I fell for Kangaroo Island from my first go to. I recall standing on a headland on the island’s southern coast, close to Exceptional Rocks (a well-liked vacationer web site), and being awestruck by the Southern Ocean.
The island (Australia’s third-largest after Tasmania and Melville Island) is one in every of 16 designated National Landscapes and arguably South Australia’s biggest tourism treasure. Its protected areas (notably Flinders Chase Nationwide Park) are dwelling to uncommon and endangered marsupials and birds.
A 12 months in the past, in Australia’s “Black Summer season”, bushfires ravaged greater than half the island (about 211,000 hectares). These fires underscored the risk to this and different iconic island locations.
Each immediately and not directly, people are endangering these fragile ecosystems by means of unsustainable improvement and human-caused local weather change.
RSPCA SA/AAP
Probably the most ironic risk is from unsustainable tourism. These islands appeal to thousands and thousands of holiday makers a 12 months eager to expertise their pure wonders. But usually this very “ecotourism” is contributing to their degradation.
How you can do higher?
Final October I took half in a workshop at which Kangaroo Island’s tourism operators mentioned how to take action. 2020 was a tough 12 months for them, first with the fires, then with the COVID-19 pandemic. However in that adversity additionally they noticed the chance to reset “enterprise as standard” and are available again higher, creating an trade not harming its core asset.
Learn extra:
The end of global travel as we know it: an opportunity for sustainable tourism
A variety of concepts got here out of our talks relevant to all our island locations. However there was one key level. Ecotourism ought to be greater than fleeting feel-good experiences. It shouldn’t be a “worth extraction” however a “values training”, inspiring guests to go dwelling and reside extra eco-consciously.
Macquarie island
The paradox of ecotourism is probably finest exemplified by Australia’s least visited island vacation spot – Macquarie Island, about 1,500 km south-east of Hobart, midway between New Zealand and the Antarctica.
Simply 1,500 vacationers a 12 months, fairly than a whole lot of 1000’s, are permitted by the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service to go to. The island has no motels, eating places or memento retailers. The one buildings are these of the Macquarie Island Station analysis base and some remoted field huts for scientists.
Dale Lorna Jacobsen/Shutterstock
Vacationers should be content material with coming ashore for the day from the 18 small cruise ships that ply these waters in summer time. The one hospitality is the normal station providing of tea and scones.
However what vacationers do get is a singular expertise. Macquarie is World Heritage listed as the one island made completely from the earth’s mantle. It additionally teems with wildlife – a number of species of penguins and seals of their tens of 1000’s, and birds of their thousands and thousands.
Janelle Lugge/Shutterstock
It’s about as pure an ecotourism expertise you’ll be able to have (when you can afford it). Even so, it nonetheless takes sources to get there, together with the burning of fossil fuels, contributing to the worldwide warming that’s the biggest risk to the environmental integrity of Macquarie Island (and different island ecosystems).
Nevertheless, the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service does not less than count on cruise ship operators to “display their capability to ship fascinating outcomes” on criteria together with minimisation of environmental impacts and speaking to vacationers “messages concerning the pure and cultural values of the island”, together with the position they play in its preservation.
Learn extra:
From Kangaroo Island to the Great Barrier Reef, the paradox that is luxury ecotourism
Ok’gari (Fraser island)
Speaking such messages is one thing that actually wants enchancment on one other World Heritage listed island – Ok’gari (generally often called Fraser island), the world’s largest sand island.
About 250 km north of Brisbane, on the southern finish of the Nice Barrier Reef, the island attracts many a whole lot of 1000’s of holiday makers a 12 months to its seashores, woodlands and rainforests. (There aren’t any latest public statistics on island customer numbers however in 2017-18 the Fraser Coast area attracted 1,515,000 guests.)
Marco Saracco/Shutterstock
As soon as the island’s sources had been mined and logged. Tourism was meant to be a lot much less exploitative. However a spread of organisations together with the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature have highlighted the strain tourist numbers (together with their automobiles and infrastructure) are putting on Ok’gari’s landscapes and wildlife.
Speaking to all these guests the position they play within the island’s preservation seems to be failing. The bushfires that burnt half the island (about 165,500 hectares) over 9 weeks between October and December final 12 months allegedly resulted from an illegal camp fire.
QLD Ambulance Service/AAP
Headline-grabbing assaults by the island’s residents dingos – equivalent to in April 2019 when a toddler was dragged from a campervan – have additionally been credited to rampant irresponsible vacationer behaviour (feeding dingoes to get higher photographs, for instance).
Indigenous elders, conservationists and scientists have all pointed to the issue of a mass-tourism mannequin that doesn’t put sufficient emphasis on educating guests concerning the surroundings and their duties.
Learn extra:
The K’gari-Fraser Island bushfire is causing catastrophic damage. What can we expect when it’s all over?
Rottnest Island
One in every of our proposals for Kangaroo Island is to scale back the affect of motor automobiles by means of encouraging extra prolonged strolling and biking experiences.
The worth of sustainable transport as the inspiration for ecotourism is demonstrated by Rottnest Island, 20 km off the coast of Perth.
The complete island is managed as an A-Class Nature Reserve. Other than service automobiles and shuttle buses, it’s car-free. You may rent a motorbike or deliver your personal to get across the island (11 km lengthy and 4.5 km extensive). Or just stroll.
The absence of visitors makes a Rottnest vacation a distinctly extra relaxed expertise. It’s a good instance of slow tourism; and, in fact, it’s also good for the island’s world well-known quokkas, which co-exist with near 800,000 visitors a year.
Grakhantsev Nikolai/Shutterstock
Learn extra:
Before and after: 4 new graphics show the recovery from last summer’s bushfire devastation
Earlier than they’re gone
Given a bit of house, nature is resilient.
After Kangaroo Island’s bushfires a 12 months in the past, for instance, it was feared a lot of endangered species had lastly been pushed to extinction.
However in two of 2020’s few excellent news tales, scientists discovered critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnarts and little pygmy possums – the world’s smallest marsupial – had survived.
Ashlee Benc/Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife, CC BY
However we will’t take that resilience with no consideration if we preserve placing strain on these fragile ecosystems. We’d like a greater strategy to make sure ecotourism isn’t about having fun with these pure wonders earlier than they’re gone.
