Article contributed by Kevin Phun, responsible tourism specialist.
Article for DevAid – Feb 2020
Ecotourism, climate change and intangible cultural heritage
Ecotourism is often associated with flora, fauna and the natural environment. Few often think of it being associated with intangible cultural heritage (ICH), but it does. If ecotourism is related to nature, then food, traditional knowledge (about medicines, way of hunting wildlife, land, mountains, rivers, forests et al) music (dependent on the material that makes the instruments), and local cultural identity with animals are examples of the intangible aspects of cultural heritage.
Climate change and the protecting (and preservation) of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) should increasingly being seen as connected and the link is important if we are to study the effects on ecotourism’s benefits to places and people.
As the global community sees this aspect of culture and heritage disappearing at a fast pace. ICH refers to intangible aspects of culture and heritage like ideas, music, language, food, knowledge etc. What is interesting, is its link to ecotourism. Ecotourism refers to the travelling to natural spaces where the main aims are to see, appreciate and learn about the natural environments and flora and fauna.
Ecotourism, as it matures, finds itself obliged to play a part in making development more sustainable. And as global challenges like climate change becomes bigger, there is an increasingly urgent need to take charge of the protection of the intangible side of cultural heritage.
Hence, using ecotourism to support the preservation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is something tourism planners should consider. Challenges like climate change is creating situations where places undergo physical changes; endangerment of flora and fauna species is increasing, rivers and lakes are drying, forested areas are declining, sea levels are rising, and people are forced to move. These in turn also make developing ecotourism harder.
Tourism activities utilise much cultural and heritage assets and that potentially should result in the motivation to act to preserve such resources. There is undoubtedly a strong link between tourist activities and loss of ICH, and this makes the case for considering ecotourism’s strong links to ICH.
How is ICH important in ecotourism?
Ecotourism development requires the conservation of natural spaces and protection of flora and fauna, without which, the essence of ecotourism is gone. ICH is an evolving discipline that’s increasingly being incorporated into the study of tourism, albeit slowly. ICH has been identified by UNESCO as the “practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities recognise as part of their cultural heritage” (Bonn, Kendall and McDonough, 2017, p8). When ecotourism develops in a place, the local culture is often part of the package of offerings the tourists get, as many local communities can be found in ecotourism sites
Ecotourism espouses the need to protect vulnerable flora and fauna species, often with allowing the presence of tourists as a driver to enhance awareness and also as a source of income, with which usually ends up as being the important source for funding ecotourism.
The protection of flora and fauna could interestingly be something that contributes to sustainable development of communities in a big way. The process may well involve consultation and engaging with local people, formulating and implementing more responsible forms if tourism policies, capacity building, partnerships between local communities, NGOs ad governments, and sometimes even the private sector.
The protection of flora and fauna may also see the revival of traditional ways of lifestyles, which may result in an important element of local ecotourism products.
Article contributed by Kevin Phun, responsible tourism specialist. Article first appeared in DevAid, retrieved from:<https://www.developmentaid.org/#!/news-stream/post/51126/ecotourism-and-ich>
