Cities Under Ecotourism

Cities under Ecotourism

The demand of consumers for more “remote,” “natural,” and “exotic” environments has created a rise in ecotourism industry, especially in developing countries. Of concern is the fact that many people consider ecotourism as a universal panacea for alleviating all tourism’s ills on both the environment and the society (Sillignakis 7). Even though the original intention of ecotourism was to preserve an area’s natural resources while profiting from them, in reality, due trying to maximize profits without local involvement in planning and management by the local government, some ecotourist areas have not really benefited from the development of ecotourism, and become modern tourist cities as originally intended. Oftentimes, these areas have undergone a path of lopsided urbanization, which includes the misuse of land resources, the appearance of city slums, and exploitation of local work force.

Eco-tourism has adversely affected the unchecked expansion of the city. Land resources are misused for establishing more hotels and reserves than needed, which contributes to local people’s loss of access to the original area. In addition, the overcrowding of infrastructure, accommodations, and facilities in one area of the city is an unfavorable factor for it to become a modern city with separated functions. Sometimes, local residents can be forced to abandon their homes by the government. The land left can be used to build and protect ecotourist destinations like parks and reserves. This phenomenon of displacement and dislocation can be observed easily in many cases around the world, especially in those developing countries. James G. Carrier and Donald V. L. Macleod provide a typical example

of the construction of Bayahibe, a new tourist site, in the Dominican Republic, “Restrictions on land use on the mainland portion, together with restrictions on infrastructural development, effectively obliged the almost 100 people living there to abandon their settlements”(325). In

this case, the planners want to segregate the tourist sites from local residential area for the purpose of building more national parks and hotel chains. However, this practice not only poses a greater threat to the environment, but also limits the possibility of making full use of land resources.

The government may even restrict locals’access to those ecotourist areas, according to what Torres and Momsen have stated that “For most of Cancun's residents, the tourist zone on the island of Cancun is an exclusive place of conspicuous tourist consumption to be experienced only from a bus window, a kitchen, an unkempt hotel room, or through the prism of some other subservient role”(317). It may seem strange that there is no intercommunication between those local people not involved in ecotourism-related work and the ecotourist areas, but the restrictions make it a reality. This loss of local control and access to rural land resources due to the growth of ecotourism has led to the increase in the city's population, putting pressure on city services that have not yet reached the standard to serve a modern tourist city, and that pressure further hampers its development. The most obvious result is the rubbish and waste that are much more apparent in the city streets or sewers. As Carrier and Macleod show that “city waste and sewerage facilities have not expanded enough to cope, so that each rainstorm washes rubbish down the gullies and leaches effluvia from pit latrines into the bay”(320). Even though the city can gain profits from ecotourism, it is at the

cost of its environment. Thus, its development is not in accord with the requirement of sustainable urbanization.

However, most visitors will not be able to see it. The city planners wrongheadedly create an “ecotourist bubble” to ensure privacy and exclusivity for those tourists. It is a “bubble” with the ecotourist district inside having the very best facilities, amenities, infrastructure, and resources. Therefore leaves development of the other parts of the city outside the “bubble”

lagging behind, without adequate provision for social infrastructure such as transport, schools

and hospitals. This unbalance would trigger detrimental social conflicts between different strata of society along the course of urbanization.

On the premise of the ill-planning of the city, the increasing growth of ecotourism may contribute to the appearance of city slums followed by poverty, unemployment, exploitation, inequalities, and degradation in the quality of urban life. Like when local people are forced to leave their original dwelling places, and those impoverished populations have to search for more income earning opportunities. The advent of ecotourism brings social inequality, with the display of prosperity amid poverty in cities where international guests live in fancy five-star hotels and poor locals live in shantytowns. There are huge disparities between the core tourist zone, the tourist downtown, the non-tourist downtown, and at the outermost edge. In Cancun, Mexico, the misery of city slums is of no exception:

The Franja Ejidal houses thousands of people, often with the most recent immigrants living in impoverished and squalid conditions such as this tar-paper shack. Despite government efforts to keep up infrastructure construction, much of the Franja Ejidal remains without paved roads, running water, sewerage, and electricity. (Torres and Momsen 317)

Torres and Momsen describe the conditions when those newest and poorest arrivals all settle

in the periphery of the city. This overcrowding results in the virtual collapse in the urban

services. People should notice that ecotourism brings about another face of the city, which is subject to extreme filthy slums and deficiency of shelter, drinking water, electricity, sanitation to the extreme poor and rural migrants.

Furthermore, locals cannot always benefit economically from ecotourism, since a large number of them only do small jobs for daily wages, and sometimes even for long hours. They oftentimes receive jobs that are low paying, and limited in their potential for upward mobility

as managerial positions go to foreigners or urban-educated elites. Lynn R. Horton points out

that on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula “during high season, certain ecotourism workers such as cooks may be required to work 15-hour or longer days, disrupting family and social life in a way that more traditional economic activities have not done”(101). Those illiterate or unskilled migrants from rural areas are absorbed in the low-grade sector of ecotourism at

quite low wage rates. Exploited heavily, they are not able to earn sufficient money to support the high cost of living in cities. Even more miserable is that while in the low season, some tourist operators would lay off employees. Deprived of the chance for a legitimate income, they have to resort to some improper or illegal means for making money. In this way, the crime rate, prostitution, gambling, and drug sales may all increase by a big margin, which worsens the situation of slums. Ecotourism has engaged more people from the rural areas to the cities, but the cities cannot provide them with enough resources for a life that they aspire for. It is an urbanization filled with exploitation of the local work force, and potential hazards for social unrest.