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International Mountain Day: Information note
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Mountain tourism: making it work for the poor
Mountain tourism on the rise
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In an increasingly urbanized world, blighted by overpopulation, noise and pollution, mountains are an oasis of spiritual calm and peace, a place to commune with Nature and to rediscover the simple pleasures of life. More than 50 million tourists visit mountain regions each year, attracted by the clean air and natural beauty, by the many sporting and recreational activities they offer and by the unique traditions, cultures and lifestyles of their people. And in many mountainous countries of the world, there is untapped potential to develop tourism in the future.
Yet the sheer numbers of visitors already flocking to mountains for leisure poses a growing threat to the very qualities which draw visitors to these regions. Tourism is now the world's largest growth industry, with annual earnings of more than US$500 billion. And mountain regions account for a sizeable slice of that figure - some 15 to 20 percent of total turnover. Together with cities and coasts, mountains have become the world's top tourist destinations. Such is the growth that earnings from tourism have become a primary source of revenue for many mountain areas. Yet although tourism might bring in cash in the short term in the longer term it often causes irreparable damage to the mountain communities who should be gaining from it. Often, the development of tourism in mountain areas is concentrated in the hands of outside interests, with little of the profits going to local communities. Underlying this is the fact that mountain regions are often the most disadvantaged and least developed places in the world.
Social inequality, political marginalization and environmental stress are problems that the poor commonly face, wherever they live.
Yet it is a disturbing fact that mountains are home to some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable.
Tourism can provide lasting benefits for mountain people, if sensitively planned and managed. The theme of UN International Mountain Day 2005 is 'Sustainable Tourism for Poverty Alleviation in Mountain Areas' -- an opportunity to create awareness about the peril and promise of mountain tourism, to highlight promising models of sustainable tourism and to build partnerships at all levels to promote sustainable tourism that will reduce poverty, improve livelihoods, and protect environments for mountain people and visitors alike.
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High returns
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Tourism has undoubtedly brought considerable benefits to many upland regions around the world. It has brought additional income to vulnerable and marginalized communities, for whom earning a living is complicated by remoteness, difficult terrain and often harsh climate. In Europe, many Alpine valleys have gained access to the outside world thanks to communication and transportation links brought by tourism. Young people have been persuaded to stay, instead of joining the exodus to the cities. To small mountain communities, tourism can create jobs, raise incomes and provide better services. An influx of visitors can create markets for products made by local workers and produce from the land. For a growing number of developing countries, revenue from mountain tourism represents a major source of foreign exchange. Sport-based mountain tourism, in particular, has seen rapid growth in the past 30 years, expanding from the traditional regions of Europe and North America to previously uncharted mountain areas, including parts of central Asia, the Himalayas, Karakorum, the Caucasus, the Andes and even Antarctica. Typical mountain activities include hiking, skiing, snowboarding, climbing and birdwatching. Extreme sports, such as bungee jumping, rafting, paragliding and canyoning are now becoming increasingly popular, especially with affluent urban thrill-seekers. Another growth area for mountain tourism focuses on mountains as a source of well-being and health. An ever-increasing number of mountain tours offer opportunities for culture, contemplation and meditation.
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Counting the cost of tourism
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But experience has shown that the price of the growth in mountain tourism can be high. Tourism does not necessarily equate with sustainable development. Although tourism -- and mountain tourism in particular -- is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world it is also one of the least regulated.
Tourism development can cause a great deal of visual damage to the landscape and can dsrupt local cultures and traditional ways of life. Tourism development can also upset ecosystems, and mountain ecosystems -- the world's richest source of biodiversity -- are more fragile than most. Developing a tourist infrastructure often involves destroying swathes of forest, planting electricity pylons and building roads and tunnels. In many of the most beautiful mountain regions of the developing world, cutting trees for fuelwood and the construction of amenities have emerged as key problems as visitors seek new and unspoilt destinations. Vegetation is damaged and wildlife habitats destroyed. A proliferation of litter left by tourists -- bottles, tins, plastics and toilet paper -- scar land and pollute water. Rivers, streams and slopes are further contaminated by human and solid waste and untreated sewage. Such degradation in mountain environments is particularly damaging as environmental recovery rates at high altitudes are slow. This environmental damage in mountain areas affects those whose lives and livelihoods depend most on these natural resources -mountain people.
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Maximise the potential of tourism for eradicating poverty by developing appropriate strategies in cooperation with all major groups and indigineous and local communities'.
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development, 1999 'Tourism and sustainable development' (CN.17/1999/L/6)
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The case for sustainable tourism in mountain areas
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Tourism in mountain areas is thriving and an essential fact of life for many countries -- particularly those in the developing world who depend on tourism for much-needed foreign exchange. And there are opportunities to start developing new tourism initiatives in many other mountainous countries of the world. The Simen Mountain National Park in Ethiopia, for example, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of outstanding natural beauty and unique wildlife, yet it receives few tourists every year. A tourist infrastructure - including roads, accomodation and amenities - would not only boost tourism but also reap rewards for local people.
One of the main challenges is to harness mountain tourism so that it benefits mountain people and their environments while at the same time satisfying the desires of tourists.
Mountain tourism needs to be sustainable.
Sustainable tourism can take many forms -- ecotourism, community-based tourism, conservation with tourism, pro-poor tourism -- but what all models commonly share is the aim to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate income and employment for local communities.
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What is sustainable tourism ?
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'Sustainable tourism development meets the needs of the present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing the opportunity for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled, while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems'. World Tourism Organization (WTO).
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People and local ownership of tourism are at the core of sustainable tourism. As mountain people are the stewards of mountain ecosystems, any decision to develop tourism must be made with their involvement and agreement. Often, the development of tourism in mountain areas is concentrated in the hands of 'outsiders' and foreign operators, with little of the profits going to the communities themselves. This is especially true of developing countries and emerging economies, where foreign capital is often used.
In most parts of the world mountain communities are relatively powerless, with small communities and weak local governance. Where protected area management is in place, the needs and interests of local communities are often not of primary concern to conservationists. For tourism to be managed by local communities, real empowerment and partnership building with more powerful agencies -- government, tourist operators, NGOs -- is essential, as well as careful thinking about the kinds of products and services that the community can develop and which will ideally attract an appropriate mix of domestic and international visitors. A successful partnership model is Rocktail Bay Lodge in South Africa, a tourist development co-owned by an alliance of government, private sector and local people. This arrangement is helping to preserve the conservation area, create jobs and ensure that the local Mqobela community reap 36% share of profits from tourism.
Sustainable mountain tourism therefore needs to be developed with respect to, and according to, specific local conditions and cultures, an approach that will help communities gain a niche in an increasingly competitive market. It should favour activities that complement and strengthen rather than supplant existing livelihood activities, as well as build on local knowledge and traditions. This ensures not only that tourists respect the natural and cultural diversity of the places they visit but also encourages mountain people to view their environments with a sense of pride and a desire to preserve them for future generations.
There is great potential in encouraging visitors to learn about the places they are visiting.
Educating tourists about the landscapes, peoples and cultures in mountains makes them sensitive to the issues. The strategy has been tried with some success in Nepal, where growing numbers of trekkers -- around half a million each year -- are seriously compromising the mountain environment. Some visitors now attend an introduction on local culture, animals and plants and how to respect them. The scheme has shown signs of mitigating the negative effects of so many tourists, and especially on cutting back the quantities of garbage many of them leave behind. In Australia's Uluru-Kata National Park, efforts to deter tourists from climbing Ayer's Rock, sacred to the local Anangu community, have been helped by a scheme to introduce visitors to the area and teach them about the mountain's cultural and spiritual significance.
Policies and mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that a substantial proportion of tourism revenues remain in mountain areas and are reinvested in infrastructures and services benefitting mountain communities. Governments can help mountain communities by investing profits in programmes to ensure sustainable livelihoods for local people.
Non-governmental organizations and the private sector can also help get the tourism balance right by offering education and training in responsible tourism practices, approaches and methodologies to enhance local participation in the tourist industry.
Finally, tourism in mountain regions needs to be developed as part of an overall economic development strategy, with a strengthening of existing systems and diversification to ensure local economies do not become reliant solely on tourism revenue. This is particularly important considering that the tourism industry is volatile, vulnerable to security concerns and often highly seasonal.
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Sustainable tourism in practice
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In many mountain regions of the world, ecotourism is helping to develop mountain areas sustainably for tourists while helping to reduce poverty and hunger amongst mountain people. It also has considerable potential for strengthening communities and for protecting mountain ecosystems. That is because its long-term success rests on the integrity of the environments and cultures upon which it depends. In addition, ecotourism promises to return a significant proportion of revenue to local people to reinvest in their own communities.
In the mountains of the Sierra Juarez, Mexico, income from ecotourism helps secure land for indigenous communities and stem the exodus of young people to the cities and over the border to the United States of America.
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With increased focus on conservation issues, ecotourism has developed in recent years and is growing fast. The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), a non-profit organization, defines it as 'responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people'. This form of holidaymaking makes a point of putting something back into the area and culture being visited, in terms of revenue and financial support for conservation projects, but often also in-kind. Most ecotourism holidays closely involve local communities and plough back a portion of the profits into the environment. Some operators plant trees to combat desertification, collect garbage from trekking regions and ensure tourists use bio-degradable wrapping on their food and drink. Others actively participate in conservation projects, enabling tourists to help protect endangered species or environmentally precious sites. In Kerala, India an ecotourism programme has turned poachers into guides at the Peryar Tiger Preserve, resulting in the conservation of endangered species and providing jobs to support 40 families.
Handled properly, ecotourism can be a valuable tool in advancing tourism, especially for poor mountain communities in the developing world, without destroying natural resources and the environment. "Ecotourism enterprises can lead to more protected areas and more tourists who are educated on how to leave no trace," said Patricia Carrington of TIES. "They also provide jobs for local people and funds that can be put into hospitals, schools and libraries."
According to a relatively new model of sustainable tourism, poverty can be further reduced by forging links between local markets and tourists. Pro-poor tourism (PPT) stresses that net benefits to the poor can be increased when they can sell their goods and services in a tourist locality directly to tourists and tourism businesses. A recent pilot project with impoverished mountain communities in Nepal illustrates how pro-poor tourism can avoid profits from mountain tourism leaking from the local economy, and thus alleviate the hardship and improving the livelihoods of various sectors of the poor and of vulnerable in the community.
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Models of sustainable tourism
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Ecotourism is designed to counter the trend towards mass tourism, and is widely regarded as a valuable tool for protecting ecologically sensitive areas and species, as well as providing sustainable economic help for often impoverished communities.
Community-based tourism initiatives aim to increase local people's involvement in tourism.
Conservation with tourism this approach emphasizes the need for broadly distributed local benefits (often cash) as incentives for conservation, or they may support activities that provide an alternative to unsustainable actions.
Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) aims to deliver increased net benefits to the poor as a goal in itself. It aims to strengthen the linkages between tourism businesses and poor people, so that tourism's contribution to poverty reduction is increased and poor people are able to participate more effectively in product development.
Responsible tourism is a growing movement committed to the principle that all forms of tourism can be more responsible, all forms of tourism need to be managed by government, communities and the private sector to enhance positive impacts, particularly economic and social, and to minimise the negative impacts of tourism.
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Case Study - Putting the poor first in Nepal
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Humla, a remote mountainous district in Western Nepal, is marked by chronic poverty, hunger and food insecurity. The Netherlands-based international development organization, SNV recognized that the 600 annual tourists in the area represented a potential economic opportunity for the local population, many of whom practice subsistence farming. A strategy was developed to focus on the local provision of tourism goods and services (portering, mules, horses, vegetables) directly to the tourist, trekkers, and the Kathmandu Valley-based trekking agencies. This was complemented by other initiatives: toilet construction along the trekking trail, a US$2 per tourist trail maintenance tax and a levy on pack animal grazing in community forest areas. Profits from tourism have remained within the local economy and there are considerable net benefits to the poor. The additional tourist-related income makes a significant difference to the welfare of households, often faced with severe food deficits, and enables them to buy shoes, cloth, ready-made clothes, salt and flour from Tibet and rice from the Nepal Food Corporation in Simikot. To the landless poor - horsemen, porters, and casual- and skilled- labourers -- these tourist earnings constitute their main livelihood.
Adapted from: Practical strategies for pro-poor tourism. Naomi M. Saville http://www.propoortourism.org.uk/nepal_cs.pdf
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Sustainable mountain tourism
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- alleviates poverty and hunger
- improves employment and livelihood opportunites
- conserves the environment
- encourages economic growth
- boosts development of mountain products
- satisfies tourist needs
Contributes to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of eradicating extreme hunger and poverty as well as the necessity of working together to protect our common environment |
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The path ahead
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Sustainable tourism in mountain areas earns income, increases opportunities, offers financial incentives to protect the natural environment and brings positive cultural exchanges for mountain people. But the challenges of promoting sustainable mountain tourism requires that all partners -- governments, tourism industry, tourists, development agencies, civil society and the private sector - work side by side with mountain people to steer tourism on a more sustainable path and to use it as a force to fight poverty in mountain areas.
Practical steps are already underway. The World Tourism Organization (WTO), the UN agency responsible for tourism and the lead agency for the International Year of Ecotourism (2002) has launched the Sustainable Tourism-Eliminating Poverty (ST-EP) Programme to combat poverty and bring development and jobs to people living on less than a dollar a day. And throughout the world, many successful alliances, initiatives and networks -- large and small -- are actively advocating for change, disseminating best practices, providing training and developing responsible codes of conduct and practices for local mountain populations and tourists alike.
But it is action at the country level that is vital for sustainable tourism in mountain regions. Only countries have the power to build capacities, implement national strategies, develop policies and pass laws that will create conditions in which tourism can work sustainably and benefit local communities. International Mountain Day in 2005 with its theme of 'Sustainable Tourism for Poverty Alleviation in Mountain Areas' provides a unique opportunity to increase awareness, to enhance solidarity and to promote concerted action for sustainable tourism -- particularly at the country level.
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If you wish to share an interesting case study, article, news or features on mountain tourism, write to: mountain-day@fao.org
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