Ecotourism is the fastest growing sector of the world’s largest service industry. It doesn’t rate a mention in Tourism Australia’s current strategy.
South Africa has already proved the economic contribution of wildlife with tourism being the country's largest earner of foreign currency, the largest employer (providing one in twelve jobs) and contributing 8% of GDP (2010). With 10.3 million foreign visitors in 2010 and continued subsequent growth, the government has identified it as a priority economic sector that could nearly treble in value by 2020.
South Africa's economy was founded on mining. It has just 19 national parks including the 20,000 km2 Kruger National Park, yet wildlife - through nature-based and ecotourism - is the international drawcard, contributing more than 80% of the tourism total. Unlike Australia, the Department of Tourism sits within the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, with one of its key priorities the growth of ecotourism.
Sadly ecotourism is not the priority in Australia that it is in South Africa and Costa Rica or other countries equally blessed with the mineral resources riches of Australia. To protect a growing ecotourism industry that is formally recognised as sustainable long beyond the life of mines, Costa Rica has imposed a moratorium on gold mining, oil exploration and a ban on new open pit metal mining.
Ecotrourism is the only industry of the Galapagos Islands, where it contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to Ecuador’s national economy, and early studies showed an incalculable economic potential for it. Incalculable economic potential...
In June 2012, for the first time, the G20 world leaders formally recognised the importance of Travel & Tourism as a driver of jobs, growth and economic recovery. According to World Travel & Tourism Council, “the industry directly will contribute $2 trillion in GDP and 100 million jobs to the global economy in 2012. When the wider economic impacts of the industry are taken into account, Travel & Tourism is forecast to contribute some $6.5 trillion to the global economy and generate 260 million jobs – or 1 in 12 of all jobs on the planet.”
AND IN AUSTRALIA?
The Australian tourism industry employs 500,000 people directly and 400,000 indirectly, contributes $34 billion to GDP and 10% of our total export earnings, yet contributes little to conservation of the species on which so much of this depends. (Incidentally, mining employs 187,400 people directly, and a further 599,680 in support industries.)
Nature-based tourism is noted as being central to Australia’s competitive advantage in the government’s Tourism 2020 strategy, with “unique landscapes” differentiating it from other destinations, yet wildlife, conservation or ecotourism don’t rate a mention.
Nor do at risk wildlife, environmental degradation, loss of habitat or the listing of the koala as a threatened species rate a mention as key challenges for the industry - challenges in which the industry should be vocal and active in support of research and policy solutions.
There’s nothing like Australia, declares the latest national television campaign, replete with stunning images of the natural environment - an environment under extreme pressure from development, mining, negligence and policy ineptitude.
The advertisement features a lone wallaby bounding on a beach. No mention of the cruel and dirty industry engaged in the inhumane and uncontrolled killing of kangaroos and wallabies, under the auspices of food. No action either in support of conservation of kangaroos.
Or koalas.
THEY ARE WORTH SAVING
While I have referenced it in a previous member email, it bears mentioning again...The 1997 study, Koalas and Tourism: An Economic Evaluation, asked departing foreign tourists which animals they had wanted to see in travelling to Australia. Seventy five per cent of inbound tourists said that they hoped to see a koala.
When asked whether they would have changed their decision to come to Australia if there were no such unique wildlife, 11 per cent said ‘yes’. It is this figure - the potential loss - that formed the upper bound of direct correlation to the economic contribution of koalas to the Australian tourism industry.
Report author, Dr Clive Hamilton rightly suggests that koalas might be thought of as an input into the tourism industry for which tourism operators do not pay.
In 1996, inbound tourism revenue was $16.1 billion; in the financial year 2008–09 inbound tourism generated $24 billion. If koalas were worth $1.1 billion to the Australian tourism industry 17 years ago, what could they be worth now?
Sure James Packer, tourists like to shop, to enjoy cultural experiences and lose money in your casinos too while they are here. But they can do that anywhere in the world. What brings them to Australia is our wildlife.
So long as we remain ignorant of the critical connection between environmental conservation, sustainable development, the protection of our iconic wildlife and economic prosperity, we have no chance of saving the koala.
The fate of the koala is as much an economic decision as environmental. And make no mistake, the fate of the koala is our decision to make.
Loss of the koala to extinction - already apparent in parts - will be a major blow to the tourism industry, whether the industry knows it or not. That’s a major blow to the national economy, and especially the Queensland economy.
Which makes KoalaTracker and your observations of koalas in the wild essential to the economy, to government policy, to community education, to saving the koala.
We cannot afford to become complacent. Map all sightings, injuries and deaths on Australia's national crowdsourced koala map, www.koalatracker.com.au.