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Title: Mainstreaming Biodiversity Conservation into Tourism

Author: Ronald Sanabria

Organization: Rainforest Alliance

Date: July 2006

Language: English

Number of pages: 16

Eco-Index Summary: This document, presented to the Interamerican Development Bank, provides an overview of the rapid growth of ecotourism, specifically in the Americas; statistics of visitation rates to popular destinations; and potential negative impacts of nature tourism, such as habitat destruction, pollution, and contribution to global warming and ozone depletion. The presentation presents sustainable tourism as a solution, and outlines best practices that the Rainforest Alliance is implementing at the local, national, and international level, such as capacity building and training; linking and strengthening sustainable tourism certifiers through the Sustainable Tourism Certification Network of the Americas; and linking consumers with sustainable tourism offerings at an international level. Finally, the presentation provides recommendations to IADB, to help ensure that their funding priorities in the region are as effective as possible.

Title: Wildlife Watching and Tourism: A study on the benefits and risks of a fast growing tourism activity and its impacts on species

Author: Richard Tapper

Organizations: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)

Date: 2006

Language: English

Number of pages: 68

Eco-Index Summary: "Wildlife Watching and Tourism" responds to the rapidly expanding wildlife-watching tourism industry, stating that wild animal populations reap higher monetary benefits for communities than activities such as poaching or illegal trafficking. The report focuses on 12 case studies to illustrate the economic importance of wildlife watching, and also highlights potential negative impacts to wildlife from improper management. Visitors can affect animal behavior, physiology, increase stress levels, and affect feeding and sleeping patterns; high rates of visitors can also severely damage sensitive habitats such as sea turtle nesting sites and coral reefs. The report makes a series of recommendations on how to create environmentally, economically, and socially responsible wildlife watching tourism through large-scale regulations such as zoning schemes, special management areas, fee programs, and visitation plans.

Title: Best Management Practices for Sustainable Tourism

Organization: Rainforest Alliance

Date: 2003

Language: English, Spanish

Number of pages: 87 with Tables, Diagrams, and Note Pages

Eco-Index Summary: Best management practices are a series of principles and concrete recommendations that can be implemented by companies, communities, and individuals whose livelihood depends on land use. The Rainforest Alliance's Sustainable Tourism Division, in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, developed best management practices for the tourism industry to encourage the use of practices that comply with sustainability principles, and that can be used as the basis for the development of policies, codes of conduct and public awareness materials, and for the implementation of technical assistance, training, and certification. The "Best Management Practices for Sustainable Tourism" guide is a tool to help community businesses and small and medium-sized entrepreneurs adopt specific actions to use sustainable tourism practices in their administration and management. The document includes the main focal areas and aspects that should be considered in the administration and management of a tourist accommodation business, so that its operations reflect dedication to sustainability.

Title: Ecotourism Development: A Manual for Conservation Planners and Managers; Volume 1: An Introduction to Ecotourism Planning

Organization: The Nature Conservancy

Date: 2002

Language: English

Number of pages: 85 with Photos, Tables, a Glossary and Footnotes

Eco-Index Summary: This report discusses the opportunity that ecotourism presents to stimulate economic activity in natural areas as well as conserve biodiversity and local cultures. As ecotourism becomes more popular throughout the world, we learn more about the positive and negative impacts it presents to local environments and peoples. The authors provide a set of criteria that will benefit those involved in all aspects of ecotourism, including conservation NGOs, protected area specialists, managers of state-owned and community-owned reserves, tour operators, hotel developers, and investors. The manual presents an analysis of ecotourism from both the business and conservation perspectives.

© 2001 - Rainforest Alliance