portant. In fact, tourism is a primary 

 source of foreign-exchange income. 

 Moreover, the potential for the growth 

 of ecotourism in those countries is 

 enormous, albeit still unrealized. 

 Those points only highlight the need 

 for the countries to promote "travel- 

 ing green." A recent survey by an on- 

 line travel agency in the United King- 

 dom known as responsibletravel.com 

 found that 80 percent of tourists would 

 be more likely to book with a tour op- 

 erator that has a so-called green poli- 

 cy in place. People who want to trav- 

 el to pristine locations do not want to 

 be responsible for causing damage, and 

 they often seek out tourism operators 

 that advertise "environmental aware- 

 ness." Yet what controls are in place for 

 would-be travelers and responsible 

 business owners to verify claims that 

 sustainable tourism is in place? 



In 1992 a UN conference on the en- 

 vironment, the so-called Earth Sum- 

 mit, was held in Rio de Janeiro. The 

 conference spawned a pact known as 

 Agenda 2 1 , which called for sustainable 

 development and in turn led to a pro- 

 fusion of new certification systems. 

 The vast disparity that grew up among 

 those systems eventually prompted the 

 organization I am associated with, the 

 Rainforest Alliance, to study whether 

 universal standards could be set for sus- 

 tainable tourism. We are now working 

 with the International Ecotourism So- 

 ciety to build a global network that pro- 

 motes higher standards of tourism. 



Programs that certify sustainable 

 practices often work much like the 

 "star" ratings, which companies such as 

 Michelin or Mobil award when they 

 publish their travel guides to hotels and 

 restaurants. They can be subjective or 

 rigorous, expansive or narrow. In the 

 more reputable programs, second- or 

 third-party assessors inspect business es- 

 tablishments that hope to be certified. 

 Their seals of approval are granted on- 

 ly temporarily and must be re-earned 

 every few years, as technology, the en- 

 vironment, and tourist traffic evolves. 



Hence the very process of certifica- 

 tion acts not only as a tool for measur- 



ing and enforcing com- 

 pliance with pre-estab- 

 lished criteria, but also 

 for promoting them. 

 Travel surveys and plain 

 economic demand de- 

 monstrate that tourism 

 businesses have an eco- 

 nomic interest in being 

 listed as green. So long as 

 the certification process 

 itself is incorruptible, 

 certification offers the 

 incentive for substantial 

 economic reward to 

 businesses for good be- 

 havior. By setting up ap- 

 propriate certification 

 criteria, some of the cer- 

 tification programs — 

 which go by such names 

 as Blue Flag, Green Deal, 

 and Green Globe — are 

 making their own con- 

 certed efforts to control 

 unchecked development 

 and foster responsibility 

 among so-called eco- 

 establishments [see sidebar 

 on tliis page for a few example. 



EXAMPLES OF CERTIFICATION 

 CRITERIA OR PROTOCOLS 



Beaches and marinas in 

 Canada, the Caribbean, 

 Europe, and parts of 

 Africa 



www.blueflag.org 



Sites must have an 

 emergency plan in place for 

 pollution accidents, and be 

 available for unannounced 

 water-quality inspections. 



BLUE FLAG 



eco 



CERTIFIED 



Accommodations, tours, 

 and attractions in 

 Australia 



www.ecotourism.org.au 



Third parties often do 

 onsite, random audits; 

 certification must be 

 renewed every three years. 





Tour operators, hotels, 

 and restaurants in 

 Guatemala 

 www.greendeal.org 



A team of independent 

 auditors looks at 

 environmental practices and 

 cultural relations. 





Tour operators, 



Starts with "benchmark" 



® 



restaurants, resorts, 



standards that must be met 



and more, around 



before full certification 





the world 



(signaled by a checkmark 





www.greenglobe.org 



through the globe icon). 





Accommodations in 

 Denmark, Estonia, 

 France, Greenland, 

 and Sweden 

 www.green-key.org 



Inspects energy 

 consumption and chemical 

 use; sets individualized goals 

 for each site. 



Ecotourist organizations around the world — such as the ones 

 symbolized by the logos above — feature a bewildering variety of 

 certification criteria and protocols to ensure compliance. Some 

 are banding together to standardize the meaning of "green. " 



One criterion common to most 

 meaningful certification pro- 

 grams concerns the use of water. Big re- 

 sorts consume as much as 300 gallons 

 of water per guest per day. Any hotel 

 that can cut that consumption takes a 

 major step toward a sustainable enter- 

 prise. Stanley Selengut, who has oper- 

 ated a Maho Bay resort on Saint John 

 in the U.S. Virgin Islands since 1974, 

 has installed low-flush toilets, pull- 

 chain showers, and low-flow faucets; 

 his average has tumbled to twenty-five 

 gallons of water per guest per day. 



One benefit of the focus on sustain- 

 ability, Selengut says, is that each step 

 in that direction "has led us to new op- 

 portunities and new innovations with 

 unforeseen applications." He started his 

 hotel with eighteen tentlike cottages on 

 elevated walkways, designed so as not 

 to disturb the local vegetation on the 

 steep hillside or cause damage to the 

 reef just below. No construction roads 



were created, few trees were removed, 

 footings were dug by hand, and use of 

 heavy machinery was minimized. 



Once the resort was operating, Se- 

 lengut realized he could enhance the 

 environment with its by-products. He 

 began to put "graywater" — wastewater 

 from washing machines and the like that 

 does not need to be chemically treat- 

 ed — compost, and recyclable materials 

 to good use. "Our use of graywater has 

 not only enabled us to cut down on our 

 use of a precious island resource," he 

 says. "But it's also led us to a compre- 

 hensive system of site restoration" — in- 

 cluding the reintroduction of native 

 plants, natural methods of insect con- 

 trol, and wildlife management. 



Although sustainable tourism has 

 been adopted primarily by small, in- 

 dependent operators, a number of the 

 world's larger tourism companies, 

 from hotels to tour operators, are also 

 restructuring their management and 

 operations. The aim is to reduce the 

 consumption of water, energy, and 



July/August 2006 NATURAL HISTORY 



1 



