tourism and indigenous people

DRAFT CHAPTER: Tourism, Recreation, and Sustainability: Linking Culture and the

Environment (2nd ed.), edited by S. F. McCoolandR.N.Moisey

Publishers Website:

http://bookshop.cabi.org/Uploads/Books/PDF/9781845934705/9781845934705.pdf

Tourism and Indigenous Peoples

Adam Trau and Robyn Bushell

Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney, Australia

Strategies stressing the urgent need for policies and practices to ensure tour- ism development be

in line with principles of sustainable development have been recommended by a wide range of

international agencies and instrumentalities. These include the United Nations World Tourism

Organization (UN-WTO), The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations

Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), regional UN commissions, international

conservation bodies such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and

the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), many conservation NGOs and the

inter- national banks. In 2002, the International Year of Ecotourism brought together the largest

gathering of all stakeholders involved in ecotourism, and interested in more sustainable forms of

tourism. It focused much attention and interest on the ecological, social and cultural costs and

benefits of tourism. This same year the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)

drew attention to tourism and its potential to support the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The following year the International Ecotourism Society and the Centre on Ecotourism and

Sustainable Development pre- pared Rights and Responsibilities a compilation of Codes of

Conduct for Tourism and Indigenous Local Communities (Honey and Thullen, 2003) in

recognition of the need for sustainable tourism to be an instrument for the empowerment of

local communities, for the maintenance of cultural diversity and for the alleviation of poverty.

Such fora and the associated policies and strategies1 generated for sustainable tourism have

increasingly emphasized both the issues faced by, and the opportunities for, indigenous people

worldwide. As an example, the 5th World Parks Congress, held in Durban South Africa,

identified tourism as an increasingly important feature of park management and conservation

partnerships. Co-management of protected areas by natural resource management agencies and

indigenous communities is increasingly common, as are community-conserved areas/indigenous

protected areas. Throughout the world there are excellent examples where tourism provides a key

strategy through which conservation work can also provide support for local and indigenous

community development. These cases demonstrate how these conservation alliances can assist

with poverty alleviation in both developing and developed nations Africa, Australia, Canada,

Central and South-east Asia, India and South America.

The picture however is far from rosy. Tourism is also frequently dis- cussed at such meetings in

relation to the threat of increasing pressure due to escalating interest in nature-based and cultural

tourism. As demand for tour- ism, both international and domestic, continues to grow,

particularly from the rapidly rising middle class of the Asian region, so too is commercial

interest in the development of the most ecologically fragile, biodiverse, aesthetically, culturally

and spiritually rich locations. These natural and cultural heritage conservation hot spots are the

drawcards for much tourism development (Bushell, 2005). And indeed the fora themselves,

meant to discuss ways to make tourism more sustainable have been heavily criticized by

indigenous peoples representative groups, NGOs and activists, who have witnessed UN-led

processes that have provided only token participation and representation and not allowed a voice

for indigenous peoples to express concerns about the role tourism plays in the continuation of the

dispossession process through increased globalization and privatization (Honey and Thullen,

2003).

Conservation International (CI) reports that biodiversity-rich places once covered more than 12%

of the Earths land surface. Nearly 90% of the original vegetation of these places has been lost

with a mere 1.4% of these unique terrestrial environments remaining. Yet they are habitat for

more than 44% of all plants and 35% of endemic species of mammals, birds, reptiles and

amphibians found nowhere else. These same areas are home to more than 1 billion people, many

of whom live in extreme poverty. These places are crossroads where biodiversity conservation,

survival of many indigenous groups and tourism meets (Mittermeier, 2003). In Tourism and

Biodiversity: Mapping Tourisms Global Footprint, Christ et al. (2003) show how tourism

development in such areas has had profound consequences on the future of biodiversity

conservation and on the health and well-being of indigenous peoples biodiversity and human

welfare being inextricably linked (Borrini- Feyerabend et al., 2004; Brown et al., 2005).

UNESCO estimates that there are currently around 300350 million indigenous peoples

worldwide, or around 5% of the total world population, representing over 5000 languages and

cultures in more than 70 countries on six continents (UNESCO, 2006). The rights of indigenous

peoples to access land, protected areas, heritage resources and the values they contain are

complex, and frequently controversial. Issues of traditional use of biological resources, land

rights and ownership, particularly for colonized people who have been dislocated, dominate

much of the policy discourse in this arena (Scherl et al., 2004; Fisher et al., 2005). Well-planned

and executed tourism can contribute to increased tolerance and respect for diversity of all sorts

biological, cultural, religious and political. Well-planned ethical tourism development can

provide incentives to support indigenous peoples traditional customs and values; protect and

respect sacred sites; and, enhance the legitimacy of traditional knowledge. (McNeely, 2004;

Olsder et al., 2006) The tourism industry is therefore a critical component in fostering global

support for natural and cultural heritage conservation, poverty alleviation and indigenous

community well-being.

On the other hand, if poorly planned and managed, or if exploitative models of development

prevail, the ecological, social and cultural consequences of tourism can be devastating. (Olsder et

al., 2006). Tourism development that does not aspire to the goals of sustainable development has

been shown to contribute to the deterioration of cultural landscapes, threaten bio- diversity,

contribute to pollution and degradation of ecosystems, displace agricultural land and open

spaces, diminish water and energy resources and drive poverty deeper into local communities

(Fisher et al., 2005; McNeely, 2005).

Sadly, indigenous people also continue to be marginalized and have many barriers to becoming

active participants in tourism development (Manyara et al., 2006; Hall, 2007a). Central to their

disadvantage is that the cycle of poverty that excludes them from so much opportunity

education, health, economic growth and hence their survival and that of their rich cultural

heritages (Ashley et al., 2000; Mowforth and Munt, 2003; Hall and Brown, 2006).

Internationally, the use of tourism as a tool for poverty alleviation has substantively grown in

recent years, which has led to a proliferation of theoretical and practical action. Pro-Poor

Tourism (PPT) and Sustainable Tourism Eliminating Poverty (ST-EP) are two leading

international strategies spearheading such action, designed to enable people in poverty to achieve

their livelihood outcomes through tourism activities. Conceptually very similar, PPT is however

much more developed and has grown from pro-poor development strategies, and has in turn

given rise to specific programmes like ST-EP. At the heart of the approach, PPT unlocks

opportunities for the poor, encourages their participation and tilts tourism development in their

favour, therefore fuelling an accumulation of livelihood benefits, and generating net benefits for

the poor within tourism (Ashley et al., 2000; Ashley et al., 2001a,b; Roe and Urquhart, 2001;

UNWTO, 2002).

In a slight deviation of focus to the more common triple bottom-line-based approaches to

sustainable tourism development and ecotourism, PPT places the poor at the epicentre: the

environment in which the poor live is just one part of the picture (Ashley et al., 2001b). While

local community involvement and benefits accrual is fundamental to all forms and shapes of

sustainable tourism, PPT heightens these objectives and uncompromisingly targets the poor on

every level and scale of development. It is not a specific product or sector of the tourism industry

but a well-directed mechanism for poverty alleviation driven by industry-related activities and

operations (Bennett et al., 1999). In particular, the PPT is highly relevant to indigenous tourism,

given indigenous peoples frequently live in developing nations, and in the case of countries like

Australia and Canada, liv