Tourism and Biodiversity in North and South

Abstract

Biodiversity in Southern nations is a significant attraction for Northern tourism: reefs and rainforests, whales and wildflowers, big game and biological rarities. It is therefore in the interests of international tourism to help conserve international biodiversity. The role of tourism in biodiversity conservation is especially significant in Southern nations because many Southern nations have particularly rich biodiversity but weak legal, land-use allocation, and development control systems, and protected area agencies with few funds and little political power. Northern tourism can provide incentives to conserve biodiversity through foreign exchange and economic opportunities for Southern governments and local communities. They can also buy private land for tourism and conservation, and lobby against logging and land clearance and other high-impact land uses. Northern tourism also relies on Northern biodiversity. Currently, tourism growth is a significant threat to many Northern protected areas. As a high-value use, tourism should displace primary industries in public and private lands of high biodiversity outside the protected area system, rather than inside parks. For political reasons, however, this rarely happens at present.