Travel News

Sustainable Tourism & Saving the Serengeti With Costas Christ

From supporting Gulf Coast tourism to saving the Serengeti, Peter has a lot to talk about with sustainable travel expert Costas Christ, Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler. Learn more about what’s happening in the eco-tourism industry, and how you can help make a difference both at home and abroad.

Peter Greenberg: Are you back in Maine picking blueberries?

Costas Christ: Peter, I’m back in Maine, and we’re getting very close to that time of year.

PG: All right, I’m not letting you off the hook this year. I want some blueberries.

CC: Your call is timely, we’re about two weeks away from the harvest.

PG: We were talking earlier about the unavoidable subject of the oil spill in the Gulf. What travelers can do to make a difference, not just in terms of the cleanup effort, but in terms of being geographically conscientious about what areas are being affecting as well as what areas are not. There are places in Eastern Florida that are getting hit hard – not by the oil spill, but by fear. By people saying, “We’re going to cancel our vacation there because of the oil spill.” There is no oil spill on the eastern coast of Florida the last time I looked.

Learn more about the Gulf crisis in Peter’s interview with reporter Kerry Sanders: Gulf Coast Oil Report: Local Businesses Collapsing, Ecosystem Toxic

BP Logo, Formerly British PetroleumCC: We have to be kind of realistic about how we approach this situation. I mean first of all, yes, there’s no question that what has happened with BP and the Gulf is an environmental crisis of the largest proportion. But let’s not make that crisis worse by having folks make tourism cancellation bookings. I have friend I was just talking to two days ago down in Florida. He’s a fisherman – not a big charter boat captain, but a fly-fisherman. He takes out people on eco-tourism trips, and everything has been canceled. Everything. He was saying to me this is like getting a double crisis.

PG: And there is no early way around that, is there?

CC: I think the way around it is for travelers to be positive, and to be smart and savvy. If we support those communities that need the support economically, particularly in places that haven’t been hit by the oil spill, we’re also sending a signal to them that we care. We care about their local livelihoods; we care about the problem with BP, and we also want to solve it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I think the smart tourist will find two things: One, great bargains; two, there is no need to avoid traveling to places where there is not oil on the beach. Let’s not get hysterical.

PG: You know what? You said an interesting word there. You said, “smart tourist.” My definition of a smart tourist is a traveler.

Travel Insiders should check out Peter’s Interview With Gulf Coast Mayors Tony Kennon & Carolyn Doughty. If you aren’t an insider, you can still get travel advice in our Ask the Locals Travel Guide: Alabama’s Gulf Coast

CC: Yes, that’s right. I mean, we all like to see ourselves as travelers and not tourists. This is the time for the traveler side of us to come out. And you know Peter, you touch on a larger issue. It’s the whole notion of how tourism can really make a difference in promoting conservation, and providing alternatives in terms of jobs and economy away from extractive or more damaging industries. I think people who are willing to support the coastal communities – to visit them, to enjoy them – are also providing an economic alternative to people who otherwise would be forced to work on dangerous offshore oil rigs in the Gulf. At least in some of those communities.

African WildebeestsPG: That’s an interesting point. It certainly is going to change certain lifestyles and certain choices of employment. But let’s turn the table for a second. Let’s talk about some positive eco-initiatives that are happening in Africa.

CC: I think there are some very exciting things happening. I think when we talk about the successes of eco-tourism and conservation we can take a look at the Okavango Delta, for example, in Southern Africa in the country of Botswana, which was also a winner this year of the World Tourism and Travel Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow Award for their Destination Stewardship. Botswana and specifically the Okavango is a great example of how travelers can really protect these great iconic nature destinations.

Another wonderful success story can be found in the country of Gabon. Now that’s one that probably a lot of your listeners will have to look up on a map. But the country of Gabon is in West Africa, and it’s the site where National Geographic did an edition a number of years ago called the Megatransect. There, you have a situation where eco-tourism has resulted in the creation of 13 new national parks that were going to go to mining and timber harvesting. These are the homes of a vast array of wildlife, including the largest population of Lowland Gorillas. So these are major victories where travel and tourism have really been able to deliver the protection of resources for future generations.

For more on traveling to this region, visit our Africa Travel section

Zebras in TanzaniaPG: Except when we come to the country of Tanzania, and their proposed highway, right?

CC: That is exactly what I was going to get to, Peter. What we have right now is a really serious situation. Tanzania, under its first President Julius Nyerere, did a lot to create national parks and conservation. The current government has put forward not just a proposal, but they have passed and made a decision that in 2012 they will construct a major highway which will cut across the northern half of the Serengeti National Park. The result of that will be to cut the last great land migration on the planet in half: that’s the great wildebeest migration. Those who care about the Serengeti, can go to a Web site called savetheserengeti.org. They can find out information there on how they can support the protection of the area and really keep going the last great land migration on our planet.

PG: You know, I was personally involved as a young boy in stopping a highway from being built on an island where I live. The big developer Robert Moses wanted to build a highway that expanded the entire length of Fire Island in New York. And the only way we could stop him was to get our congressman at that time to introduce a piece of legislature, that got passed, making Fire Island a national seashore and halting all construction. That’s the only way we could stop it.

CC: In this case I think the real way it can be stopped is with an economic argument. And that is by the Tanzanian government realizing that it’s not just a question of the conservation tragedy of having the Serengeti cut in half, or at least the northern portion of it cut across by a new major highway. We’re talking a serious thing here, Peter. But the truth is that this will be devastating to Tanzania’s tourism economy; this will be devastation just because of what this highway represents. The Serengeti harbors the last, and only, great land migration on the planet. It is the largest migration on the planet. This going to be a topic we’re all going to be hearing about a lot. Again, we’re not saying there shouldn’t be development in a country like Tanzania. Of course there should. But it doesn’t have to go across the Serengeti National Park.

PG: It is the most amazing migration of wildebeest across that plain. The last thing you want to do is see a migration of commercial truckers.

CC: And that is exactly what will happen. And it is not just a question of thinking what will it look like in three years with a highway, which will be a trucking route, incidentally, but what will it look like in 30 or 40 years. Just think of highways that you know of, or places that you know of that were built 30 or 40 years ago, and what they look like today.

By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio. For more information, visit Costas Christ online at BeyondGreenTravel.com. For more information on the Serengeti highway construction, visit savetheserengeti.org.

Related Links on PeterGreenberg.com: