ECO TOURISM CERTIFICATION

prepared by Helen seiya 

INTRODUCTION

Ecotourism is a form of tourism that involves visiting natural areas—in the remote wilderness or urban environments. According to the definition and principles of ecotourism established by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) in 1990, ecotourism is "Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people." (TIES,1990).

Martha Honey expands on the TIES definition by describing the seven characteristics of ecotourism, which are:

• Involves travel to natural destinations
• Minimizes impact
• Builds environmental awareness
• Provides direct financial benefits for conservation
• Provides financial benefits and empowerment for local people
• Respects local culture
• Supports human rights and democratic movements

Sustainable tourism is tourism attempting to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate future employment for local people. The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development brings a positive experience for local people, tourism companies and the tourists themselves.

Characteristics

• minimizes negative economic, environmental, and social impacts
• generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry
• involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances
• makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity
• provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues
• provides access for people with disabilities and
• Is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

Certification

It has been referred to as process by which an area is tested and evaluated in order to determine its mastery of specific body of knowledge, or some portion of a body of knowledge.

  

Certification of eco tourism, refers to a procedure that assesses, monitor, gives written assurance, and awards a marketable logo to a business, attraction, destination, tour, services, service provider (such as a naturalist tour guide), process or management system that meets specific standards and that accreditation is the process of qualifying, endorsing and licensing, entities that perform

The 3 levels of ECO Certification are:

NATURE TOURISM	Nature Tourism: Tourism in a natural area that leaves minimal impact on the environment.
ECO TOURISM	Ecotourism: Tourism in a natural area that offers interesting ways to learn about the environment with an operator that uses resources wisely, contributes to the conservation of the environment and helps local communities.

ADVANCED TOURISM

Advanced Ecotourism: Australia's leading and most innovative ecotourism products, providing an opportunity to learn about the environment with an operator who is committed to achieving best practice when using resources wisely, contributing to the conservation of the environment and helping local communities.

Criteria for certification eco tourism

The area must deal with Conservation of biological diversity and cultural diversity through ecosystem protection.

The qualification of an area will also base on its ability to maintain the ecosystem through the management of the environment and respect of the local culture, such as it should not intruding on the community unless invited either individually or as part well organized tour.

It must consider the Promotion of sustainable use of biodiversity, by providing jobs to local populations

The certification of an area will also consider its local people empowerment by promoting them in establishing tourism enterprises that conserve environment and considering the maintenance of biodiversity, many of which are wisely combined with other economic activities such as farming.

There must be Sharing of socio-economic benefits with local communities and indigenous peoples by having their informed consent and participation in the management of ecotourism enterprises

One among of the benefits of eco tourism is to ensure that the local communities are direct benefits economically from these tourism activities by involving in different economic activities such as guarding, selling artifacts

 Unspoiled natural resources, with minimal impact on the environment being a primary concern of an area.

The practice of areas for its to be awarded eco tourism approval certificate it must strives to minimize the adverse effects of hotels, trails and other infrastructure by using renewable sources of energy, recycling and safe disposal of waste and garbage and environmentally and cultural sensitive architectural design.

There must be Minimization of tourism's own environmental impact

For the area to be certified for practicing eco tourism, it must be able to minimize the environmental impacts such as land degradation, and other impacts which are caused by overcrowding and other tourism activities.

Local culture, flora and fauna being the main attractions of an area

The evaluation of an area will base on its greener and its local cultural respect whereas prostitution, black markets, and drugs often are by product of mass tourism in which the area practice eco tourism should be able to control all the for the benefits of the local people and the maintenance of sustainable environment.

Participants in the Sustainable Ecotourism in North America Online Conference in May 2000, organized by ecotourism consultant Ron Mader, developed a number of standards that characterize ecotourism:

1. tourism activity in relatively undisturbed natural settings
2. minimal negative impacts on the environment
3. conservation of natural and cultural heritage
4. active involvement with and benefit to local community
5. tourism-generated profits contribute to sustainable development
6. Educational experience for visitors that incorporates both natural and cultural heritage [Ceballos-Lascur�in].
7. Affordability and lack of waste in the form of luxury

Principles of Sustainable Tourism

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Increasing evidence shows that an integrated approach to tourism planning and management is now required to achieve sustainable tourism. It is only recently that there has been a growing recognition of the importance of combining the needs of traditional urban management (transportation, land use planning, marketing, economic development, fire and safety etc.) with the need to plan for tourism.

Some of the most important principles of sustainable tourism development include:

• Tourism should be initiated with the help of broad-based community-inputs and the community should maintain control of tourism development.
• Tourism should provide quality employment to its community residents and a linkage between the local businesses and tourism should be established.
• A code of practice should be established for tourism at all levels - national, regional, and local - based on internationally accepted standards. Guidelines for tourism operations, impact assessment, monitoring of cumulative impacts, and limits to acceptable change should be established.
• Education and training programmes to improve and manage heritage and natural resources should be established.

Criteria for certification of sustainable development

• minimizes negative economic, environmental, and social impacts
• generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry
• involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances
• makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity
• provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues
• provides access for people with disabilities and
• Is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

Benefits of Ecotourism

Ecotourism has been described as "one of the most potent tools in the arsenal of the contemporary conservationists" [Downs]. It presents an environmentally friendlier and potentially more sustainable alternative to extractive activities, such as farming, logging, mining, or harvesting of wildlife. It offers local people the chance to escape a cycle of poverty and, by sharing their knowledge of the local terrain and ecology with visitors, to develop a stronger sense of community pride and a broader, more global perspective that recognizes the value of biodiversity to all people.

The Need for Standards

There is no standard set of guidelines for ecotourism, and no formal system of accreditation by which green businesses may be rated. The two largest programs for certification, the Certificate of Sustainable Tourism (CST) in Costa Rica and the Nature Ecotourism Accreditation Program (NEAP) sponsored by the Ecotourism Association of Australia, have only local authority, though the latter has developed an International Ecotourism Standard that will be released soon. Cond� Nast offers an Ecotourism Award for which organizations must apply, but does not check applicants' claims before choosing a winner. The Rainforest Alliance is sponsoring a study to examine the feasibility of international certification through the Sustainable Stewardship Council, but it may be years before standards go into effect.

Problems with certification include

·        The difficulty with applying broad standards to local situations,

·        The need to enforce standards through regular inspections from some higher authority, and the expense and organization that regulation entails.

·        Small outfits may not be able to afford certification even if a recognized and scientifically-sound program becomes available

The lack of certification poses a significant problem, for it means that ecologies and other establishments are not answerable as far as the extent and success of their environmental efforts.

·        Recycling programs,

·        Promotion of low-impact tourist activities,

·        Supports for conservation efforts are entirely voluntary once minimum existing environmental standards have been met.

Most travelers plan their ecotourism trips using the Internet and are dependent on an outfit's own advertising and on the advice of friends, so they are unable to make a truly informed choice.

Best Practices for Ecotourism

Sound ecotourism activities contribute long-term benefits to both the environment and the host community. Pam Wight's guiding principles for ecotourism include the following provisions:

• tourist activities must not degrade the resource
• visitors should be offered educational first-hand experiences
• all stakeholders (host community, government, non-governmental organizations, industry, and tourists) must be involved
• tourism must respect the intrinsic value of natural resources
• tourism cannot overtax the resource supplies of the local region
• stakeholders must be encouraged to develop partnerships
• tourist revenue must provide conservation, scientific, or cultural benefits to the resource, local community, and industry as a whole
• These benefits must be long-term [Wight 1993].

Achieving these principles depends in large part upon the scale of the operation. The cardinal rule of ecotourism is: keep things small. A region that can absorb the impact of a few dozen visitors over the course of a month, including

·        The infrastructure to support their presence such as plumbing,

·        sewage wastewater,

·        electricity generators,

·        transportation facilities

Accreditation.
 Is the programmed that provides a means of establishing the extent to which a business offering tourism experiences meets industry nominated standard.

 These encourage.

 The delivery of consistently high quality products and promotes continuous improvements.

Different between accreditation and certification.

Accreditation It focuses on programs and institutions while certification applies to individuals.

The following are the benefits of certification of eco tourism and sustainable development.

• ECO is a framework  to assist you in the implementation of ecologically sustainable practices
• ECO is an internationally recognized brand for you to use in and on  your marketing material 
• ECO Certification  provides you a  listing of your products in the Green Travel Directory brochure
• ECO Certification provides you a  listing of your products in the eco search pages of the Ecotourism website
• ECO provides you the opportunity to promote your product in the ‘Green Holiday Idea of the Month’ on the homepage of Ecotourism Australia’s website

• ECO Certification marketing benefits, include for example representation of products at domestic and international trade shows, industry conventions, media referrals and case study referrals
• The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is committed to rewarding Great Barrier Reef Marine Park operators certified to the Ecotourism and Advanced Ecotourism levels by offering extended 15 year permits for successful applicants.  ECO Certified operators also receive a range of benefits through many of Australia’s State National Park agencies.
• ECO Certified Operators receive up to 50% discount off membership to Ecotourism Australia, providing a whole host of benefits.

The Certification of Sustainable Tourism hopes to encourage companies to adopt a sustainable orientation in every business decision with the goal being wide spread use of recycled products, proper disposal and treatment of waste, the implementation of water and energy saving devices, conservation and expansion of Costa Rican forests as well as better systems of information management.

The rating system used by the CST is essentially a set of standards that categorized and certify each company according to the degree to which its operations comply to a model of sustainability. The following sectors are evaluated by the CST as a means to measure a company’s sustainability index:

1. Physical-Biological Parameters: Evaluates the interaction between the company and the surrounding habitat.

2. Infrastructure and services: Evaluates the management policies and the operation systems within the company and its infrastructure

 3. External Clients: Evaluates the interaction of the company with its clients in terms of how much it allows and invites the client to be active contributor to the company’s policies of sustainability.,

4. Socio-economic Environment: Evaluates the interaction of the company with the local communities and the population in general.,

Types of Accreditation

Some kinds of institutions that require accreditation status are:

• Public institutions
• Private institutions
• For-profit institutions
• Non-profit institutions
• Single-purpose institutions
• Private career institutions
• Faith-based colleges and universities
• Distance learning colleges and universities
• Law schools
• Medical schools
• Heath profession educational programs

Only one kind of accreditation would not be sufficient to address the accrediting needs of the various institutions that require accreditation status. This is why accreditation organizations provide two major types of accreditation. They are:

1. Institutional accreditation
2. Specialized, professional, or programmatic accreditation

These two major kinds of accreditation are used for quality review, assessment, and assurance of institutions all over the world.

1. Institutional Accreditation

Institutional accreditation status is achieved by a college or university that meets the quality standards and fulfills the requirements designated by the accreditation organization.

In order to meet the requirements for institutional accreditation status, all aspects of the college or university, including academic quality, administrative effectiveness, and all other related services of the institution, are reviewed by the accreditation organization.

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2. Specialized, Professional, or Programmatic Accreditation

Specialized, professional, or programmatic accreditation is a type of accreditation status that is designated for specialized departments, programs, schools, or colleges within a college or university that have already been awarded institutional accreditation.

accreditation is base on the following
focus on personally experiencing natural areas
integrates into each experience opportunities to learn
represent best practice for sustainable tourism
contributes to the conservation of natural areas
provides ongoing contribution to local communities
involves and is sensitive to different cultures
consistence meets clients expectation.
Marketing is accurate and leads to realistic expectation.

Challenges of accreditation

Public awareness

Multidisciplinary and multi sectoral approach

Ever changing technologies

Consumer education