanent tented si-tes. No urther development

o permanent lodges is al-lowed, and existing lodgescan only expand their bedcapacity i this is matched byan equivalent expansion oacilities, including ´touristsinks.´

The combination o zoning, de-

velopment o ´tourist sinks´,guided trail walks and wal-king saaris is being usedto diversiy the visitor expe-riences available within thepark, making it able to ma-nage an increased numbero visitors and to minimizeoveruse o existing tourismattractions by spreading tou-rism activities more widelyin the Intensive Use Zone.This combination is also

Cheetah in the feld (Acinonyx jubatus), © Patricia Tricorache



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case study: stingrays at the sand bar andThe Sand Bar and Stingray City

are one o the Cayman Islandsmajor tourist attractions, andeature extensively in the Is-lands marketing. Located inthe shallow waters o NorthSound in Grand Cayman,the two sites oer shallowwater snorkeling and divingamongst stingrays.

One o the eatures o tripsto swim with the stingrays isthe opportunity to touch andeed these animals, whichnow congregate at both si-tes: generally at least 50stingrays can be seen at theSand Bar, and 30 at Stingray

City.

It is estimated that in recentyears around 900,000 vi-sits a year – over 780,000 othese by cruise passengers– are made to the Sand Barand Stingray City, with ne-arly hal o all visitors to the

Cayman Islands taking a trip.The Sand Bar is only 60 cmdeep in some places – shal-low enough or snorkellersto be able to touch stingraysresting on the bottom. Stin-gray City is deeper – between3 – 5 metres – and visited byrecreational scuba divers.

The huge attraction o thestingray experience to touristsis important or the Cayman

Islands economy, around a

quarter o which is based ontourism, but also raises con-cerns about the eects o di-ving and snorkeling tours onthe stingray population.

Stingrays were rst came tothe Sand Bar and StingrayCity to eed on sh wastes

thrown overboard by localshermen, but since 1986they have been hand ed bydive operators. Althoughstingrays are normally soli-tary, they have switched toorming packs o 12-15 indi-viduals, and rom night-ee-ding to eeding during the

day, at the two sites. Mosto their ood now comesrom eeding by divers.

As well as these major be-havioural changes, a recentstudy carried out in conjunc-tion with the Department oEnvironment, has ound that

these stingrays exhibit hig-her injury rates, which arecaused by boat collisions,higher numbers o parasi-tes on their gills, and higherincidences o open wounds.Blood samples also showthat the human-ed stin-grays are not receiving theproper balance o essentialatty acids that is critical ordisease resistance and im-mune response.

Although the Cayman Islandshave a network o protectedareas, marine park and ma-nagement zones o theircoasts, the Sand Bar andStringray City are outsidethis network, and thereorenot covered by protectedarea regulations. Becauseaccess to the sites is uncon-trolled they are also at risk rom overcrowding, which

detracts rom the tourist ex-perience as well as being li-kely to increase pressure onthe stingrays.

To address these issues,the Cayman Islands Depart-ment o Environment setup a process to involve re-presentatives rom all thestakeholders – including theMarine Conservation Board,

Stringray (Dasyatis spec.), © www.residence-cayman.com



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stingray city in the cayman islandsCayman Islands Tourism As-

sociation Watersports Com-mittee, Land and Sea Coop,general public, Departmentand Ministry o Tourism, aswell as the Department oEnvironment – in discussiono the issues acing thesesites, and to ormulate anagreement on management

o marine tourism.

Through this process, thestakeholders jointly pro-posed the creation o twoSpecial Management Areas(SMAs) under the Caymans’Marine Conservation Law –one at the Sandbar area, and

a second at Stingray City;and that the rules governingthese SMAs would becomepart o the Marine Conserva-tion regulations which wouldthen be enorced by the De-partment o Environment.

To relieve overcrowding, it was

agreed that provided the wa-tersports/tourism industryagrees not to establish stin-gray interaction sites in anyother location in the CaymanIslands, a new stingray ee-ding site would be set up onsmaller and deeper sandbarinside the Sandbar SMA,or use by dive and snorkelboats, and our mooringswould be installed.

A set o detailed rules or pro-

tection o stingrays duringoperation o stingray tourswas also agreed, includinglimits o a maximum o 100people per boat, 20 boatsper site, and 1500 peoplein the water at any time; re-strictions on eeding o thestingrays; requirements or

installation o holding tanksor all toilet waste on boats,and use o designated an-choring areas; and prohibiti-ons on taking o marine lieo any kind, and removal ostingrays rom the water. Toensure adequate access toand use o area by residents,

commercial activity at theSand Bar was also limitedto the morning and early a-ternoon.

Issues still to be addressedare the nature and collectionmechanisms or a proposedaccess ee, and the pricing

structure or trips to the SandBar and Stingray City, parti-cular or trips that are soldon-board cruise ships whichcharge their passengersapproximately USD45.00– USD60.00 while the localoperators who provide thetrips receive only aroundUSD20.00 o this. Resolvingthese issues would improveincomes or dive and snor-kel tour operators and provi-

de revenues to contribute to

management and conserva-tion actions.

Good communication and theinvolvement o all the stake-holders has been crucial orreaching agreement on e-ective management o tou-rism at the stingray sites that

both protects the stingraysand maintains the quality othe experience or touristsinto the uture.

Sources:• Gina Ebanks-Petrie, Direc-

tor, Department o Envi-

ronment, Cayman IslandsGovernment

• Christina Semeniuk, Re-source and EnvironmentalManagement, Simon Fra-ser University, Canada

• Myra Shackley (1998)

‘Stingray City’ – Managingthe impact o underwatertourism in the CaymanIslands, Journal o Sustai-nable Tourism, Vol. 6, pp.328 - 338

2



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W

2.1 e w w

Wildlie watching is a valuable asset or many localities: largenumbers o people regularly pay signicant amounts o moneyin order to view particular species o animals, and nature ingeneral. For example, around one in ve US residents listedbirdwatching as one o their recreational activities, and almost40% travelled away rom their homes to view birds, according

to a major survey conducted in the US during 200112. Overall thedirect expenditure o US residents on wildlie watching in theUS was around USD 32 billion, including nearly USD 7.5 billion onood, transport and accommodation linked to wildlie watching

trips.

One study has estimated that 20 % – 40 % o all international tour-ists have an interest in some orm o wildlie watching 13 – rang-ing rom enjoying casual observation o wildlie, to taking short

wildlie viewing excursions that are added to a trip undertakenprimarily or other purposes, to tourists who spend their entire trips on wildlie watching.

In East Arica, wildlie watching is one o the attractions or inter-national tourists, and the basis or the majority o their nationalincome rom tourism: in 2000, Kenya received 943,000 interna-

tional arrivals which generated international tourism receipts oUSD 304 million. For Tanzania the gures were 459,000 arrivals

and tourism receipts o USD 739 million, and or Uganda, 151,000arrivals and receipts o USD 149 million. In total the region re-ceived over one and a hal million international arrivals and gen-erated more than USD 1 billion in oreign exchange receipts rom

tourism14, much o it based on wildlie watching.

Wildlie watching tourism generates income in several ways.These include payments – such as or entrance and permit ees– made by tourists to visit wildlie watching sites, and to theguides, drivers and other sta who may accompany them. In ad-dition, tourists pay or accommodation and other services in or-der to travel to wildlie watching sites. At a national or regionallevel, the act that tourists make visits or wildlie watching also

economic and social beneits romcreates opportunities to interest them in other tourism activities,

perhaps to visit other areas o the country to watch dierent spe-cies o wildlie, or to see additional aspects such as a country’sheritage and culture. By providing additional opportunities or

tourism, tourists can be encouraged to stay longer and spendmore money in a country, having initially been attracted to visitin order to view some o its wildlie.

The economic eects o tourism also stimulate other sectors oeconomy, both through the demand rom the tourism sector or

products and services rom other local sectors – or example,rom local agricultural producers – and by increasing householdincomes, which are then re-spent on local products and servi-ces. As a result, relatively low levels o tourism can provide asignicantly greater stimulus or local economic development.

At national level, tourism plays a major role in the economies oa growing number o developing countries, and countries witheconomies in transition, and in many o these, tourism based on

wildlie watching and nature is signicant. For example, tour-ism ranked as one o the top three export sectors or more than three-quarters o all developing countries in 2000, and was theprinciple export in a third o these countries15.

Overall, income rom wildlie watching tourism can enter a country’s economy at a number o dierent points. A simplied modelo the monetary fows associated with tourism and protectedareas, which are important centres or wildlie watching, shows

how tourist dollars enter the economy through payments madeby tourists to tourism-related businesses and to the protectedareas (or wildlie watching sites) that they visit, and through tax-es levied at national or local level (Figure 1). In some cases, theactual fows may mostly be to tourism businesses and nationalor local government, but these fows depend on the presence owildlie and natural environments that are in good condition.

As a part o these fows, it is important that protected areas andwildlie watching sites are properly unded or eective wildlieconservation and tourism management, and that associatedlocal communities also receive support or their development.These unds may be obtained directly by charging tourists or

2



2

Wildlie Watchingwildlie viewing, and where the local community has access to

employment in tourism, or is able to establish successul tourismenterprises. In other cases – or example, in places where itis not practical to charge tourists or wildlie watching – it maybe necessary to use other mechanisms to ensure that sucientunds are made available or conservation and wildlie manage-ment, and or local community development. For example, Pro-jeto TAMAR in Brazil undertakes turtle protection activities at

many sites on the Brazilian coastline. Tourism based on turtle

watching has been developed as an important source o undingor the project and o economic benets or local communities,but not all sites have the same potential or tourism. To balance

this out, a system has been developed in which sites with low tourism potential provide products or sale at those with greater tourism potential, and the revenues rom sales o these productsare returned to the sites that produced them.

Figure 1: A simplied model o the monetary fows associated with tourism and protected areas16

National Government

Local Government

Tourists

Government Funding

Entrance Fees

Payment or

Goods & Services

Employment & Wages

Return o Income

over Budget

Employment &Wages

Inrastructure &

Management Costs

Licences &

Use FeesBusiness

Business &

Sales Taxes

Employment &Income Taxes

Local Communities

Departure &

Hotel Taxes Protected Areas

© Richard Tapper 2004



2

It is important to note that most studies o the economic valueo wildlie watching tourism are based on direct expenditure by tourists on their wildlie watching trips – which is relatively simp-le to measure - and do not include the value o other importanteconomic benets that are generated as a result o direct ex-penditures on wildlie watching tourism. These benets include

the stimulation o supporting economic activities, promotion o tourism to a country or region, and the value o environmentalservices that are protected as a result o the incentives thatwildlie watching tourism provides or conservation.

Direct expenditure on wildlie tourism thereore provides a mi-nimum estimate or the overall economic value o such tourism.Estimates o the indirect economic eects o wildlie watchinggenerally nd that these eects are at least equal to and otenexceed the value o direct eects in terms o both income andemployment generation. For example, a detailed study o theeconomic eects o bat viewing in the city o Austin in Texas,ound that the overall economic value o visits to view bats was

more than twice the direct expenditure on meals, accommodati-on and transport, that was made by the hundreds o people whovisited a popular bat viewing site by a city bridge.

2.2 p

Through the income it generates, wildlie watching tourismprovides an incentive to conserve the species that are beingwatched, and their habitats. Is wildlie watching tourism alsoable to help reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods o poorcommunities? How might such a contribution be achieved?

Much o the wildlie that tourists want to watch is located in ru-ral areas. These tend to be poorer than urban areas, and to oerewer employment opportunities. In these areas, wildlie watch-ing tourism can potentially provide an alternative source o in-come and employment. Compared to many other sectors, jobcreation in tourism can require lower capital expenditure, andgenerates employment particularly or women and young peo-ple, as well as providing opportunities or entrepreneurship and

development o small rms. Measured in terms o contribution toGNP and numbers o international arrivals, tourism in some o theleast developed countries, such as Laos and Vietnam, is growingmuch aster than in more developed areas, and has become anincreasingly important economic development tool or many de-veloping countries. These countries have rich wildlie, and sig-nicant proportions o the growth o their international tourismare linked to nature-based and wildlie watching activities.

Country International Tourism – 1990-2000Annual average growth rate (%)17

Laos 35.9

Vietnam 24.0

South Arica 19.3

Cuba 17.9

Brazil 17.1

Madagascar 11.6

Costa Rica 9.8Indonesia 8.8

Dominican Republic 8.6

World average 4.4

Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata),

© Robert Yin / UNEP / Still Pictures



2

While increasing international tourism can make important con-

tributions to a country’s economy at national level, the UN WorldTourism Organisation (UNWTO) has ound that seven elementsalso need to be in place to enable the economic benets o tou-rism to reach the poor18. These are:

• Employment o the poor in tourism enterprises

• Supply o goods and services to tourism enterprises by thepoor or by enterprises employing the poor

• Direct sales o goods and services to visitors by the poor (in-ormal economy)

• Establishment and running o tourism enterprises by the poor

• Tax or levy on tourism income or prots with proceeds bene-ting the poor

• Voluntary giving/support by tourism enterprises and tourists

• Investment in inrastructure and social services stimulatedby tourism also beneting the poor in the locality, directly or

through support to other sectors

These elements are not always easy to put into practice, andwhere international tourists orm the main tourist segment in acountry, local enterprises will have to meet international tou-rists’ basic expectations o standards and quality. This can beachieved very successully in some cases: or example, when

the Serena Hotels Group opened our new luxury properties lin-ked with game reserves in Tanzania, it recruited 400 new ull timesta rom local people ew o whom had previous experience ooperating to high international hospitality standards19. Recruit-ment methods were modied to suit local conditions, and new-ly-recruited sta given in-depth training beore the propertiesopened. Fish, vegetables and other oods are also purchasedlocally to provide additional economic benets to the surroun-

ding communities.

Where local people and producers are able to meet the stan-

dards required or employment in and production or enterprises that cater or international tourists, tourism can provide consi-derable benets or local economies. However, to meet the de-mands o the international tourism sector, tourism in developingcountries can be dependent on high levels o imports, and otenon high levels o oreign investment. In such situations a sig-nicant proportion – which can be 50% or more20 – o tourismrevenue ‘leaks’ rom their national economies.

Various measures can be used to reduce this leakage, such asby encouraging the tourism sector to replace imports with localpurchasing, and working with local producers to raise the qual-ity and quantity o their goods and services in order to meet therequirements o the tourism sector. The private tourism sectorcan play a major role in shiting towards greater use o local staand local purchasing, and there are number o examples o goodpractice, such as the approach used by the Serena Hotels Groupin Tanzania.

All orms o tourism, including wildlie watching, can play a po-sitive role in promoting economic and social development, pro-vided that they are environmentally, economically and sociallysustainable, and developed in ways that are compatible with

the needs and priorities o local communities. At the same time,however, tourism is also a highly dynamic business sector, and

tourism in any area will only succeed i there is an actual mar-ket demand or it rom tourists, and i it is possible or tourismbusinesses to provide suitable tourism products and packages

to satisy that demand.

Because o this, it is thereore vital to understand the expectations o tourists and trends in tourism markets, as these willdetermine whether wildlie watching tourism can be developedinto a viable and protable activity, and one with a potential orcontributing to poverty alleviation and community development,at any particular site.

In addition to the seven elements that are needed i benets rom tourism are to reach the poor, the UNWTO has also identied a



2

series o other actors that aect the viability o tourism activities

and their relevance – or otherwise – to dierent communities21:

• For communities to be able to benet rom tourism, they need to have the capacity to engage in and take advantage o thenew opportunities that tourism can oer, and the tourism thatis developed will need to complement and support their otherlivelihood activities and options.

• For tourism to be viable and protable, it needs to meet the

standards that are expected by the market including in theways that it is designed, priced and marketed, the reliabilityand quality o the services and experiences that are oered,and its general attractiveness in relation to competing pro-ducts that are available at other sites.

The contribution that tourism is able to make to poverty reduction, and also to wildlie conservation, can also change at di-erent stages o the ‘tourism cycle’. The tourism cycle is a com-

mon and well-dened pattern o tourism development: an initialperiod o early development with gradual growth in tourism isollowed by a period o rapid expansion and growth. In the nextstage growth slows and then stops when there are no more pos-sibilities or expansion, and in a nal stage tourism may go intoa period o decline.

In the early stages o the tourism cycle, development at any lo-cality oten includes a large component that draws on locallyavailable resources, requires low capital investment, and hasstrong links with local communities. At this stage, environmen-

tal impacts rom tourism can be relatively slight, while benetsor local communities – through employment opportunities andpurchases o local goods and services – can be signicant or

the communities involved. There is a gradual increase in num-bers o visitors as tourism in the locality becomes more estab-lished and better known.

In response to increasing visitor numbers, a more rapid phase

o tourism expansion begins, in which larger tourism accom-modation units and acilities – requiring greater levels o capitalinvestment – are constructed. Although these acilities employ

more people, they also have higher training requirements orsta recruitment and may bring in employees rom elsewhere:as a result, employment opportunities may decline or those in

the community who are poorest and have only basic education.At the same time, this phase can cause signicant environmen-

tal impacts, and put increased pressure on wildlie, leading todeclines in the quality o the eatures on which tourism is based.In turn, this leads to a decline in overall income rom tourism,although numbers o tourists can still remain high i prices arelowered to attract less afuent tourists.

For example, dolphin watching at Samadai Ree o the EgyptianRed Sea coast was subject to excessive visitation that reducedits quality, and tour prices had to be lowered rom around USD

Fishermen in Cape Verde, © M. Marzot / FAO / 17098



2

60 - 80 per visitor to USD 10, reducing income and encouragingeven higher levels o visitation. The Red Sea Marine Parks suc-cessully addressed this problem by instituting the Samadai Ser-vice Fee Programme22 charging an access ee o USD 15 perperson per day or access to the ree by motor boat and USD 7per person per day or access by sail boat, and using a ticketingsystems to enorce a daily limit o 100 divers and 100 snorkelersat the ree.

In order to ensure that the initial contributions o tourism to pov-erty reduction and community development are maintained, it isimportant to manage the expansion o tourism careully throughland use planning controls, by developing plans that are compat-ible with the needs and wishes o local communities, and keep-ing development at a slow-enough pace to be able to manage iteectively.

Arabic caravan with little boy, © John Newby / SSIG



30

case study: sea turtles and tourism inProjeto TAMAR protects ve

species o turtles that areound around Brazil’s coasts.Established by the Braziliangovernment in 1980, it takesits name rom the contrac-tion o ‘TArtaruga MARinha’,the Portuguese name or seaturtle. TAMAR is constitutedas a non-governmental orga-

nisation aliated to IBAMA,the Brazilian government’senvironmental institute, andcurrently receives sponsor-ship rom the Brazilian pa-rastatal oil company, Petrob-ras.

Beore TAMAR was set up,

no sea turtle conservationactivities existed in Brazil:although they were listedas endangered species, theywere disappearing rapidly,due to shing, and collectiono turtle eggs at their nestingbeach sites.

From the start, TAMAR’s ap-proach has ocused on com-munity involvement in turtleprotection and research asthe keystone to the turtle con-servation programme. It hasapplied a highly participativeapproach to draw local peo-ple into turtle conservationand the search or economic

sustainable alternatives ortheir communities. Based onthis approach, TAMAR has

supported improvements or

shing activities, which in-crease income to shermenwhile protecting turtles, anda range o other livelihoodopportunities, including tou-rism and handicrats pro-duction. These activities arealso used to generate undsthat contribute to the pro-

ject’s budget.

TAMAR’s conservation pro-gramme is based on a net-work o 22 stations along1,100 km o coastline, as wellas on three oceanic islands.The stations are located inthe major nesting and ee-

ding areas or sea turtles,and provide direct employ-ment to 1,300 people, at least80 percent o whom are sh-ermen and their relatives re-sident in villages around thestations.

Visitor centres have beenopened at the 10 most vi-sited sites, and betweenthem they receive one anda hal million visitors eachyear. The most popular, atPraia do Forte, receives over500,000 visitors a year, ap-proximately ninety-our percent o whom are Brazilians;in 2003 this centre generated

net revenues o USD 490,000rom sales and admissions,contributing around 17 per

cent o Projeto TAMAR’s an-nual budget o USD 2.9 mil-lion. In addition, visitors toTAMAR stations also createlarge indirect expendituresin local businesses.

The visitor centres charge anadmission ee equivalent to

USD 3 per person per visit,and provide a range o dis-plays – including live turtles

rescued rom shing nets,lectures and video exhibiti-ons to raise awareness aboutturtle conservation, as wellas restaurants, bars and gitshops that sell TAMAR pro-ducts and local crats. Visi-tors also have opportunitiesto go on guided tours and

to participate in eldwork with TAMAR’s researchers– including participation in

Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) suracing to breath,

© Alejandro Fallabrino



31

brazilnight-time turtle hatchling

tours, or a ee o USD 35,during the nesting period,guided by TAMAR biologistswho provide interpretationon the turtles and on theirresearch.

TAMAR has active program-mes to train people or em-

ployment in tourism andthrough this to promote so-cial inclusion. One o these,the Mini Guides Programme,annually trains around 60local youngsters aged tento teen years old, in basicaspects o sea turtle biologyand marine conservation, as

well as providing them withskills to interact with tourists.The mini guides also receivestipends that enable themto continue their studies atschool, and regular schoolattendance is a condition ortheir participation in the MiniGuides Programme. Whentrained, the mini guides be-come part o TAMAR’s staand work at visitor centers,where they lead touristgroups and gain urther ex-perience in conservation ac-tivities.

At several stations, TAMARalso oers training – such

as ree surng courses – tocommunity members to helpimprove their prospects oremployment in tourism.

Tourism is only easible as an

income generating activityat some o TAMAR’s stations.To enable communities inlocalities with low tourismpotential to benet rom thehigh levels o tourism thatoccur at other sites, TAMARhas developed a ‘social pro-duction chain’ in which the

stations with low tourismpotential produce productsor sale at sites with visitorcenters. In 2003 the socialproduction chain resulted innet sales that totaled USD1.47 million, providing in-come or amilies at siteswith low tourism potential,

and revenue to und conser-vation activities.

In addition to its communi-ty-based conservation acti-vities, TAMAR has a majorresearch programme on seaturtles in Brazil, includingtagging or mark-and-re-capture monitoring o turtlemovements and populationbiology. Research resultsproduced by TAMAR, andthrough partnerships withthe national and internatio-nal scientic community, arepresented at specialist mee-tings and published in scien-tic journals worldwide.

One o the eatures oTAMAR is the emphasis thatit places on sel-suciency

in coastal communities, and

detailed evaluation o thesocio-economic as well asconservation results romits programmes, includingits tourism components.This ocus is maintained byTAMAR’s policy or recrui-ting its sta as ar as pos-sible rom local village resi-

dents.

Today, through TAMAR’s e-orts, sea turtles, with theirwidely recognisable image,have become a symbol ormany Brazilian people, afagship or marine conser-vation and a responsible re-

lationship between peopleand their environment.

Source:• Neca Marcovaldi and Lu-

ciano Soares, Projeto TA-MAR-IBAMA

• Maria Ângela Marcovaldi,Victor Patiri, and João Car-los Thomé (2005) ProjetoTAMAR-IBAMA: Twenty-ve Years Protecting Brazi-lian Sea Turtles Through aCommunity-Based Conser-vation Programme, MAST,3(2) and 4(1): 39–62.

• Projeto TAMAR website —

www.projetotamar.com.br

• Claudia F. Vieitas, Gusta-ve G. Lopez, and Maria Â.Marcovaldi (1999) Localcommunity involvement inconservation—the use omini-guides in a program-me or sea turtles in Brazil,

Oryx, Volume 33, p.127



32

case study: little penguins in phillipPhillip Island Nature Park is

Australia’s most popularnatural wildlie attraction.In 2005, the park received626,542 paying visitors whocame to watch penguinsand koalas. Just over halo these visitors came romoutside Australia. Admissi-on ees raised A$6.3 million

or the park in 2005, and aurther A$2.5 million wasraised rom sales o souve-nirs, ood and beverages.

The park is on part o the tra-ditional lands o the Bunu-rong Aboriginal people, andwas developed to protect

one o the last remainingnesting sites or Little Pengu-ins on the coast o the Stateo Victoria. Over the pastcentury, at least nine othersites have been destroyedby housing and urban de-velopment. Establishing asel-nancing nature park was the only way to protectthe Phillip Island colony romsimilar development.

The nature park is small– covering just 1805 hecta-res – and raises all its undsrom the three main touristattractions that it has develo-ped: Penguin Parade – when

between 300 to 2000 LittlePenguins come ashore eachevening to their sand dune

burrows, the Koala Conser-

vation Centre, and ChurchillIsland. Each o these attrac-tions has achieved the high-est level o ecotourism certi-cation that is available romEcotourism Australia.

To maintain a steady income stream rom visitors, mar-

keting o Phillip Island as atourist attraction is highlyproessional, and conductedin the same way as or anymajor commercial attraction.The marketing strategy inclu-des attendance at a numbero international tourism airs,as well as domestic marke-

ting through national mediaand the Internet, rebrandingto maintain and promote aresh image or the park andits attractions, and nationalpromotion campaigns. Therange o attractions is usedto encourage tourists tospend 1 – 2 ull days on theirvisits to the nature park.

The large numbers o visitors make it essential to ensurethat wildlie watching is wellmanaged. In particular, thePenguin Parade is watchedby three-quarters o thevisitors to the park undervery controlled conditions:

most viewing is conductedrom enced boardwalks, oror smaller groups, rom an

elevated viewing tower, andrangers provide interpretati-on about the penguins, theirecology and behaviour. Thepark also provides closerpenguin viewing on a sepa-rate beach or groups o upto 10 visitors on a ranger-guided tour. Viewing ees

range rom A$ 17 (USD 12)per person on the board-walk, and A$ 40 (USD 28) or

the tower, to A$ 60 (USD 42)or the ranger-guided tour,and provide tourists with achoice o dierent optionsand pricing.

As well as unding provi-sion o tourist acilities thatinclude walking tracks, sa-

nitation, interpretation andmanagement programmes,revenues rom tourism to

Little penguins (Eudyptula minor), © Takver



33

island nature park, australiaPhillip Island Nature Park

support major research, con-servation and environmentalinitiatives. Overall, the park,which is a not-or-prot or-ganisation, is able to employa large sta – 149 people in2005 – to manage tourismand conservation, and to un-dertake research. Bunurong

community representativesare also involved in the de-livery o interpretative andeducation programmes inthe Nature Park, and in su-pervision o some projects.

Conservation management in-cludes revegetation around

built inrastructure, propa-gation o indigenous plantspecies, control o introdu-ced predator species, suchas oxes, which are a signi-cant threat to the Little Pen-guin population, and a koalabreeding programme. Thepark also carries out a widerange o research on the eco-logy o Little Penguins, andon other species which cur-rently include Crested Ternsand Australian Fur Seals, andits researchers published 39papers in research journalsduring 2005.

In order to manage tourism,

conservation and researcheectively, Phillip Island Na-ture Park uses a combinati-on o strategic and business

planning. A Nature Park

Management Plan is prepa-red every ve years throughextensive consultation withstakeholders and the com-munity. This covers environ-mental management; foraand auna management; in-rastructure and acilities; re-search and education; visitor

experiences; and communi-ty relationships. In addition,detailed business plans areprepared annually.

To meet its vision to be aworld leader in environmen-tal, economic and sociallysustainable nature-based

and ecotourism experiences,the park has set goals or e-ective marketing and provi-sion o high-quality ecotou-rism experiences, as well asor excellence in conservati-on and wildlie research.

The Nature Park Manage-ment Plan is currently beingreviewed and updated orthe period to 2010. TheCommunity and Stakehol-der Consultation Process orthis includes meetings withconservation and heritagegroups, local tourism organi-sations and open communi-ty orums, and key State and

local Government agencies.The process is overseen byan 8-person multi-stakehol-der committee.

The approach o PhillipIsland Nature Park showshow excellent product deve-

lopment and marketing hasbeen used to create a wild-lie watching experience thatis extremely popular, well-controlled to ensure that thehigh volume o tourism doesnot have adverse eects onthe penguins and other spe-cies in the park, well-support-ed in the local community,and which makes a majorcontribution to conservationand research.

Sources:• Phillip Island Nature Parks

Annual Report 2004-2005

• Phillip Island Nature Parkswebsite www.penguins.org.au

Little penguin (Eudyptula

minor), © Takver



3

case study: the monarch butterlyThe Monarch butterfies o Me-

xico and North America un-dertake an annual migrationrom a ew overwinteringsites in Mexico to breedingsites in United States and asar north as the southern parto Canada. Over successivegenerations the migratingMonarch butterfies travel as

much as 5,000 km, and are asource o interest and enjoy-ment or millions o people.

Although the butterfiesspread out across the NorthAmerica continent duringthe spring and summermonths - they over winter in

Mexico in just a ew orestsites. Every autumn, a newgeneration o Monarchs but-terfy leaves its home in theUnited States and Canadaand journeys south to Me-xico. This particular genera-tion o Monarchs completesthe southern journey to Me-xico and spends the winterin protected orested areas.These orest sites are loca-ted within the Sierra Madremountain range, and eachsite may be no bigger thanthe size o three ootball pit-ches, with as many as 20 mil-lion butterfies congregatingin each one, where they may

stay or more than 100 days.In the spring this over winte-ring generation o Monarchs

mate, and a new generation

is born and undertake theirnorthern migration.

In 1986, the Mexican Govern-ment established the SpecialBiosphere Reserve o theMonarch Butterfy to pro-tect the Monarchs’ ve mainoverwintering sites. The

protected areas encompass16,110 hectares o orest inthe States o Michoacan andMexico, in one o the mostdensely populated areas othe country. These areas arelocated in, and also help toprotect a major watershedthat supplies water or two

large cities.Initially only one o thesesites was open or tourism,but with increasing numberso visitors a second site wasopened or tourism in 1996.Municipalities also orga-nised Monarch Butterfy Fes-tivals to promote tourism.By 1999, around 250,000mostly Mexican tourists, vi-sited these sites. The scaleo visitation, and its concen-tration into the period romJanuary to March, when 80%o all visits are made, crea-ted a number o economicopportunities or the area

– such as establishment orestaurants and a handic-rats trade – but also created

problems or planning andwaste management.

In 1997, the Monarch Butter-fy Model Forest project wasestablished by the MexicanMinistry o Environment andNatural Resources (SEMAR-NAT) and the InternationalModel Forest Network, with

joint unding rom the Me-xican and Canadian Govern-ments. With the assistance

o the Manitoba Model Fo-rest in Canada, the projecthas now successully esta-blished an ecotourism in-rastructure in our Monarchbutterfy visitor centres, pro-moted the protection o theMonarch butterfy in recrea-tion centres, and implemen-ted tourism management

practices or two Monarchbutterfy sanctuaries.

Monarch butteries (Danaus plexippus),

© Allen Montgomery / USFWS



3

model orest in mexicoThe Special Biosphere Reserve

o the Monarch Butterfy islocated in one o the mostdensely populated regionso Mexico. In order to pro-tect the Monarch sites, andto promote community de-velopment and protection oorests and environmentalresources throughout the re-

gion, the Monarch ButterfyModel Forest project has o-cused on creating a range osolutions to livelihoods andincome-generation or thepeople throughout an areao 300 x 250 km.

With the support o the Ma-nitoba Model Forest, theproject has undertaken re-orestation o areas o criti-cal Monarch Butterfy overwintering habitat within andnearby two protected Mon-arch Butterfy Sanctuaries,and has provided trainingin ecotourism or local peo-ple. Canadian experts have

been brought in to advise onorest management and treenursery management, envi-ronmental assessment, traildesign and ecotourism.

The Monarch Butterfy Mo-del Forest is working to im-prove and utilize the existing

inrastructure in the sanc-tuary areas or Monarchsthat are already open to thepublic, and to diversiy tou-

rism based on other natural

and cultural eatures o theregion (examples includescenic driving tours, arche-ology, colonial history, ruralarm tourism, birdwatching,hiking, and kayaking). Thiswill help to spread visitorsthrough the region, reducingpressure on the Monarchs’

overwintering sites, enab-ling more communities tobenet rom tourism and orlonger periods o every year.

The Model Forest region’scommunities are being in-volved in all aspects o theproject, and participate inthe decisions, development,evaluation, ollow up pro-cesses, and execution o allproposed activities. Com-munity members are alsoinvolved in specic tourismroles such as interpretiveguides, nature guards, andadministrators in the saleso artcrats, as well as being

employed in the construc-tion and reconditioning othe local inrastructure.

Threats to the Monarchs inclu-de logging in Mexico and de-struction o milkweed – theplant that is the Monarchs‘major ood source on which

they lay their eggs – in theirbreeding grounds in theUnited States and Canada.Their survival depends on

the cooperation o all threecountries in North America.The cooperation betweenMexico and Canada on theMonarch Butterfy Model Fo-rest shows the importance

o an integrated approachthat addresses not just thespecic conservation issuesat individual sites, but alsooverall social and economicactors in surrounding com-munities.

Sources:• J. Trent Hreno. Chair, Inter-

national Committee, Ma-nitoba Model Forest Inc.

• Manitoba Model ForestInc. 2004 Annual Report

• Planeta.com

• Joseph M. Keszi, Eco-

tourism Development inMexico’s Monarch Butter-fy Model Forest Region(Bosque Modelo MariposaMonarca):1998 Explorato-ry Trip Findings, SummaryReport prepared or Ma-nitoba Model Forest

Monarch butteries in a tree (Danaus plexippus),

© Milton Friend / USFWS



3

case study: bracken cave & congressThe Congress Avenue Bridge is

home to the largest urban batcolony in the United States.Located in Austin, Texas, itsupports approximately 1.5million Mexican ree-tailedbats (Tadarida brasiliensis),which emerge as a specta-cular fock during the eve-ning to eed. The bats inhabit

the underside o the bridgerom March through Novem-ber, and migrate south du-ring the winter months. Eachsummer evening, they con-sume approximately 14,000kilograms o insects includ-ing countless pests. The colony’s emergenceshave become a tourist attrac-tion or city residents, whomake up a third o bat wat-ching visitors, and tourists tothe city. Each evening, thebats are viewed by between200 – 1500 people rom a batviewing area, which includesa series o inormation pa-

nels on bats and their eco-logy and behaviour that hasbeen established on a gras-sy hill beside the bridge.

No charge is made to view thebats, but the economic be-nets or the local area aresignicant. A survey con-

ducted or Bat ConservationInternational (BCI) gatheredinormation rom nearly 900

visitors about their expen-

ditures during their bat wat-ching visits using a combina-tion o interviews and surveyorms. This inormation anddaily data on visitor num-bers at the bat watching site,resulted in the estimate thatvisitor expenditures directlyconnected to bat watching

visits is in excess o USD 3million a year.

BCI also own and manageBracken Bat Cave and Na-ture Reserve, which waspurchased to protect it romhousing development. Thecave houses a large bat ma-ternity colony o around 20million Mexican ree-tailedbats rom March to October– the bats migrate to Mexi-co during the winter. Likebats in general, this speciesis threatened by develop-ment, and loss o eedingand roosting habitats; largecolonies are also at risk rom

vandalism.

Access to the reserve is rest-ricted to BCI members, whopay an annual subscriptiono USD 35, invited visitorsthat include potential do-nors, students and other ci-vic organizations, and local

volunteers who assist withthe running o the reserve.

Around 35,000 day visits are

made to Bracken Bat Caveeach year. Group size andaccess is managed to mi-nimize disturbance to thebats, and an interpreter ac-companies every group ovisitors. Facilities or tourismat the site are very basic,but BCI has plans in place to

construct an interpretativecenter which would be ope-ned to public access, and tomove viewing urther awayrom the cave entrance thancurrently permitted, in orderto reduce impacts.

Source:• Andy Moore and Barbara

French, Bat ConservationInternational (BCI)

• Gail R. Ryser and RoxanaPopovici (1999) The FiscalImpact o the CongressAvenue Bridge Bat Colonyon the City o Austin, a stu-

dy or BCI



3

avenue bridge bat colonies, texas, usa

At dusk millions o Mexican ree-tailed bats stream out o breeding cave in Texas, © Fred Bruemmer / Still Pictures

conservation beneits rom Wildlie3



3

EEconomic expenditures associated with wildlie watching tou-

rism are large. There is thereore a huge potential or some o the revenues generated through wildlie watching tourism to beused to contribute to conservation o the watched species. Tou-rism businesses also have an incentive to protect the species

that they bring tourists to watch.

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Guidelines on Biodi-versity and Tourism Development identiy a number o potentialbenets o tourism or wildlie conservation in protected areas

that include:

• Revenue creation or the maintenance o natural resources o the area;

• Contributions to economic and social development, such as:

– Funding the development o inrastructure and services;

– Providing jobs;

– Providing unds or development or maintenance o sustai-nable practices;

– Providing alternative and supplementary ways or commu-nities to receive revenue rom biological diversity;

– Generating incomes;

– Education and empowerment;

– An entry product that can have direct benets or develo-ping other related products at the site and regionally;

– Tourist satisaction and experience gained at tourist desti-nation.

Examples rom around the world show how tourism has been

used successully to help und conservation activities, and th-rough this, to protect wildlie and habitats that might otherwisehave been destroyed or subjected to alternative uses with ar

conservation beneits rom Wildlie

greater environmental impacts. For example, conservationistsset up crocodile watching saaris on the Black River in Jamai-ca to protect the crocodile population which was threatened bypoaching. Projeto Tamar has successully promoted the conser-vation o turtles along the Brazilian coastline, and has helped toimprove turtle numbers by protecting hatcheries – introducingmore than 600,000 turtle hatchlings to the sea in 2003 alone. Pro-

jeto Tamar has achieved this by working with local communitiesand shermen to establish alternative employment and incomestreams based on turtle protection.

In the Annapurna Conservation Area in Nepal, where tourism isan important activity, observations o several deer species haveound that they are more abundant in the conservation area thanoutside it23. A census o mountain gorillas in the Democratic Re-public o Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda, has ound that the

population is increasing, and that the greatest increase is evidentin gorilla groups that are habituated or tourism and regularly vi-sited. In Península Valdés, Argentina, the whale population is

3

Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), © WDCS

Watching



3

Watchingincreasing and the high number o mother-cal pairs in nursery

grounds there suggest that they are unaected by current whalewatching activities.

In the Galapagos Islands and Bunaken National Marine Park,wildlie watching tourism provides all or most o the annual bud-get or park management, including the costs o managing tou-rism. In the Seychelles, whale shark watching is used to raise

the unds needed or monitoring and research or whale sharkconservation.

In Mexico, conservation o the main overwintering sites orMonarch butterfies, which together cover only a ew hundredhectares, has been integrated with a much larger project – theMonarch Butterfy Model Forest – ocused on improving liveli-hoods and income-generation opportunities or people and com-munities throughout an area o 300 km x 250 km. The projecthas promoted community development and protection o orestsand environmental resources throughout this region, as well asrestoring critical Monarch Butterfy overwintering habitat, andproviding training in ecotourism or local people.

These examples and others like them, show how tourism, con-servation and community development can work together. Ho-wever, it cannot be assumed that this will always be the case.Tourism can only be a suitable strategy or making a contribu-

tion to conservation in situations where wildlie and associatedhabitats are suciently resilient to withstand the impacts anddisturbance that comes rom visitation; where visitation and

tourism development can be kept within acceptable limits in thelong-term; and where it is possible to establish viable tourismbusinesses.

Many development and conservation projects over the past twodecades have incorporated a tourism component with the aimso generating revenues that would contribute to on-going pro-ject nancing, and providing an alternative source o incomeand employment or local communities. However, there has

been little detailed evaluation o the eectiveness o many o these projects in terms o the on-going viability o tourism activities, and eects on conservation and wildlie. There is oten no

reliable inormation gathered on levels o visitation and incomerom tourism, on the costs associated with the management owildlie watching tourism at conservation sites – such as provi-ding rangers to oversee visitation, and providing and maintainingvisitor acilities, sanitation and waste disposal arrangements– and on the eects o tourism on the watched species and theirhabitats.

One study o World Bank GEF-related projects, ound that a ma-jority o these mention ecotourism as an important source orevenue or the protection and sustainable management o re-sources, but o the 94 projects that did state this, only 8 carriedout any kind o detailed quantitative analysis o the income to bederived rom ecotourism.

The study ound that while the role o such tourism can be im-

portant, it was not always the key or most important source orevenue, and additional income rom other sources was otenneeded. It concluded that given the combination o a statedimportance o ecotourism and a limited quantication o its im-pacts, there is danger that too much will be expected rom thissource; and that this needs to be avoided by careul assessmento what can be achieved24.

This highlights a need or projects that incorporate wildlie

watching elements to prepare business and marketing plans or these elements, in addition to considering the conservation is-sues.

Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), © K.-E. Heers



0

3.1 r

For wildlie watching tourism to contribute to conservation atany site it needs to25:

• Cover the costs o:

– management o tourism to avoid or minimise damage,

– providing and maintaining appropriate acilities or tou-rists,

– raising awareness amongst tourists o the importance oconservation, and o practices and behaviours that assistconservation

– restoring damage that tourism activities may cause

• Generate additional revenues rom tourism that can be used to support general conservation activities

• Demonstrate through tourism the long-term economic valueo conservation both nationally and locally by generating tan-gible benets or local communities – or example, by genera-

ting employment and stimulating private sector activities

Successul wildlie watching tourism may also generate non-

monetary benets that can include valuable political and govern-ment support or species conservation, as well as support romlocal communities and key stakeholders, and public awarenesso the signicance o wildlie in the national heritage.

A number o economic studies have shown in a range o dierentcontexts that wildlie watching tourism – or example, o whalesand dolphins, sharks, or on land, o gorillas – provides much gre-ater real economic returns compared to the value o catching

a wide range o species or ood or processing. For example, the direct income rom tourism at turtle nesting sites is on ave-rage at least three times the income that can be obtained rom

consumptive uses o turtles, and also generates urther indirect

expenditures that can be even greater than direct income26

.

Projeto TAMAR has used tourism based on turtle watching tocreate viable livelihood alternatives or coastal communities inBrazil. However, as Projeto TAMAR shows, or this to be possib-le, local communities have to receive a air share o income rom

tourism i they are to be able to switch rom livelihoods based onconsumptive uses o species such as turtles.

Other studies regularly show that wildlie watching tourists areoten willing to pay signicantly more than current access eesor wildlie watching, while protected areas which constitutemajor wildlie watching sites oten lack the resources and undsrequired or eective management. It thereore makes sense toreview how to get a better balance between the costs o con-servation management and ees charged or access to wildliewatching sites.

The main mechanisms that are used to raise unds rom tourismor conservation and or community development are27:

• Entrance ees

• User ees

• Concessions and leases

• Direct operation o commercial activities

• Taxes

• Volunteers and donations

Mostly unding is raised through charging a mix o entranceees or access to wildlie watching sites, user ees or thoseundertaking specic activities such as snorkeling or scuba di-ving, concession and lease ees to allow tour operators to run

wildlie watching tours - such as guided walks, vehicle saarisor whale watching boats – at wildlie watching sites. Some sitesalso operate wildlie watching activities directly and charge or



case study: bunaken national marine



2

case study: bunaken national marineBunaken National Marine Park,

established in 1991, encom-passes almost 90,000 hec-tares, including ve islandsand some o the North Su-lawesi mainland. The park has pioneered an innovativeco-management approachwhich is now being used asa model by some other pro-

tected areas in the region.

Bunaken has an extreme-ly high level o marine bi-odiversity, which includesaround 70 genera o corals,and 2,500 sh species, ma-king it popular with gro-wing numbers o scuba di-vers. The park is also hometo 30,000 people who livewithin the park boundary,and whose livelihoods arebased on shing. Eecti-ve management o the park thereore depends on balan-cing its use or shing andtourism, with requirementsor conservation.

The co-management approach ensures that all the inte-rests o all groups who livein or utilise the park are ullytaken into account. Park ma-nagement is overseen bythe multistakeholder Buna-ken Management Advisory

Board (BNPMAB) which wasestablished by the Indone-sian government. The 19

seats on the board are allo-

cated to 10 non-governmen-tal and 9 governmentalorganisations, and includerepresentatives o the 30villages within the park, thepark authority, the Tourismand Fisheries Departments,the local university, and theprivate tourism sector.

One important outcome o thisapproach has been replace-ment o a complicated andineective zoning schemeor the park with a muchsimpler scheme that hasbeen developed through anextensive consultation pro-cess, which involved over50 public meetings, to deter-mine current use patterns inthe park and public wishesor uture management. Thenew zoning scheme establis-hes just three dierent usezones, each with clearly de-ned boundaries, and permit-ted and prohibited activities.

Joint eorts are also under-way, involving villagers andlocal tour dive operators, torestore rees that have beenreduced to rubble by blastshing. The rst two reerestorations were started in2004 using special ‘Ecoree’

modules that were assemb-led by the villages o Negeriand Alung Banoa, and positi-

oned by dive operators romthe North Sulawesi Water-

sports Association (NSWA).With an initial transplantati-on o corals and natural rec-ruitment o juvenile corals tothe modules, the area can beexpected to host a thrivingcoral ree within 3-5 years iwell-managed.

The modules were installedin no-take management zo-nes designated by the villa-

gers as sanctuaries or adultcoral ree shes to grow and

spawn, and next to a populardive site. The restoration willhelp to maintain the quali-ty o diving, and to increasesheries yields in adjacentareas.

Tourism is an important andgrowing activity in the

park. Just over 39,000 peo-ple visited the park in 2003.Around three-quarters o the

Crinoid on hard coral (Comantheria briareus), Bunaken,

Sulawesi, Indonesia, © Patricia Jordan / Still Pictures

park indonesia



3

park, indonesiavisitors are domestic day-

visitors who come to enjoyBunaken’s beaches, while in-ternational visitors come todive on the rees. The park charges visitors a user eeo USD 6 or a day ticket, orUSD 17 or an annual ticket,to use the park’s acilities.Dive tags and tickets are

purchased through marinetour operators based in thenearby city o Manado andin the national park, or romticket booths in the park, andenorcement o the ee sys-tem is conducted via spotchecks by park rangers onland and at sea.

Proceeds rom sales o divetags and tickets are mana-ged by the Bunaken NationalPark Management Adviso-ry Board (BNPMAB), whichuses these unds to nanceconservation and develop-ment programmes such asvillage improvement sche-

mes, collection and disposalo plastic and other was-te, conservation educationo park residents, ree andmangrove rehabilitation, andpatrols and law enorcementaimed at ending destructiveshing practices.

The growing popularity oBunaken is putting pressureon dive sites. In 2003, around

9,000 divers each conduc-

ted an average o 15 diveson Bunaken’s rees – a totalo 135,000 dives. A recentobservational survey oundthat recreational divers re-quently touch or hold ontothe rees – on average 40 ti-mes an hour per diver – andalso deliberately disturb se-

diments or auna during di-ves. The most heavily divedsites in the park had high le-vels o dead coral rubble andvery high levels o brokencorals and coral ragments,consistent with high levelso dive-related impact.

Although there are over 120dive sites in Bunaken, mostdiving is concentrated onjust a third o these, becau-se o ease o accessibility,manageable currents, suita-bility or training, and touristexpectations. At these hea-vily-dived sites, diving bymultiple operators occurs

on a daily basis, with romthree to a maximum o sixboats operating at the sametime on the busiest days.

Worldwide studies have oundthat damage is greatest du-ring the rst ew seasons odiving at a new site, and that

once any site receives morethan 6,000 dives per year,the level o damage increa-

ses dramatically. This levelis already exceeded at someo Bunaken’s dive sites, andthere is a need to spread di-ves between existing divesites, and improve dive brie-ngs and guide procedures,to reduce overall impacts.

The NSWA has been wor-king to ensure high stan-dards amongst its memberdive operators, but withmore than 40 dive operatorsnow working in and aroundBunaken, not all o whom

are members o the NSWA,it is becoming more dicultto use a voluntary approachto ensuring good practices.A new licensing system maythereore need to be desig-ned in order to manage visi-tation by granting a limitednumber o dive operator

licenses, and setting limitson boat capacity, dive guideto diver ratios, and other ap-propriate actors.

Sources:• UNEP (ed.). 2002. The Sta-

tus o Coral Ree Manage-ment in Southeast Asia: AGap Analysis. Report pre-pared by Heidi Schutten-berg, and David Bizot

• www.icran.org/pd/itmems/T4_BunakenMPAco-mgmt.pd

• Managing Marine Tou-rism in Bunaken NationalPark and Adjacent Waters,North Sulawesi, Indonesia

By: Lyndon de Vantier andEmre Turak, January 2004- Technical Report or theNatural Resources Ma-nagement Program (NRM),Jakarta, Indonesia

• Mark V. Erdmann, NorthSulawesi Provincial Ad-

visor, in NRM HeadlineNews, Issue 12, August2004

Underwater view o the Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia,© Patricia Jordan / Still Pictures



national park germany



national park, germanyresting sites was introduced

in 2003.

The ‘Crane Ticket’ system hasbeen developed as a public-private partnership that in-volves Müritz National Park Authority and the NationalPark Service OHG, which is alocal tourism company thathas contracted guiding andbus services rom two morecompanies. Tickets cost v7per visitor, and there is a limito 130 visitors each evening.The ticket price includes thebus transer rom the nearbytown o Waren (Müritz). Vie-wing is conducted in groupso up to 20 visitors, and is

conned to two locations.Free access to the restinglocations is prevented bypartial closure o trails du-ring the evenings. The Natio-nal Park Rangers control therestrictions and provide oneguided tour to each location,and the tourism company

provides urther guides, whoare usually experienced con-servationists.

The income rom the CraneTicket is just sucient to co-ver the costs o the privateservices that are involved.Although the income does

not directly support con-servation in the park, thescheme provides signicantnon-monetary benets or

conservation by regulating

viewing and minimizing anydisturbance to the cranes, byproviding a general incentiveor tour companies linked tocrane conservation, and byenabling the park to promo-te greater awareness o cra-ne ecology and conservationand the interpretation that itprovides.

The Crane Ticket also helpsto promote tourism to theregion in the lower season.In 2005, a total o 3,100 visi-tors took advantage o theCrane Ticket in Septemberand October. Some hotelsalso include Crane Tickets

as a special oer or theirguests.

Monitoring o the cranes showsthat there have been mini-mal impacts on the cranessince the Crane Ticket wasintroduced. Besides cranes,visitors can also requently

observe red deer and the rut-ting o red deer stags, wildboar, white-tailed eagles andother animals in their habi-tat. Guiding provides goodinterpretation o the cranes’ecology and migration thatcreates a high quality visitorexperience and also ensures

visitor behaviour does notdisturb the cranes.

Source:• Job et al. (2005): Ökono-

mische Eekte von Groß-schutzgebieten, BN-Skrip-ten 135, Bonn

• www.nationalpark-mueritz.de

• www.nationalpark-service.de

• Jens Brüggemann, Assis-tant Director, Müritz Natio-nal Park Authority

Landscape Müritz National Park, Germany, © Ulrich Meßner.

case study: Watching Whale sharks in



case study: Watching Whale sharks inThe Marine Conservation So-

ciety, Seychelles (MCSS) isusing whale shark watchingtourism as a way o raisingunds or its whale shark re-search programme and oraising awareness about theimportance o conservingthese animals. Whale sharksmigrate over huge distancesin the Indian Ocean, and inother ocean basins, and area protected species in theSeychelles and in the Mal-dives, the Philippines, India,and Western Australia. Theyare threatened by boat stri-kes, since the species ge-neral swims near the oceansurace, and also, in several

parts o the Indian Ocean, byillegal sheries. Up to 200 whale sharks visitspecic coastal areas aroundMahe between July to No-vember most years. Theyappear to be aggregating inthese areas to eed on dense

zooplankton patches causedby the seasonal upwellingo nutrients caused by theprevailing trade winds. Mostspecimens are juveniles andare requently seen eedingat the surace, very ew adultspecimens have been notedin the 10 years o the MCSS

programme.

Whale sharks are plankton

eeders and their size – withadults reaching lengths o upto 18 metres – and relative ra-rity makes them a species ogreat attraction or recreatio-nal divers and other wildliewatching tourists. However,very little is known about theeects o such encounterson the behaviour and ecolo-gy o whale sharks.

The sharks do react to thepresence o both boats andswimmers in the water nearthem, usually in a positivemanner by coming closerto investigate, however thismay lessen their eeding

time and an Encounter Codehas been developed througha national public workshopto minimize the potential ornegative disturbance. Thecode limits the distance aboat may approach a shark,allows only one boat within acontact zone o 200m around

a shark or a maximum o 30minutes, limits the numbero people in the water with ashark to eight, and requiresthat they keep a minimumdistance o 3 metres romthe shark, do not touch it oruse fash photography.

The Encounter Code hasbeen adopted and is in useby the MCSS on their moni-

toring and encounter trips,and is awaiting ormal legis-lation by the Government oSeychelles.

On encounter trips, payingvisitors are taken to thesharks using boats charteredrom local commercial ope-

rators so that there is directincome into the local indus-try. All trips run by the MCSS

start with an overview o themonitoring and encounterprogrammes, the code oconduct and a general sae-ty brieng. Increasingly visi-tors are coming specicallyto participate in this activity,rather than it being an addi-tional activity chosen oppor-

tunistically when visiting; assuch there is a substantial in-fux into the supporting tou-

Whale shark (Rhincodon typus) with scuba diver,

© Chris Goodwin / MCSS

the seychelles



the seychelles

rism industry by the bookingo hotels, restaurants, trans-ers and similar tourism ser-vices.

The sole purpose o thecurrent encounter program-me is to raise unds or theMCSS monitoring and con-servation activities, whichinclude studies on the wayin which encounters aectwhale sharks. Inormationis recorded about all encoun-

ters including details o du-ration, the number o peoplein the water, the behaviouro the whale shark(s) and thereason why the encounterterminated. Aerial observa-tions are also being carriedout to record whale shark behaviour in the absence o

external disturbances romboats and people.

Stakeholder involvement hasbeen important in establish-ing the Encounter Code, anddeveloping the MCSS mo-nitoring and encounter pro-

grammes or whale sharks.Community involvement ispromoted through publicworkshops, a bi-monthlynewsletter that gives regularreports on monitoring activi-ties and sightings o whalesharks, and by regular visitsby the MCSS Research O-

cer to local organisations.

In 2005, 496 tourists partici-pated in whale shark watching, providing a to-tal income o just overUSD 35,000, split betweenUSD 14,500 in direct in-come to boat operators, and

USD 20,500 to support theMCSS whale shark monito-ring programme. However,the total added value o

tourism rom these visitors,including travel and accom-modation expenditures, wascalculated to amount to ne-arly USD 1.75 million. Num-

bers o visitors participatingin the whale shark encounterprogramme are projected toincrease to 880 in 2008.

Sources:• David Rowat, Marine Con-

servation Society, Seychel-

les

• J.G. Colman (1997) A re-view o the biology andecology o the whale shark,Journal o Fish Biology 51,1219–1234

• Rowat, D. and Engelhardt,

U. (In Press), Seychelles: Acase study o communityinvolvement in the deve-lopment o whale shark

ecotourism and its socio-economic impact.

• Seychelles whale shark encounter policy procee-

dings www.mcss.sc/ wha-le shark encounter policy_proceedings.pd

• Seychelles whale shark workshop proceedings.www.mcss.sc/whaleshark _workshop _proceedings.pd

• Cesar, H.S.J., van Beu-kering, P.J.H., Payet, R.,Grandcourt, E., 2003. Eco-nomic Analysis o Threatsto Coastal Ecosystems inthe Seychelles: Costs andBenets o ManagementOptions. Report to the Sey-

chelles Marine EcosystemManagement Project. Mi-nistry o Environment, Vic-toria, Seychelles.

Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus), © Alan James Photography /

MCSS

Whale shark (Rhincodon typus), © Alan James Photography /

MCSS

case study: gorilla Watching tourism



case study: gorilla Watching tourismGorilla tourism has mostly con-

centrated on mountain goril-las in Rwanda, DemocraticRepublic o Congo (DRC) andUganda, but more recently,the development o tourismlinked to lowland gorilla po-pulations in west and centralArica has also been explo-red. By 2000 our groupso gorillas in Rwanda, threein DRC and three in Ugandawere habituated and visitedby paying tourists. This rep-resented approximately 70%o the Virunga population.Since then, lowland gorillagroups have been habitu-ated in the Central AricanRepublic, and Republic o

Congo.

Gorillas are highly endan-gered: there are less than1000 mountain gorillas and110,000 western lowland go-rillas estimated to remain inthe wild, and they are sub-ject to threats rom logging

and land conversion to agri-culture, which ragment theirorest habitat, and make iteasier or poachers to killgorillas or the bushmeattrade. From a conservationperspective, even thoughthere are risks to gorillasrom tourism, these are ar

less than other threats: itis also argued that withoutthe incentives, revenue and

international attention rom

tourism, the mountain go-rilla population would nothave survived.

Currently, tourists payaround USD 350 per personor a permit to watch moun-tain gorillas, in addition topaying park entrance eesand or their guides. Thisprice ensures that gorillawatching tourism generatessignicant amounts o reve-nue, and helps to managedemand rom tourists orgorilla watching.

Gorilla watching tourism alsoleads to expenditures by tou-

rists on accommodation andother services during theirvisits, and attracts them totravel in countries that theymight not otherwise visit.For example, nearly three-quarters o the 8,000 touristsvisiting Uganda each yearor gorilla watching, also vi-

sit other national parks in thecountry. These indirect ex-penditures, which are not di-rectly associated with gorillawatching, would not occur inthe absence o gorilla wat-ching tourists, and have ma-jor economic signicance.

Thus gorilla watching is im-portant as much or its indi-rect economic eects as well

as or the revenues that itgenerates directly. It is alsosignicant in that it promo-tes protection o the orestswhich provide the gorillas’habitats, and thereore helpsto preserve the valuable eco-system services providedby the orest, or example,

as a water catchment ordownstream agriculturalareas, and by preventing soil

erosion o the slopes o theVirungas.

The main issues or gorilla con-servation and tourism areassociated with problemso stress in the habituationprocess, potential loss ogorillas to human diseases

through contact with visitorsand guards, and the risksposed to habituated gorilla

Mountain gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei), © Patrick Van

Klaveren



hoW to address risks to the sustainabi4



0

TTourism can provide benets or conservation, but at the same

time may also give rise to a number o adverse eects. Thesearise both directly rom disturbance caused by wildlie watchingactivities, and indirectly rom the construction and operationo tourism acilities, and the general background levels o dis-

turbance rom tourism. Such adverse eects can be avoidedor minimized, providing that sucient resources and unds areavailable or eective management, and that tourism develop-ment is subject to proper planning controls and limits. For ex-ample, limiting visitor numbers and accompanying visitor groupswith trained guides helps to minimise the direct disturbance owildlie; and walkways can be installed to reduce habitat dama-ge rom trampling by visitors in heavily visited areas. Tourismacilities can be planned so that they are situated well awayrom sensitive areas or wildlie, and overall development keptwithin clear limits that are established to prevent unacceptableimpacts.

Although some species – such as those that thrive in towns andcities – adapt easily to human presence, many are highly sensiti-

ve to disturbance. Crane species, or example, will take fight toavoid disturbances such as noise or visitors with bright clothing.Glow-worms have even been observed to reduce the intensity o

their glow – which is used to attract the insects on which theyeed – i they are caught in torchlight beams used to guide tou-rists on glow-worm watching tours.

Wildlie watching tourism requires careul planning, manage-ment and monitoring i it is to take place without risk to the spe-

cies that are watched or their habitats, and to bring benets to local communities. The aim o planning is to establish clearobjectives and targets or wildlie watching tourism, which are

then implemented through appropriate management actions.Monitoring is used to check whether targets are being met - andi targets are not being met, management actions are adjustedand improved to achieve them in uture. This ‘adaptive manage-ment’ approach enables continuous improvements to be made inmanagement actions or conservation, tourism and community

benets, based on lessons learned rom day-to-day manage-ment experience.

Requirements and issues or successul conservation manage-

ment are generally quite dierent rom those or successul tou-rism management, or or successul community development,and each involves dierent expertise. In planning or sustain-able wildlie watching tourism, it is thereore important to nd

those places where the requirements or conservation, tourismand community development are compatible with each other and

to recognise that elsewhere wildlie watching tourism is unlikely to be successul and cannot be sustainable.

Three key questions need to be addressed in planning or wild-lie watching tourism:

• How can wildlie watching be managed in a way that is com-patible with conservation o the watched species and asso-ciated habitats?

• Is there a realistic market demand or tourism managed in thisway?

• How would the local communities be able to benet romsuch tourism?

Siberian crane (Grus leucogeranus), © Irina Gavrilova / Oka

Crane Breeding Center

lity o Wildlie Watching



1

Answering these questions requires inputs that draw on the ex-

pertise o a range o dierent stakeholders. This can best beobtained by encouraging all the relevant stakeholders to parti-cipate in planning and setting objectives or wildlie watching

tourism. Involving stakeholders in the planning process can bea powerul way to identiy interests that they share, and to gene-rate local commitment to plans, and associated regulations, orwildlie watching.

Participatory approaches to planning wildlie watching tourismare being used widely: successul examples o stakeholder par-

ticipation include adoption o a voluntary code o conduct orwhale watching in Península Valdés , and establishment o no-shing zones and dive sites as part o the overall zonation oBunaken National Marine Park.

4.1 e w Wildlie watching tourism can have adverse eects on wildliein three main ways – by causing changes in their behaviour, to

their physiology, or damage to their habitats. There are alsorisks associated with both pressures or urther tourism expan-sion that can build up as destinations and attractions becomebetter known and more popular, and rom the sharp changes that

can occur in levels o visitation to particular sites or regions romyear to year, which arise rom competition between destinations,changes in the preerences o tourists, and concerns o touristsor their personal security.

Behavioural eects o disturbanceIndividuals that are subject to disturbance will spend less time

eeding or resting, and more energy on trying to move away rom the source o disturbance, perhaps shiting to more remote orless productive eeding grounds: they may also ace greater

competition rom other species, and be more vulnerable to pre-

dation, in these less avoured eeding grounds. Evidence or this has been ound in a wide range o species groups, includingcetaceans, great apes, and birds. For example, both chimpan-zees and dolphins have been observed to eed less, and to bemore watchul, when being observed by tourist groups.

Species are oten particularly vulnerable to the eects o disturbance during their breeding periods, and during their juvenilestages. Any disruption o courtship and mating behaviours, orlater on, o care or ospring, reduces overall breeding success,and thereore is a serious threat to population maintenance andsurvival. For example, i the cubs o big cats, such as cheetahsor leopards, become separated rom their mothers, they arevulnerable to predation. Tourists are oten particularly keen towatch mother-ospring groups, and thereore great care is nee-ded to limit and control any tourism around them.

Physiological eects o disturbanceRecent studies have also ound physiological changes in animalssubject to disturbance through tourism. These changes includealterations to their blood chemistry, such as increases in the le-vels o stress hormones in their blood, and additional changes inindividuals that are regularly ed by humans as part o the tourismexperience, such as stingrays at Stingray City and the Sand Barin the Cayman Islands. The long-term implications o such phy-siological changes on the survival o individuals and populations

are only beginning to be investigated. However, such changesemphasise the need or caution in managing populations thatare regularly the subject o wildlie watching activities.

In addition, a ew species, such as the great apes, are suscep- tible to human diseases against which they have little or no im-munity. Contact with tourists may thereore increase the risko disease transmission to the populations o these animals thatare being watched.



2

Habitat damage and disturbance

Wildlie watching tourism can also result in damage to sites andhabitats where species are watched. One dramatic example o this is the damage that is commonly reported to coral rees atsites that are regularly visited by large numbers o recreationaldivers. Breakages o coral destroy ree organisms, and reduce

the habitat available to sh or spawning and eeding. This in turn reduces the abundance o marine lie at these sites, andultimately makes them much less attractive to divers.

In addition, tourism acilities that are primarily used by touristswho come to watch wildlie, and impacts rom solid and liquidwastes, can also be a threat to wildlie habitats. For example,international visitors who come to dive around the rees oBunaken National Marine Park in Indonesia, mainly use home-stay accommodation. Although the majority o homestays makesignicant eorts to minimize physical impacts on Bunaken’srees, most also use septic wastewater and sewage treatmentsystems and a high proportion o these are located within 50metres o a beach. Should leakages occur rom the systems,

the nutrient enrichment o coastal waters would damage nearbyrees.

4.2 r

There are urther risks that arise rom the dynamic nature o tourism itsel. Levels o visitation to tourist attractions can behighly variable rom year to year, depending on latest consumerpreerences, competition rom other destinations and attrac-

tions, and on perceptions o personal saety in dierent countries. I wildlie conservation and communities become sig-nicantly dependent on income and employment rom tourism,

then any drop in tourism will have serious social and economic

consequences. It is thereore important to develop diversiedsources o income or both conservation and communities, and to avoid over-reliance on wildlie watching tourism.

An equally signicant risk is the extent to which establishment

o even low levels o tourism may activate the ‘tourism cycle’and expose areas to a rapid and oten poorly planned and unco-ordinated expansion o tourism. Such expansion can be both acause o habitat loss, and increased pressure and disturbancerom tourists on wildlie watching areas. For example, part o

the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico is experiencing sig-nicant increases in numbers o day visitors as development ohigh-volume tourism in the Riviera Maya expands and hotels arebuilt nearer to the Reserve, making access easier. The day visi-

tors, who come to participate in snorkeling and diving on a section o the Meso-American Barrier Ree system, spend relativelylittle in the Reserve and the local community, but present a majorproblem or management o wastes and sanitation. Furthermore,

the local dive sites are suering damage rom overuse, and thepresence o day visitors is making the Reserve less attractive or

the low-volume high-value tourism which has been an importantsource o income or many years. The Reserve is working withlocal dive operators to improve management o dive sites, buthas no power to control the numbers o people who travel into

the Reserve as day visitors.

General tourism developments can also be a threat to certainspecies. For example, coastal tourism development in manyparts o the world continues to cause serious impacts and dam-age to turtle nesting areas on beaches. This underlines the needor eective land use and coastal area planning to protect keywildlie sites rom development.

4.3 m - w

Provided watched populations and their habitats have sucientperiods o time in which to recover ollowing each disturbance

by tourists, overall eects on population health and reproductionare likely to be low. But as the scale and requency o tourism towatch a particular population o animals increases, the recovery



3

periods become shorter and the impacts o disturbance on wild-

lie can rapidly increase.

Disturbance is damaging to animal populations and their habitats, and reduces the quality o the tourism experience. For ex-ample, heavily-visited dive sites on coral rees oten display veryhigh levels o damage to coral, and a reduced number o shspecies and other ree organisms. It is thereore vital to plan andmanage wildlie watching tourism in ways that minimise impactson wildlie. Main options or visitation management or wildliewatching are to:

• reduce visitation – by restricting the numbers o tourists al-lowed into viewing sites at any one time, by increasing eesor visitation, and/or by restricting the times when viewing isallowed – examples o this are the Crane Ticket introduced atMüritz National Park, or the schedules used by the GalapagosNational Park to spread visitation over a number o sites

• modiy visitation – by altering the way in which wildlie wat-

ching is conducted:

– by brieng visitors on appropriate behaviour while wildliewatching, and by setting up codes o conduct or wildliewatching – For example, regulations or gorilla watching

tours require that tourists remain at least 7 metres awayrom gorillas, and do not make loud noises or take fash pho-

tographs. Periods o contact with gorilla groups are limited to a maximum o one hour per day, and all tours are led by

registered and trained guides, and limited to a maximum o8 tourists (6 in Uganda). For whale watching, regulationsat most whale watching sites speciy a minimum approachdistance o 100 metres between whale watching boats andwhales at the surace, or a period o 15 minutes. Only oneboat can be this close at any time, and one other boat ispermitted to wait in an ‘approach zone’ extending 300 me-

tres rom the watched whales.

– by providing trained guides to accompany visitor groups toprovide interpretation and supervise wildlie viewing

– by moving viewing sites urther away rom the animals that

are being watched – or example, the WDCS encouragesland-based watching wherever possible, in preerence to watching whales rom boats – or by installing hides toscreen tourists rom wildlie

• redirect visitation – by developing alternative attractions andinrastructure, such as visitor and interpretation centres, vie-wing points, and additional wildlie watching sites in less sen-sitive locations – an example is the Serengeti National Parkwhich is setting up areas where visitors can get out o their

vehicles to undertake specic activities, such as short guidedwalks or viewing water-birds

• prevent visitation – by closing wildlie watching sites and as-sociated inrastructure to protect sensitive areas, or to allowor maintenance and restoration

In some cases, it is also possible to use habituation to increase the ability o some species – such as primates – to tolerate ob-

servation by tourist groups.

Many tourism businesses recognise the important role that theyhave to play in ensuring that their tours are conducted respon-sibly and minimise adverse impacts on the environment andwildlie. They also recognise the value o visitor managementmeasures designed to maintain healthy populations o the wild-lie which their customers come to view, and the need to providea high quality experience or their visitors by avoiding overcrowd-

ing. For example, the North Sulawesi Watersports Associationhas worked closely with Bunaken National Marine Park on in-

troduction o dive ees, and helps to collect these ees on behalo the Park. Surveys also reveal that recreational divers andother types o visitor to Bunaken and many others sites have ahigh willingness to pay or entrance and user ees or wildliewatching, provided that they can see that the revenues raisedare being used eectively or local conservation, community de-velopment, and tourism management.

Many tour operators that provide specialist wildlie watchingholiday packages already provide detailed inormation on wild-



The outcome o planning or wildlie watching tourism is a serieso objectives and targets or conservation, community benetsand tourism. Conservation objectives will generally include tar-gets or maintaining a healthy population – or example, settingminimum population numbers and measures o breeding suc-cess. Objectives or community benets may include settingaside a portion o tourism revenues to be spent on communityprojects, and training and employment o a minimum number opeople rom local communities. Tourism objectives will general-ly include minimum and maximum numbers o tourists, qualityo the tourism experience, provision o appropriate acilities and

qualied guides or tourism, and targets or tourism income.

Overall, objectives or wildlie watching tourism set a maximumacceptable level or tourism in any area or or any group o wat-ched animals that is based on conservation, social and tourismconsiderations.

4.5 t w w

Measures or minimising disturbance described so ar, applymainly to management o wildlie watching activities at specic

sites or groups o sites. However, as the example o pressuresrom shits and expansion o tourism at Sian Ka’an illustrates, themanagement o wildlie watching tourism can also be aectedby development o regional inrastructure or tourism. The na-

ture o the tourism cycle means that tourism rarely stops at a lowlevel o visitation, unless there are very rm – generally physical– limits in place. As any locality becomes better known, and asaccess becomes easier, tourism can begin to grow rapidly, at apace that can make it dicult to ensure that growth is coordina-

ted and well planned.

There are several implications o rapid tourism growth or wild-lie watching: rst, there is likely to be a greater demand or wild-lie watching activities, and this demand may exceed the limitsor sustainable wildlie watching, particularly at the more acces-sible viewing sites. Without eective controls to keep visitationwithin sustainable limits, disturbance o the watched animal po-pulations will increase, and the quality o the wildlie watchingexperience will be aected by overcrowding.

The second actor is that new local tourism operators are alsolikely to become established, and may be less committed to sup-

porting conservation and working to generate benets or localcommunities. For example, in recent years the number o diveoperators in Bunaken National Marine Park has expanded to 40,and many o the new operators have not joined the North Su-lawesi Watersports Association, which was established by thedive operators who were active in Bunaken in the mid-1990s topromote responsible dive practices and conservation. A thirdactor is that there may also be pressure on areas used or wild-lie watching rom unanticipated and competing tourism activi-

ties32.

Managing these issues requires a combination o strong spa- tial and land use planning, and eective management o wildliewatching tourism sites, or example in licensing concessions,setting standards or wildlie watching and habitat protection,and ensuring that tourism operations comply with these stan-dards. This in turn can only be achieved i wildlie and conser-vation managers have the necessary legal authority and political

support.

case study: managing tourism on the



The Galapagos Islands are re-nowned or their rare andexceptional wildlie – inclu-ding giant tortoises, marineiguanas, sea lions and birds,such as Darwin’s nches, al-batrosses, boobies and ri-gatebirds. In recognition otheir importance, UNESCOdesignated the islands in1978 as the rst-ever natural

World Heritage Site. The Ga-lapagos National Park andthe Galapagos Marine Re-sources Reserve have beenestablished to protect andmanage these unique islandecosystems.

The Galapagos Islands are

also Ecuador’s most populartourist destination, and re-ceive nearly 70,000 visitorsannually who come to viewthe wildlie o the islands,and who travel and stay ontourist boats. These visitorsgenerate 11 % o Ecuador’stourism income, and the

unds or the National Park and Marine Resources Re-serve are generated rom a45 % share o entrance ees– currently set at USD 100per person – or internationalvisitors.

The Islands and their wildlie

are vulnerable to human im-pacts rom both visitors andthe growing local population.

Tourism is thereore verycareully managed througha combination o zoning, a‘xed itinerary’ system orboats carrying more than 20passengers, and a voluntarycertication scheme or tou-rist boats.

Visitor sites are divided intothree management zones:

• sites where visits are per-mitted or several groupso tourists at a time, andwhich can be visited byall sizes o tourist boats(intensive use zone)

• sites which may only be

visited by groups o up to16 visitors, one group at atime, and which are usedby smaller vessels (exten-sive use zone)

• sites or use by local resi-dents and visitors seekingless expensive alternati-

ves or recreation, educa-tion, hiking, and camping(recreational zone)

The 54 terrestrial visitor sites intotal cover less than 1% o thetotal land area o the Natio-nal Park, and in the intensiveand extensive use zones, tou-

rists must be accompaniedby trained guides and keepto marked trails o between

1-1.5 metres width, whichare used to protect sensitivewildlie, and to keep physi-cal impacts o visitation onsoils and vegetation withinvery limited and manageab-le areas. The majority o the64 marine visitor sites aredesignated as extensive use

zones with visits limited toindividual small groups, ordiving, snorkelling, and in

a ew sites or small launchrides.

Studies suggest that this ap-proach to visitor manage-ment is working successul-ly – or example, comparisono visited and non-visitedbreeding colonies o birds

shows that visitation overseveral decades has not hadany detectable eects on re-

Elderly couple is observing two sea lions in Ecuador,

© Reiner Heubeck / Still Pictures

galapagos islands, ecuador



productive success o thesebirds.

Around 80 tourist boats cur-rently licensed to operate inthe Galapagos Islands. Tocontrol pressure on visitorsites, the National Park setsa ‘xed itinerary’ each yearor every boat that can carry20 or more passengers. The

itinerary sets a schedule orvisits to sites by individualboats. Smaller boats havean open itinerary and provi-de the National Park with thefexibility to move visitorsrom overused sites to un-der-visited ones.

Apart rom direct visitor e-ects, some o the majorthreats to the unique wild-lie o the Islands come romrisks o introduction o alienspecies, and o pollution byliquid and solid wastes. Topromote minimisation o theenvironmental impacts rom

tourist boats, and to ensuregood working practices andlocal community benetsthrough tourism, a volunta-ry certication programme– SmartVoyager® – has beenintroduced.

The programme was de-

signed by an Ecuadoriannonprot organization - Cor-poración de Conservación

y Desarrollo (CCD) – withexperience in ecotourismand ecolabels, and is guidedby an advisory committee– comprised o the Ecuado-rian Minister o Tourism, sci-entists, park ocials and re-presentatives o the tourismindustry. The InternationalGalapagos Tour OperatorsAssociation, representing

the companies that managetourism in the islands, sup-ports the program by dis-tributing inormation to thetour operators and the tou-rists themselves.

The certication standards co-ver potential sources o pol-

lution, such as wastewaterand uels, and set rules orall aspects o tour boat ma-nagement, including thesmall crat that erry visitorsashore. Procurement andsupply management guide-lines are designed to mini-mize the chances o introdu-

cing alien wildlie species tothe area. The standards re-quire good living conditionsand advanced training orthe boat crew and guides.Passengers must be givenmaximum opportunity to ap-preciate the beauty o the is-lands and close encounters

with wildlie while leavingno trace o their visit.

The programme helps boatoperators to access experttechnical advice and sup-port on how to implementthe certication standards.Boats are inspected annu-ally, and provided they stillcomply with the certicationstandards, certication is re-newed or a urther year. Theboat operators pay or audits

and the use o the SmartVoy-ager® label.

These tourism managementmeasures are essential orprotection o the ragile en-vironment o the GalapagosIslands, and or maintainingthe quality o the visitor ex-

perience.

Sources:• Jose Valdivieso, Bob Toth,

James Hanna and JuanQuintero (2003) Ecuador:Fostering environmentallysustainable tourism and

small business growth andinnovation in the Galapa-gos, World Bank ‘en breve’June 2003 No.26 A regularseries o notes highligh-ting recent lessons emer-ging rom the operationaland analytical programo the World Bank‘s Latin

America and CaribbeanRegion

• Craig Macarland (ormerDirector, Charles DarwinResearch Station) (2000)An analysis o nature tou-rism in the Galápagos Is-lands

• Silvia Benitez (2001) VisitorUse Fees and Concessi-on Systems in ProtectedAreas: Galápagos Natio-

nal Park Case Study, TheNature Conservancy Eco-tourism Program TechnicalReport Series, No. 3

• Font, X. & Buckley, R.

(Eds.) (2001) Tourism eco-labelling: certication andpromotion o sustainable

management, Wallingord:CAB International

case study: Whale Watching, península



Península Valdés in Argentina isthe nursery ground or one othe largest remaining popu-lations o southern right wha-les. This population has beenstudied since 1970 and nowregisters an annual growtho 7%. This species migratesapproximately 2000km romits eeding grounds to theirnursery ground in the pro-

tected waters o the Penín-sula Valdés area. On the nur-sery ground, the whales aredistributed close to shore inshallow waters, where theycan be seen predictablyrom June to December. Forthis reason, Península Valdéshas become one o the best

places in the world to watchthe southern right whale atclose range.

Whale-watching tours havebecome the main tourist at-traction in the area, and havegrown rapidly since the early1990s. In 1991, around 17,400

people participated in boat-based whale watching: sincethen the number participat-ing has grown at around14% per year, and in 2004,96,400 passengers went onwhale-watch tours at Penín-sula Valdés.

The rst whale-watch regu-lations or Valdés were crea-ted in 1984 by adapting laws

rom other countries. In 2001,the Península Valdés Protec-ted Natural Area was createdand a Management Plan wasapproved. Península Valdéswas declared a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 1999.The Management Plan in-corporates a no-access zonerom which all vessels areprohibited, and a restricted

access zone which is onlyopen to authorized wha-le watching boats. Anotherzone is provided where onlydiving with authorized diveoperators is permitted. Di-ving with marine mammalsis orbidden in all the zones.

The whale watching regula-tions orbid approach and/orharassment, sail, swim anddiving with any marine mam-mal species and their calves,inshore and oshore, in pro-vincial waters during thewhole year. The regulationswere updated in 2004, when

tour operators, governmentrepresentatives and resear-chers agreed a VoluntaryCode o Conduct that wouldbe in eect or the short termuntil more detailed monito-ring studies on the eects owhale watching on the wha-les have been completed.

The Voluntary Code o Con-duct includes the ollowingregulations:

1 no more than one boat per

group o whales;

2 no driting toward the ani-mals with engines o;

3 always approach whalesrom their side or back and never rom in ront;

4 do not chase whaleswhen they begin to swimaway rom the boats;

5 do not approach a brea-ching whale closer than100 m;

6 restrict the maximum

time with each individualor group o whales to 15minutes;

7 leave the whales only

when their location relati-ve to the boat is certain;

8 do not exceed 10 knotswhen returning rom atrip.

Provincial Wardens supervise all whale watching activities,

and operators can be nedthe equivalent o between250 - 2000 entry ees or bre-aking the whale watching re-gulations, and their permitssuspended or a minimumo 5 days or revoked in themost serious cases.

The regulations also esta-blish minimum standardsand qualications that Whale

Blue whale (Baleanoptera musculus), © WDCS

valdés, argentina



Watching Tour Operatorsmust meet in order to begranted a whale watchingpermit, places a limit o twoboats per operator, and setsa maximum capacity o 70passengers per boat. Thetotal number o operatorslicensed at each site is alsocontrolled. A maximum ove licenses is issued or

the Golo Nuevo watchingsite, which is the centre oa growing concentration omother-cal pairs, and six oroperators based in PuertoPirámides. Each companymust pay the government aee o USD 1.75 per passen-ger.

Península Valdés is one othe places where the Whaleand Dolphin ConservationSociety (WDCS) organizesspecialist travel packagesthat are designed to givepeople an opportunity to wit-ness the spectacular natural

behaviour o whales anddolphins in the wild. Thesetours are careully plannedto ensure that they are assustainable and responsibleas possible, minimising im-pact upon the local marineand terrestrial environmentsby using only the best localwhale watch operators andoering land-based viewingwhenever possible; and by

also working closely withlocal coastal communitiesto ensure that they benetdirectly rom the presence ovisitors, who use local trans-port, stay in local accom-modation, and enjoy localoods.

The WDCS has supported anorca conservation project

on the Peninsula since 1990,and uses the revenue gene-rated rom its commercialtravel packages to und con-servation work on whalesand dolphins around theworld. Tours in PenínsulaValdés are accompanied bya WDCS researcher, who

provides detailed interpre-tation o cetacean behaviourand biology based on long-term experience rom stu-dying whales and marine liearound in the region. Theopportunity to learn rom ahighly knowledgeable wild-lie biologist is an added at-

traction or tourists who jointhese tours.

Sources:• Vanessa Williams, Conser-

vation Manager, WDCS,the Whale and DolphinConservation Society

• Cooke, J.G., Rowntree, V.Jand Payne, R. 2001. Estima-

tes o demographic para-meters or southern rightwhales (Eubalaena austra-lis) observed o PenínsulaValdés, Argentina. J. Ce-tacean Res. Manage. (Spe-cial Issue 2):125-132.

• International WhalingCommission. 2001. Reporto the Workshop on the

Comprehensive Assess-ment o Right Whales: AWorldwide Comparison.J. Cetacean Res. Manage.(Special Issue 2):1-60.

• Payne, R., V.J. Rowntree,J.S. Perkins, J.G. Cookeand K. Lancaster. 1991. Po-

pulation size, trends andreproductive parameterso right whales, Eubalae-na australis, o PenínsulaValdés, Argentina. Rep. Int.Whal. Comm. (Special Is-sue 12):271-278.

• Rivarola, M., Campagna, C.

and Tagliorette, A. 2001. De-mand-driven commercialwhalewatching in Penín-sula Valdés (Patagonia):conservation implicationsor right whales. J. Cetace-an Res. Manage. (SpecialIssue 2) :145-151.

• Rowntree, V.J., Payne, R.S.and Schell, D.M. 2001.Changing patterns o ha-

bitat use by southern rightwhales (Eubalaena austra-lis) on the nursery groundat Península Valdés, Ar-gentina, and in their long-range movements. J. Ceta-cean Res. Manage. (SpecialIssue 2):133-143.

• Sironi, M; Schteinbarg, R;Losano, P. and Carlson C.

(2005). Sustainable whalewatching at Península Val-dés, Argentina: An assess-ment by owners and cap-tains o local whale watchcompanies. Submitted atthe Scientic Committeeo the IWC. SC/57/WW2.

conclusions and recommendations5



0

TThe case studies included in this report have been selected toillustrate some o the main approaches that are being used orwildlie watching tourism and management with dierent spe-cies around the world. They are just a ew o the many that couldhave been chosen as examples o good practices. However inmany parts o the world where wildlie watching takes place,sites may be under threat rom both a lack o resources or e-ective management and also rom external pressures.

Even the case study sites experience problems in managing wild-lie watching. In Mexico, the Monarch Butterfy Model Forest

has been a response to solve problems created through povertyand lack o livelihood opportunities – by creating opportunities

through a programme o community development and improvedorest management, including major reorestation, pressure hasbeen taken o the sensitive overwintering sites or the Monarchbutterfies.

In several sites, there is high variation in the quality o guidingand leadership o tour groups, and sometimes the guides them-

selves ignore regulations to minimise disturbance to animals, touching ree dwelling organisms to make them move so that di-vers can see them, or breaking branches so that tourists can getbetter photos o gorilla groups. This can be the result o a com-bination o poor training, pressure o expectations rom touristsor close-up viewing opportunities, or desire or a better tip.

In some sites, expansion o tourism poses risks that visitationwill exceed the numbers that can be managed without leading to

unacceptable changes.

Such problems are not uncommon, and they can be rectiedprovided all the relevant stakeholders commit to nding ways

to overcome them. The case studies include a number o ex-amples o participative planning through workshops, seminarsand advisory boards that bring wildlie managers, tourism busi-nesses and the local community together to discuss and agreehow best to manage wildlie resources and dierent, potentiallyconficting uses.

Participative approaches are just as essential or nding a wayout o problems – or example, where there have been poorenorcement o regulations or wildlie watching, conficts withcommunities around wildlie watching sites, or problems withwildlie management leading to a decline in population levels orhabitat quality. Resolving such problems will generally requirea multi-stakeholder approach as the rst step towards a more

sustainable path or the uture.

The continuing worldwide growth in tourism, and the tendency o tourism to ollow the ‘tourism cycle’ with a stage o rapid growth that is oten dicult to control, mean that wildlie watching tou-rism can also be expected to continue to increase. This is likely

to lead to more pressure on existing wildlie watching sites, theiranimal populations and habitats, and to development o wild-lie watching activities in new areas and or new species. It is

thereore vital or governments, conservation managers, and the tourism sector, to monitor the eects o tourism on wildlie, tounderstand better the way the tourism sector operates in rela-

Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) eeding, © Dave Olsen /

USFWS



2

• Improve understanding o the biology o watched species andmonitoring o the eects o tourism on them

• Improve guide training and interpretation

• Evaluate the conditions required or wildlie watching tourism to be a viable option particularly or generating net revenuesor conservation and benets or local communities

• Improve planning and management o tourism in protectedareas and wildlie viewing sites

Improve understanding o the biology o watched species andmonitoring o the eects o tourism on themRelatively little is known about the biology o watched speciesand the eects that wildlie watching tourism may have on them.Most wildlie watching guidelines are based more on attempting

to minimise the most visible stress that can be caused to ani-

mals, or example by crowding rom wildlie watching tours, or through eeding and contact with tourists, or disturbance duringbreeding periods. However, even or big cats, great apes, wha-les and dolphins, and some bird species which have been thesubject o most research, understanding o the eects o wildliewatching tourism is still quite limited. For example, dierencesbetween the way dierent species are aected by tourism arenow becoming apparent, such as dierences between lions andcheetahs, or large whales and small whales, and refect biologi-

cal and behavioural dierences. As a result, wildlie watchingcodes developed or one species cannot be assumed to be ap-propriate or other species within the same group.

Research is also starting to reveal that the general backgroundlevels o activity in areas where wildlie watching takes placecan have signicant eects on watched animal populations, inaddition to the eects o close observation by tourists. One de-

tailed study ound that general patterns o behaviour o dolphinsin a popular dolphin watching site in New Zealand were aected– showing less eeding and social interaction – even when ani-mals were not being observed by tourists. As wildlie watching

increases in popularity, general background eects rom tourismare likely to have an increasing eect on watched species and

their habitats, and to reduce the possibility or watched populati-ons to have access to areas ree rom disturbance rom tourism.Managing the overall development and expansion o wildliewatching tourism will thereore be as important as managing theclose interactions between tourists and watched animals, in or-der to minimise disturbance and adverse eects.

As a rst step to more eective management o wildlie watching tourism it is thereore important to improve the understanding o

the biology o watched species, and to monitor the eects that tourism has on them. This will enable wildlie watching codes oconduct and regulations to be ormulated so that they are moreeective in minimising disturbance while ensuring high qualityviewing. This may also promote alternative ways o watchingwildlie in some situations – or example, the WDCS encouragesland-based whale watching where possible in preerence to useo boats.

Improve guide training and interpretationWildlie watching is requently carried out in groups led by gui-des, particularly where the watched species is rare or dicult

to locate. The quality o guiding is oten reported to be highlyvariable, even at the same wildlie watching sites, and in somecases, guides themselves have been ound to be poor in theircompliance with wildlie watching codes o conduct or regula-

tions. This may partly be linked to pressure rom tour groups orcloser and longer viewing opportunities.

Enorcement o codes and regulations can be particularly di-cult in many wildlie watching situations, and the most eectivemeans is to ensure that guides and tourists understand and eelcommitment towards compliance. This requires better trainingor guides and better brieng or tourists, linked with certicati-on or licensing schemes or guides and tour organisers that in-clude checks on their compliance with wildlie watching codesand regulations, and on quality o interpretation that they provideor tourists.



3

As well as promoting compliance with wildlie watching codeso conduct and regulations, guide training in interpretation oers

scope or enhancing the quality o wildlie watching experiencesor tourists and their awareness o conservation issues.

Evaluate the conditions required or wildlie watching tourismto be a viable option particularly or generating net revenues orconservation and benets or local communitiesAlthough there are plenty o examples o sites which gain signi-cant income rom wildlie watching tourism, these are mostlylocated in areas o high tourism potential with relatively good ac-

cess and inrastructure. Other sites may have excellent wildlie,but are located urther away rom main tourism areas, and there-ore have lower tourism potential, while at some sites accessmay need to be restricted or conservation reasons or becauseo the wishes o local communities. Some areas may also lackeective capacity to manage commercial tourism or provide ne-cessary 33. And in sites with signicant levels o tourism, thereis no guarantee that a air share o tourism income will accrue

to the local communities and that they will be able to establish

livelihoods based on tourism.

At present little attention has been given to understanding theconditions under which wildlie watching tourism can be a sus-

tainable and viable option or conservation and community de-velopment. Because o this, there is a risk that wildlie watchingactivities may be developed that do not match realistic tourismdemand and market expectations, or in ways that do not delivernet benets or conservation or local communities.

It is important to gain a better understanding o the conditionsnecessary or successul and sustainable wildlie watching tou-rism, so that guidance can be provided on when it is an appro-priate option or conservation and community development, andor when it is not.

Improve planning and management o tourism in protectedareas and wildlie viewing sitesSuccessul wildlie watching tourism requires sound plans toprovide the basis or management o the watched populationsand their habitats. Because o the uncertainties associated withunderstanding o the eects o wildlie watching on animals, andwith the dynamic nature o tourism, it is particularly important touse adaptive management approaches or management o wild-lie watching tourism. Adaptive management requires plans andobjectives or wildlie and tourism combined with continuousmonitoring and evaluation o tourism and its eects on wildlie

to check i objectives set in the plans are being met. Where theyare not, management actions are adjusted as necessary to bringwildlie watching tourism into line with the planned objectives.

Eective implementation o plans oten requires interactions o arange o dierent stakeholders – particularly tourism businessesand local communities, as well as wildlie managers – and thereis a need to understand better the roles o these stakeholders inmaking wildlie watching tourism operate successully to provi-

de high quality tourism, and conservation and local communitybenets.

There is also a need or greater understanding o the costs andbenets o managing wildlie sites or wildlie watching tourism,including the costs o providing the necessary visitor acilities,such as trails, sanitation and waste management, and theirmaintenance, as well as the costs o providing interpretationand, in some cases, habitat restoration.

notes and reerences



1 Wildlie Tourism: Impacts, Management and Planning, (2004)

Edited by Karen Higginbottom, published by Common Ground

Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia; Wildlie Tourism, (2005), DavidNewsome, Ross Dowling and Susan Moore, Aspects o Tou-

rism no. 24, published by Channel View Publications

2 Quebec Declaration on Ecotourism, 2002

3 Tour Operators’ Initiative or Sustainable Tourism Development

(TOI), Statement o Commitment, www.toinitiative.org

4 For example, wildlie watching tourism can also apply the CBD

Guidelines on Biodiversity and Tourism Development, and use tools such as the UNESCO/UNEP manual on Managing Tou-

rism at World Heritage Sites, and the IUCN/UNEP/WTO report

on Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas. In relation to tou-

rism and biodiversity, goals include:

•generation o sucient revenues to reduce threats to biodi-

versity rom local communities,

•encouraging all stakeholders, particularly the private sector,

to support the conservation o biodiversity, •ensuring the eective participation o communities in tou-

rism development, and

•channeling a portion o tourism revenues towards support-

ing conservation.

Other possible goals include diversiying economic activities

to reduce dependency on tourism and encouraging the role

o protected areas as key locations or good practices in sus-

tainable tourism and biodiversity. (From UNEP (2005) ForgingLinks Between Protected Areas and the Tourism Sector: How

tourism can benet conservation, (Authors: Richard Tapper

and Janet Cochrane) UNEP: Paris, ISBN 92-807-2506-8 (availa-

ble at www.uneptie.org/tourism) pp. 9-10)

5 The Tour Operators’ Initiative or Sustainable Tourism Deve-

lopment was launched in 2000 by tour operators in association

with UNEP, UNESCO and the UNWTO

6 UN World Tourism Organisation (2005) Tourism Highlights 2005,

UNWTO: Madrid

7 UN World Tourism Organisation (2005) Tourism 2020 Vision,

UNWTO: Madrid (www.world-tourism.org/acts/eng/vision.

htm)

8 E. Hoyt (2001) Whale Watching 2001: Worldwide tourism num-

bers, expenditures, and expanding socioeconomic benets.

International Fund or Animal Welare, Yarmouth Port, MA,

USA, pp. i–vi

9 IFAW (2005) The Growth o Whale Watching in Sydney 2003-

2004 - Economic Perspectives

10 Wildlie Tourism: Impacts, Management and Planning, (2004)Edited by Karen Higginbottom, (Box 13.1, p.255) published by

Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia

11 G. Moscardo and R. Saltzer (2004) Understanding Wildlie

Tourism Markets, by, pp. 176-7, Chapter 9 o Wildlie Tourism:

Impacts, Management and Planning, (2004) Edited by Karen

Higginbottom, published by Common Ground Publishing Pty

Ltd, Australia

12 US Fish and Wildlie Service 2001 National Survey o Fishing,

Hunting, and Wildlie-Associated Recreation

13 The International Ecotourism Society (1998) Ecotourism Stati-

stical Fact Sheet

14 WTO Data cited in “Tourism and Biodiversity: Mapping

Tourism’s Global Footprint” (Table 1) published by Conservati-

on International

15 2000 gures, presented in WTO (2004) Tourism and Poverty

Alleviation – Recommendations or Action, WTO: Madrid, World

Tourism Organization. Since then, the relative importance o

tourism or these countries will not have changed signicantly

or some countries, and will have increased or others with

high tourism growth rates.

16 In: Leeds Tourism Group (2004) Pay per Nature View: Under-

standing tourism revenues or eective management plans,

(Authors: Xavier Font, Janet Cochrane, and Richard Tapper),

Leeds (UK): Leeds Metropolitan University (Full report availab-

le at: www.leedstourismgroup.com)



17 Based on biodiversity hotspot countries with high levels o

tourism growth identied in “Tourism and Biodiversity: Map-

ping Tourism’s Global Footprint” (Table 1) published by Conser-vation International

18 WTO (2004) Tourism and Poverty Alleviation – Recommenda-

tions or Action, WTO: Madrid

19 Leeds Tourism Group (2004) “Tourism Supply Chains” report

(Authors: Richard Tapper and Xavier Font), adapted rom

Green Hotelier Issue 14 April 1999 and www.akdn.org (Full re-

port available at: www.leedstourismgroup.com)20 World Bank estimate quoted in Arica Recovery, United Nati-

ons Ecotourism propels development: But social acceptance

depends on economic opportunities or local communities,

Vol. 13 No. 1 -- June 1999

21 Tourism and Poverty Alleviation – Recommendations or Ac-

tion , Section 4.2 Actions to strengthen perormance, WTO,

2004

22 M. I. Sarhan, M. H. Hanay and M. M. Fouda (2004) Economics

and Sustainable Use o Samadai Ree “Dolphin House”,Marsa

Alam, Red Sea, Egypt. Red Sea Marine Parks and Egyptian En-

vironmental Aairs

23 B.B. Siddhartha, P.A. Furley, and A.C. Newton (2005) Eec-

tiveness o community involvement in delivering conservation

benets to the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal, Environ-

mental Conservation 32 (3): 239–247

24 A. Markandya, T. Taylor and S. Pedroso (2005) Tourism and

Sustainable Development: Lessons rom Recent World Bank

Experience, Report prepared or the World Bank (Covering

projects between 1992 – 2003) Available at: www.pigliaru.it/

chia/Markandya.pd

25 Leeds Tourism Group (2004) Pay per Nature View: Under-


(Authors: Xavier Font, Janet Cochrane, and Richard Tapper),Leeds (UK): Leeds Metropolitan University (Full report availab-


26 Troëng, S. and Drews C. (2004) Money Talks: Economic Aspects

o Marine Turtle Use and Conservation, WWF-International,

Gland, Switzerland www.panda.org

27 Leeds Tourism Group (2004) Pay per Nature View: Under-


(Authors: Xavier Font, Janet Cochrane, and Richard Tapper),

Leeds (UK): Leeds Metropolitan University (Full report availab-


28 UNEP (2005) Forging Links Between Protected Areas and the

Tourism Sector: How tourism can benet conservation, (Au- thors: Richard Tapper and Janet Cochrane) pp. 13-14, UNEP:

Paris (available at www.uneptie.org/tourism)

29 UNEP (2005) Forging Links Between Protected Areas and the

Tourism Sector: How tourism can benet conservation, (Au-

thors: Richard Tapper and Janet Cochrane) pp. 13-14, UNEP:

Paris (available at www.uneptie.org/tourism)

30 Norton-Griths, M. (2003) The case or private sector invest-

ment in conservation: an Arican perspective, Fith WorldParks Congress, Durban South Arica

31 Convention on Biological Diversity (2006) Managing tourism

and biodiversity: Drat User’s Manual on the CBD Guidelines

on Biodiversity and Tourism Development; and Sustainable

tourism in protected areas: Guidelines or planning and ma-

nagement, Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines Series

No. 8, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA)

32 C. MacFarland (1998) An analysis o nature tourism in the

Galápagos Islands, Available at Charles Darwin Foundation

website: www.darwinoundation.org/articles/br15049801.html

33 WWF (2004) “Are Protected Areas Working?”, WWF Internati-

onal, Gland, Switzerland



Wildlie Watching and tourisma f w

Wildlie watching tourism can make important con-

tributions to community development and conserva-

tion by raising awareness o the animals observed and

their habitats, by creating revenues or conservation,

and by creating jobs and income or local communi-

ties.

However, to achieve these contributions, wildlie wat-

ching tourism needs to be careully planned and ma-

naged by government agencies, the tourism sector

and conservation managers. With rapidly growing

demand rom tourists or wildlie watching activities,controls are also needed to prevent adverse eects on

wildlie and local communities.

This report and its 12 case studies describe the bene-

ts that can come rom wildlie watching tourism, and

ocus on practical ways to use planning and visitor

management to ensure the long-term sustainability othis activity. ISBN 3 – 93 74 29 – 10 – 7

This publication was prepared

and printed with unding rom TUI.

www.cms.int

cms_wildlifewatching.pdf

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