M-4 Public Protected Areas
exceptional interest and such universal value that their
Protected area: An area of land and/or sea especially
dedicated to the protection and maintenance of
biological diversity, and of natural and associated
cultural resources, and managed through legal or other
effective means (IUCN, 1994).
A public protected area is managed by a public authority
(federal, state, county or municipal government). Private
protected areas are commercial or non-government
businesses or organizations (NGO).
The majority of protected areas in the world are located
in public protected areas.
Biosphere Reserves
An important global effort to protect important
scientific, cultural or natural locations begins with
identifying these areas. The World Heritage Convention
and Biosphere Reserve designations attempt to
encourage countries to identify and preserve these sites.
The United Nations has recognized forty-seven U.S.
biosphere reserves (324 in 84 countries) through its
"Man and the Biosphere" (MAB) education
and research program. The program, along with the
U.N's World Heritage Convention initiative, was
created three decades ago and conveys "world-
class" status on premiere ecological sites.
World Heritage Sites
The World Heritage Convention, (WHC), issued by the
Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the
World Cultural and Natural Heritage, of the United
Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization. (WHC-97/2, February 1997).
The World Heritage Convention concerns the protection
of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage namely the
irreplaceable testimonies of past civilizations and natural
landscapes. Protecting natural and cultural properties of
outstanding universal value against the threat of damage
in a rapidly developing world.
The primary aim is to define the world-wide sites of
protection is considered to be the responsibility of all
mankind and not just the country within whose
boundaries they lie.
Natural Environments
Most protected areas are designated for having an
undisturbed natural environment and biodiversity. They
may also have exceptional scientific, resource, cultural or
scenery that add to its value for ecotourism.
IUCN Categories and Ecotourism Compatibility
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) working with
the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) has
developed a protected area classification system.
I. Strict Nature Reserve/Wilderness Area: protected
area managed mainly for science of wilderness
protection
II. National Park: protected area managed mainly for
ecosystem protection and recreation
III. Natural Monument: protected area managed mainly
for conservation of specific natural features
IV. Habitat/Species Management Area: protected area
managed mainly for conservation through management
intervention
V. Protected Landscape/Seascape: protected area
managed mainly for landscape/seascape protection and
recreation.
VI. Managed Resource Protected Area: protected area
managed mainly for the sustainable use of natural
ecosystems.
Marine Protected Areas
Marine protected areas (MPS’s) are being established
across the globe. The primary reason for establishing an
MPA is to protect local marine resources and help
protect marine biodiversity.
*Marine Protected Areas of the United States
*Marine Protected Areas of Australia
Private Protected Areas
Non-government organizations or agencies have several
options in the type and level of their involvement in
protected areas. Most common is the contracting of
specific services such as food concessions, equipment
rentals, guiding services or management.
In some countries private property rights are retained by
a business or non-governmental organization. A popular
and growing trend it the non-governmental ownership of
protected areas by such groups as:
 Nature Conservancy
 Australian Bush Heritage
One reason for the growth of these areas is the public’s
interest in environmentalism. The ability to generate
profits, provide economic diversification and local
control for communities is a primary incentive for private
protected areas. The majority of private protected areas
are financially dependent on tourism. This makes these
reserves tenuous, when the profit motive is greater than
the conservation motive. These types of private
arrangements may also deter governments from funding
such efforts in the public system.
Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve
M- 5 Ecological Benefits
Ecosystem Services are the benefits nature provides to
human well-being. The term is frequently thrown around
in academic circles, but why should you care about
them?
Although the term is quite new, our connection to nature
is not. We depend on nature for our survival - without
healthy ecosystems, our drinking water isn’t clean nor is
the air we breathe. We also enjoy nature... studies show
that people who spend time in nature tend to be happier
than those that don’t. It can even act as a natural anti-
depressant. With industry and urban sprawl expanding
at unprecedented rates, Ecosystem Services attempt to
translate the benefits we receive from nature into
economic terms so we can better understand the trade-
offs we are making between nature and industrial
development.
This brings us to the reasons why we feel Ecosystem
Services are important to each and every person:
1. Boundless Benefits
Understanding nature in economic terms, while not
perfect, allows us to put everything into the same
comparison unit. Despite nature being such an integral
part of the human existence, it is sometimes an
afterthought in today’s economy. Nature and money are
often on competing terms, so to make a more level
playing field, environmental economists have tried to
bridge this gap by placing a monetary value on the
benefits nature provides.
A recent study estimated the combined benefits of
nature to people at well over $100 USD trillion per year.
To put this in perspective, the top 50 most profitable
companies globally combine to make just under $10 USD
trillion per year.
Valuing nature in a way that can speak to decision
makers, may help promote conservation efforts in the
future. It brings nature back into the cost-benefit
discussion in a way that can be easily understood.
2. The Foundation for Sustainable Development
Ecosystem Services help measure the true cost of
industrial development. Often, the impact industrial
development has on the economy and job creation
overshadows the cost it will have on surrounding lakes,
forests, keystone species, and so on. Assigning a dollar
value to these lakes and forests, and the Ecosystem
Services they provide, helps adjust the cost benefit
analysis by evaluating the negative effects development
will have on the natural environment.
Companies have also started to use Ecosystem Services
in conservation offset planning, where they can buy and
sell credits to offset a development or set aside land to
meet a specific offset.
Sustainable development supports the maintenance of a
healthy economy while also protecting the ecological
process for future generations.
3. Essential for Our Survival
Whether you live in rural Newfoundland or downtown
Los Angeles, your dependence on
Ecosystem Services is the same. As a society, we depend
on healthy ecosystems to do many things; to purify the
air so we can breathe properly, sequester carbon for
climate regulation, cycle nutrients so we have access to
clean drinking water without costly infrastructure, and
pollinate our crops so we don’t go hungry. As the world’s
population continues to grow, so too does our
dependence on healthy ecosystems to provide the
necessities essential to our survival.
Don’t we all want to leave the planet in a good condition
for our successors? Ecosystem Services valuation and
assessment is one way to help make this happen. By
clearly understanding their value, we can make the best
and most informed decisions about how to manage our
landscape to ensure this value isn’t lost.
1.2 Ecological Costs
Destinations often attract tourists because of their
environment.
This environment may be man-made (ancient
monuments, cultural buildings, resorts, etc.) or it could
be natural (areas of natural beauty, climate, wildlife etc.)
but as we said in the previous step, the negative effects
of tourists on the very environment that drew them
often outweigh the positive, so we will focus on these
first.
There are two main ways that tourism negatively
impacts on the environment:
Through the development of the area
Through the behavior of tourists
The development of an area results in the construction
of facilities, not only attractions and hotels but also
buildings, roads, parking lots, facilities etc. These are
often situated near tourism activities, which depend on
destinations’ natural resources, which can result in
damage to the surrounding area.
Such infrastructure developments might impact
biodiversity and ecological habitats, damage original
visual resources, and weaken the destination’s regional
resilience to natural disasters in extreme weather
conditions, which in turn may result in negative
phenomena, such as soil erosion and landslides. The
negative impacts also include the overuse of water
resources and deforestation.
The behavior of tourists, and their use of facilities, can
result in environmental pollution through an increased
number of people. As well as air pollution from an
increase in the use of fossil fuels, pollution of the land
and sea swells in tourist areas and in tourist seasons.
Tourists cause 40% spike in plastic entering
Mediterranean Sea. Academic research has also found
that tourism negatively affects the environment of a
destination.
Environmental pollution due to increased tourism, such
as traffic congestion, littering, and noise, is an important
impact that affects the quality of residents’ daily lives.
(Chang et al, 2018)
In addition to air and water pollution, the use of green
spaces and consumption of energy means that tourism,
like other industries, contributes to climate change,
thereby affecting more than the specific destination and,
more recently there has been a shift in public
perceptions to focus more on the effect tourism has on
the climate as a whole rather than in specific
destinations.
M-6 Community-Based Ecotourism
What is community-based ecotourism?
Ecotourism is a frequently debated term. Sometimes it is
used simply to identify a form of tourism where the
motivation of visitors, and the sales pitch to them,
centers on the observation of nature.
Increasingly, this general sector of the market is called • providing alternative income and employment for local
‘nature tourism’. True ‘ecotourism’, however, requires a communities; and
proactive approach that seeks to mitigate the negative
• increasing local and visitor awareness of conservation.
and enhance the positive impacts of nature tourism.
While definitions can be useful, what is more important
The International Ecotourism Society defines ecotourism
is the appropriateness and quality of action, not what it
as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the
is called. The processes involved in ecotourism include all
environment and sustains the well-being of local people.
aspects of planning, developing, marketing and
This definition not only implies that there should be a
managing resources and facilities for this form of
recognition of, and positive support for, the conservation
tourism.
of natural resources, both by suppliers and consumers,
but also that there is a necessary social dimension to Visitor provision includes access to natural areas and
ecotourism. cultural heritage, guiding and interpretative services,
accommodation, catering, sales of produce and
The term ‘community-based ecotourism’ takes this
handicrafts, and transport. Appropriate recreational and
social dimension a stage further. This is a form of
special interest activities, such as trail walking,
ecotourism where the local community has substantial
photography and participatory conservation programs,
control over, and involvement in, its development and
may also be part of ecotourism. In some locations,
management, and a major proportion of the benefits
hunting and fishing may be included as appropriate
remain within the community. How the community is
activities, provided that they are carefully researched
defined will depend on the social and institutional
and controlled within a management plan that supports
structures in the area concerned, but the definition
conservation. This kind of sustainable use relies on local
implies some kind of collective responsibility and
knowledge, provides significant local income, and
approval by representative bodies. In many places,
encourages communities to place a high value on
particularly those inhabited by indigenous peoples, there
wildlife, resulting in net conservation benefits.
are collective rights over lands and resources.
Community-based ecotourism should therefore foster
sustainable use and collective responsibility.

However, it must also embrace individual initiatives

within the community. (These issues are covered further
under Guideline 4.) Some further general characteristics
of ecotourism have been identified by UNEP and the
World Tourism Organization as:

• involving appreciation not only of nature, but also of

indigenous cultures prevailing in natural areas, as part of
the visitor experience;

• containing education and interpretation as part of the

tourist offer;

• generally, but not exclusively, organized for small

groups by small, specialized and locally owned
businesses (while recognizing that foreign operators also
market and operate ecotourism);

• minimizing negative impacts on the natural and socio-

cultural environment;

• supporting the protection of natural areas by

generating economic benefits for the managers of
natural areas;