Risks and Opportunities for Biological Diversity

By Christina Kamp

In order to draw attention to the dramatic loss of biological diversity, the United Nations declared 2010 the International Year of Biological Diversity. This year's World Tourism Day will also be held under this banner. The objective of significantly slowing down the global loss of biodiversity by 2010, as agreed upon by world leaders, has not been achieved. We asked Jürgen Nauber if and how tourism helps - or whether it rather causes more damage. Jürgen Nauber is coordinator of the Consulting Unit on Biological Diversity and Tourism, a branch office of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) based in Bonn.

TW: Under what circumstances can tourism effectively contribute to protecting biological diversity?

Jürgen Nauber: Tourism contributes to the protection of biological diversity if stakeholders understand that preserved natural resources are more valuable than resources lost. A prime example is whale watching, which can generate much more income than "consumptive use" such as whaling. The ecosystem services that nature offers - also for tourism - provide all the basics that tourism requires: clean water, a balancing climate, attractiveness, aesthetic scenery, just to mention a few. Tourism can be perfectly in line with the philosophy of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This convention regards the sustainable use of nature, its conservation and the equitable distribution of benefits derived from its use as objectives of equal importance.

In the long term, tourism can contribute to nature conservation if the population has a sense of ownership for this combined approach and if local people are adequately involved in developing tourism. According to our experiences, a good coordination between the different processes of land use planning plays an important role. In many cases, the potential of sustainable tourism for nature protection is not recognized in sectoral planning. Tourism planning needs to be integrated into other planning processes and needs to follow the development guidelines of the respective country. Consumers and tour operators also have a special responsibility: Biodiversity-friendly tourism will become standard to the extent to which there is a demand for it.

TW: Tourism can also have negative impacts on natural habitats, ecosystems and the diversity of species. Does tourism cause more harm than generate benefits?

Jürgen Nauber: For UNWTO it becomes increasingly evident that over the past few years, tourism stakeholders have become increasingly aware of their responsibility to protect natural resources. Organisations such as EED Tourism Watch have played a role in this. The market has also contributed to a certain extent, directing tourism towards more sustainability, due to both increased competition and a demand that is more and more responsive to sustainability criteria. Who would have expected twenty yeas ago that on a Spanish island in the Mediterranean, mass tourism infrastructure would be dismantled? Or that a tour operator would consider discontinuing trips to Phuket in Thailand because guests complained that there is not much nature left there?

Generally, every economic activity interferes with nature. The extent to which this is considered negative, and what is acceptable and what is not, is determined by us - human beings -, as nature itself is not able to do so. This implies a special responsibility we have for our natural heritage - to preserve it, for our own good.

In 2004, the more than 180 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) passed a recommendation that the CBD Guidelines on Biodiversity and Tourism Development should be applied in the development of tourism. These guidelines provide tools for governments to manage tourism development in their countries in such a way as to preserve biological diversity and use it in a sustainable manner. The UNWTO Consulting Unit in Bonn encourages the broad application of these guidelines. If the guidelines are applied more widely over time, we will be able to answer the question whether tourism does more harm than good to biodiversity with a clear "no". I hope we will find more allies in this regard.

TW: What are the tasks of the UNWTO Consulting Unit on Biological Diversity and Tourism?

Jürgen Nauber: The consulting unit was set up in 2010 by UNWTO, supported by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment. It builds on the project "Tourism and Biodiversity in Tsunami-Affected Countries" which UNWTO was running from 2006 to 2009 with German tsunami funding. Its tasks include consulting services for UNWTO member states in matters related to biological diversity and sustainable tourism development. Special attention is paid to the development of tourism strategies and products that involve local people in tourism-related decision-making and adequate benefit-sharing. The special knowledge accumulated by the consulting unit also serves in the implementation of specific biodiversity-related content in UNWTO programmes. We currently run a consultancy project for the signatory states of the Carpathian convention related to the implementation of their tourism protocol. We work with the Slovakian city of Banská Štiavnica on carefully involving protected areas in destination development. A model project will be planned with Indonesia soon, aimed at improving energy efficiency in the tourism sector at a destination in Western Java, which will sustainably use local biodiversity and which will prepare the tourism sector for possible adaptation measures to the impact of climate change. More consulting projects will follow, for example in Brazil, in the Caribbean, and hopefully in Africa soon, too.

The Consulting Unit will participate in the main event on the occasion of World Tourism Day in late September in China and will be part of the UNWTO delegation for the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2010 in Japan. UNWTO will organise an event on tourism and biological diversity in order to familiarise delegates, mainly from the field of nature conservation, with the opportunities tourism presents for the preservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.