Ecotourism

Ecotourism and Conservation, can they be mutually beneficial?

When we talk of ecotourism, I think there are varying levels of concern and commitment to the environment and that varying programs and participants adhere to. Conservation efforts should include providing local peoples with substantial economic benefits that raise their standard of living and allow them to financial liberty to protect the ecological areas that they live off of. Income from tourism can be used to reduce exploitation from outside industries that might degrade the land. Tourism generally has lower negative impact on environments than mining, drilling, logging, etc. Tourism that is truly dedicated toward conservation can have a great educational benefit for the participant who might become interested in or passionate about protecting ecology and biodiversity. There are however, risks in bringing outsiders into an area and setting the natural environment up as a tourist hot spot.

Coral reefs especially have been damaged by tourist use as they become ever more popular diving and snorkeling spots for new and inexperienced divers. Cruise ships unload hundreds passengers to enjoy pristine areas and

dying coral reef

healthy coral reef

unfortunately the coral is too sensitive for this mass amount of exposure. Humans often stand on the coral to rest, knock off chunks of it in passing, and in general damage the living organisms that make up the important reef environment.

I think that a more limited number of tourists should be brought into an environment that is made not simply to suit their every comfort in a wild setting, but to bring them into the natural environment to experience nature as local people might. I think that tourism in fragile and important areas for biodiversity is not viable unless a strong educational component is present. Ecotourism should be nature oriented tourism that combines sustainable principles and education with environmentally conscious development and building. It should be stressed that these principals do not allow for the Ritz like services in any region of the world. However, it should demonstrate the natural beauty and efficiency that can be accomplished designing around nature and its processes.

Source: World Tourism.org

I think that one area of the world inparticular where tourism has been is in Sub-Saharan Africa where wildlife tourism has begun to flourish and become a powerful force in protecting forest, biodiversity, wild species, and whole areas of forest that are threatened by illegal logging and poaching from desperate local peoples. In Kenya alone, 55,000 people are employed by the wildlife tourism industry which gains enough money to protect the land, provide wages, help build local schools , and provide education and training about conservation and sustainability. In this region of the world, colonial legacies of apartheid, racial intolerance, economic devastation , social instability and regional warfare have led to extreme poverty and serious environmental degradation. By making sanctuaries and national protected lands where locals are trained and hired as park rangers and research guides, ecological progress has been made that has contributed to social and economic gains for the local communities. Ex-poachers make excellent rangers and can protect the environment once they are able to feed their families and gain some stability in their lives.

I think that done for the right reasons with the environment and the local people at the heart of the push for tourism, ecotourism can benefit a community and its inhabitants. Sadly, I'm sure there are many operations that run counter to these principals and they need to be evaluated and re-managed or shut down if they are doing greater ecological harm than the area would otherwise have suffered. In this case, there is probably little educational value to the tourist, and in the long run, there will be no economic or social benefit to the local population or the local ecology.

Where's the Efficiency?

Efficient Energy Source?


The world is waiting for new technologies, for photovoltaics to be built into the design of houses and buisnesses, for infrared rays to charge up our offices even overnight, heck for a modified pea plant to power us to the moon, but as we wait climate changes are happening at rates that scare many science minded people.


Jim Hansen, a senior climate expert at NASA has recently announced his belief that we have no more than perhaps a decade to reduce greehouse gases if we are to avoid toppling a disasterous climate threshold. If you don't belive him perhaps you can look to the Inuits and shipping capatains in the Antarctic where ice blocks are splitting increasing the speed of of thinning of sea ice, the melting of glaciers, the thawing of permafrost. All this activity has led native villages to erode into the sea causing their relocation and has put a smile on the shipping industry as the glacial thinning has opened new shipping lanes. Sea ice has decresased 8% in the Arctic.


We as a global society cannot wait and wait and wait....For the past 45 years, the power industry in the US has been stuck operating at a 33% efficiency rate.



To take a look at what some entrepreneurs have done in the US, we can look at Tom Casten, CEO of Primary Energy Ventures. They specialize in a new (and unfortunately not growing rapidly enough) field of large scale energy recycling and cogeneration. This is a process where existing facilities use waste energy to produce heat or electricity called "combined heat and power" or CHP. These efficiency designs are being recognized as successful solutions that can help slow climate change if adopted on a widescale while new technologies are developed and implemented.


The science being utilized here is pretty straightforward, energy recycling captures the heat that otherwise becomes a byproduct of industry. In Erope where energy costs are more expensive, it is common for excess manufacturing steam to heat local homes. Denmark, the Netherland and Finland produce more than 1/3 their electricity from CHP, currently in the US we are at 9%. India has had major success in implementing cogeneration technologies, notably in their sugar cane mills which burn the bagasse (leftover sugar cane).

The technology works and the profits from such a system are real as well. Casten's company calculates that it saves 2 million tons of CO2 per year in the US alone. According to ecologists, that like planting 1.5 million trees or removing 400,000 cars off the road. His company also generates more than $80 million a year in revenue.

Recently in the US, Casten has proposed the Fossil Fuel Efficiency Standard, a federal law which would eliminate the $25 billion in government subsidies afforded to the fossil fuel industries. This could be a major push in deregulating the electric industry while ratcheting up regulations yearly for stricter energy efficiency standards. The EPA supports such industrial techniques and they should be widely considered especially in urban areas where industry is constructed alongside housing options. While energy and CO2 relaease is a growing problem, new solutions to increase efficiency have to be taken seriosuly, especially when economically they make a lot of sense to implement.

Desert Pressures

Protecting the Deserts:

The Global Deserts Outlook, produced by the UN's Environment Programme, is described as the first comprehensive look at the Earth's driest regions, in this recent report it was found that the world’s deserts need better management. The authors of the study call for more careful use of scarce water resources to safeguard the futures of desert populations.

The report defines desert regions in the following three ways:

• Climatologically, as the arid and hyper-arid areas of the globe
• Biologically, as ecoregions that contain plants and animals adapted to an arid existence
• Physically, as those areas with ample extensions of bare soil and low vegetation cover

These areas of the world all together occupy almost ¼ of the Earth’s land surface, some 13 million square miles which are inhabited by over 500 million people. Most of them live at desert margins where the pressures threatening ecosystems in arid areas are at their greatest.

It is estimated that population growth and inefficient water use by 2050 is set to move some countries with deserts into conditions of water stress or water scarcity. Some of these proposed countries are Chad, Iraq, Niger and Syria.

Renewable supplies of water which are fed to deserts by large rivers are also expected to be threatened by 2025, these including the Gariep River in southern Africa; the Rio Grande and Colorado Rivers in North America; the Tigris and Euphrates in south-western Asia and the Amu Darya and Indus Rivers in central Asia.

One exciting example of a new plant that can help feed the world’s people without using freshwater supplies is Nipa, a salt grass harvested in the Sonoran desert of north western Mexico at the delta of the Colorado River. The Cocopahs people harvest this plant which lives on pure seawater and produces large grain yields similar to wheat. Some reports say that it is a strong candidate for a major global food crop and could become “this desert's greatest gift to the world.”

Desert areas around the world are increasingly becoming popular areas for tourism. In the search for cheaper housing, people are spreading out into desert communities as evidenced by Riverside County being the fastest growing county in California. In these desert areas people try to have the same look of home and yard as any other area. New housing tracts are designed with full green lawns around the homes and the watering systems spray clouds of mist into the burning desert air in the middle of the day. This type of planning and management is inefficient and damaging to the environment especially when population demands keep expanding the margins.

Developers and individuals need to take into account the climat eand the area when desiding how big to build homes, what plants to use in landscaping, and what the overal design and layout of the community should be.

Humans are encroaching further and further into the deserts which many think of as dead environments, but which are rich in biodiversity and have real benefits and functions for humanity. We have to think differently about this arid environment as a place that needs to be protected, as an ecosystem with intrinsic value.

Sustainable Design

Sustainable Architecture and Design:

I was very interested in the videos we watched on sustainable architecture and design and community development plans. It looks to be such an amazing field that blends sustainability principles with actual design and transforming the way people live. It also transforms that they know. Where we live is something that can help shape how we live. When we are exposed on an everyday basis to environmentally conscious design, building in harmony with nature and conservation principles, it profoundly affects what we know and what we see as possible. It expands our norms, it transforms the way we live and how we think about our role in the environment.

I think this is especially true with the idea of greening our schools and designing them in ways that make them less environmentally damaging. In building schools this way, they become part of the curriculum themselves and can be a tool to educate students about the environment consciousness, design and stewardship. Global Green USA is one organization that endorses environmentally sustainable buildings for education facilities. They also work for sustainable low income housing and other worthy milestones.

The Rocky Mountain Institute also has programs on sustainable design which is very science based, as well as Cal-Earth, the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture which focuses on art and practical design.

I think that as it stands, it is hard to get information on these ideas because it is hard to get exposed to these concepts. I feel that this is why primary education needs to be inundated with environmental studies and the campus itself should be build in a way that familiarizes not just students, but teachers, parents and the community with sustainable design and environmental awareness.

Here a link on how to bring sustainable design to your school!: http://www.sustainableschools.dgs.ca.gov/sustainableschools/

I think we need more hands on learning in our schools, even our colleges. We need courses that take us to see these new technologies and allow us to build with them on our own. UCI should have experimental rooftop gardens on its buildings and more courses should utilize our arboretum and places were even BA students can get hand on practical experience!

A roof garden can double the life of the roof, provide insulation against winter cold and summer heat and reduce runoff by at least 50%. It reduces air pollution and dust and creates an ecological oasis for nature.

Slaughterhouse

Abattoir: Slaughterhouses in the United States

"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone
would be vegetarian."

Paul and Linda McCartney, 1996

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously
the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful
distance of miles, there is complicity."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870

Poultry slaughtering process:http://www.hyfoma.com/en/content/food-branches-processing-manufacturing/meat-fish-shrimps/poultry-slaughtering/process_description.html

Pig Slaughtering:

http://www.hyfoma.com/en/content/food-branches-processing-manufacturing/meat-fish-shrimps/pig-slaughtering/process_description.html

Video on treatment of different animals in factory farms and in slaughterhouses: http://www.animalz.makessense.co.uk/articles/322.html

Does milk do a body good?  What about Dairy Cows??

MILK SUCKS ...

FOR ANIMALS:
”Corporate-owned factories where cows are warehoused in huge sheds and treated like milk machines have replaced most small family farms. With genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies, it is common for modern dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk a day— 10 times more than they would produce in nature. To keep milk production as high as possible, farmers artificially inseminate cows every year. Growth hormones and unnatural milking schedules cause dairy cows' udders to become painful and so heavy that they sometimes drag on the ground, resulting in frequent infections and overuse of antibiotics. Cows— like all mammals— make milk to feed their own babies— not humans.


Male calves, the "byproducts" of the dairy industry, endure 14 to 17 weeks of torment in veal crates so small that they can't even turn around. Female calves often replace their old, worn-out mothers, or are slaughtered soon after birth for the rennet in their stomachs (an ingredient of most commercial cheeses). They are often kept in

tiny crates or tethered in stalls for the first few months of their lives, only to grow up to become "milk machines" like their mothers.”


FOR THE ENVIRONMENT:
”Cow's milk is an inefficient food source. Cows, like humans, expend the majority of their food intake simply leading their lives. It takes a great deal of grain and other foodstuffs cycled through cows to produce a small amount of milk. And not only is milk a waste of energy and water, the production of milk is also a disastrous source of water pollution. A dairy cow produces 120 pounds of waste every day -- equal to that of two dozen people, but with no toilets, sewers, or treatment plants.

In Lancaster County, Pa., manure from dairy cows is destroying the Chesapeake Bay, and in California, which produces one-fifth of the country's total supply of milk, the manure from dairy farms has poisoned vast expanses of underground water, rivers, and stream

s. In the Central Valley of California, the cows produce as much excrement as a city of 21 million people, and even a smallish farm of 200 cows will produce as much nitrogen as in the sewage from a community of 5,000 to 10,000 people, according to a U.S. Senate report on animal waste.”



FOR YOUR HEALTH:
”Dairy products are a health hazard. They contain no fiber or complex carbohydrates and are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol. They are contaminated with cow's blood and pus and are frequently contaminated with pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. Dairy products are linked to allergies, constipation, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it can cause anemia, allergies, and insulin-dependent diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease, America's number one cause of death.

And dairy products may actually cause osteoporosis, not prevent it, since their high-protein content leaches calcium from the body. Population studies, backed up by a groundbreaking Harvard study of more than 75,000 nurses, suggest that drinking milk can actually cause osteoporosis (Information taken from http://www.notmilk.com/tudrmac.html)."

Americans need to take their own health as well as animal welfare into consideration. We have a culture of consumption, but what are we consuming, how is it raised, what is it fed, how is it killed? We cannot stand by blindly and say, I didn’t know, I don’t want to know. With all things, we have an obligation to step forth and seek some knowledge about the world we live in and the role we play in it.

Slaughterhouse Design:

The design of slaughterhouses was largely influenced in the 1970’s by Dr. Temple Grandin. Her work was an effort to make the corrals and holding pens more humane and less stressful for the animals (which in the end can speed productivity). She was interested in patterns and flow and she used animal psychology to develop corrals with long sweeping curves so that the animals cannot see what lies ahead but focuses on the animal in front of it. It is thought that 54% of the slaughterhouses in the US are designed with these principles.

These attempts are worthwhile; however by looking into the current process in the
slaughterhouses, this is not enough.  It is my belief that these industries are too
large and mechanized to ever be humane to the individual animal being “processed.”
While it is not feasible for everyone to order their meat from small farms or to farm
themselves, and while we in the US consume large quantities of meat “This year, 280
million Americans will each consume 36 animals. Thirty-four of those creatures will
have wings. One of those creatures will moo. One will oink,” slaughterhouses must
continue to meet our demand.

For me personally this is not enough.  I don’t disagree
ethically with consuming animals, but I heavily disagree with the packaged way they
are provided us and the process and lives the animals must bear out.  It is important
to me the quality of life the animal was able to live, and the way that it was killed.
I have lived on a small farm and I have seen animals slaughtered and I have never had a
problem until I looked further into how most animals are treated and processed for our
BBQs.  I think seeing and understanding even humane animal killing will limit your
consumption, will give you an understanding of the animal and the life that must be
taken for you, and will give you pause to appreciate that life and consider your
consumption.  

We are desensitized by fluffy pictures of chickens and neat packaging, desensitized
because although we know there is blood and a dead animal inside, it is almost as if
it is nothing, it gives us no thought, no pause, no conscience, no restraint.  I
feel that Native Americans had it right when they were responsible for the death of
the animal and they prayed over them in gratitude for their sacrifice.  There is no
gratitude in our society, just gluttony and ignorance.  People keep saying, “Oh God, I
don’t want to know, and that’s soo gross.  Just don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”  

For me, this has been a serious dillema.   The concept taken ethically seems simple and direct  action
swift, yet when taking into account uprbringing, norms and pure gut desires, the challenge can be great.
At times I almost feel that the organic and free range option has been a ploy to capitalists to
sound friendlier, make the mea tindustry somehow fluffier and more humane.  They offered
a sidepath down which you could feel good about yourself -but I'm not so sure it's any different.
In its deception it's worse because mindful consumers become placid as we are thrown the free-range
token on which our conscience can rest.  Subdued and quieted, the process can continue with
everyone feeling a little better about themselves, well, except the anmials, and possibly the
workers and their families who no doubt by their meat off the paycheck and yet suffer from the
fallout of this line of work.  Organically certified is not enough, the animals are all raised in the same
way, and free range or not, they die by the same process in the same slaughterhouses as any
run of the mill beast with hormones.  They are transported in open crates and pried screaming off
frozen truck walls and floors. 

Perhaps we should push for decentralized, smaller farming  and family farmed packing operations.
Perhaps we should take control of our spending power and our stomachs as we look at what our
diet is doing, what it's actually costing.  If we consider ourselves carnivores tha tin the cycle of life
have the capacity and the righ to eat meat, then we should eat it knowing that it was raised under
humane conditions with a quality of life outside its gorging fat cells.  If we have any sense in Kharma, we should be praying that
whateve happens, we don't come back a farm animal.  Through those eyes, we might get a better glimpse of the
industry than we bargained for.   I used to think that moderation was enough, but that seems another
myth that in an ethical world might be tolerable, but that today simply enables the madness.

"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone
would be vegetarian."

Paul and Linda McCartney, 1996

It’s time more people speak out and seek the knowledge for themselves; its time we look inside the slaughterhouse and stop pretending that we can do nothing and it’s better not to know. Gail Eisnitz has done many years of work herself and has given us all a good start.

Gail finishes the chapter by quoting Gerald Kuester of USDA:

"There are about 50 points during processing where cross-contamination can occur. At the end of the line, the birds are no cleaner than if they had been dipped in a toilet."

Here is a link to more information from the HFA, the Humane Farming Association :
http://www.hfa.org/join/index.html

E-Waste

The Challenges of Electronic Waste:

E-waste is a serious problem that the world is facing due to the rapid increases in technology and speed at which this technology changes. E-waste can be both valuable as source for secondary raw material, and it is toxic and damaging to the environment if treated and discarded improperly. The rapid technology changes, low initial costs, as well as the upsetting standard of planned obsolescence have made this a serious problem that the world must deal with.

While it is mainly the industrialized nations speeding through new technologies and tossing out the old fridges, computers, CD players, monitors, radios, and Nintendos, disturbingly it is the poorer unindustrialized nations with lower environmental standards, fewer protections and worse working conditions that are being shipped the e-waste. Here they are processed and disposed of despite the Basel Convention, an international treaty which bans the transfer of such waste to other countries for disposal. These actions are largely illegal and China and India are large processors of such waste from the US and other nations.

Computer monitors and televisions are a major problem when they are illegal burned and disposed of or are dumped into landfills. They contain a cathode ray tube CRT, which can contain from 5-8 lbs of lead. The hazardous elements inside of computers are lead, silver, cadmium, mercury, selenium, and chromium, all substances which are known to cause serious human health risks and death.

What are Our Options?:

Changing the culture of consumption and the engineering pattern of planned obsolescence is something that should be instilled into industries and individuals alike. Consumers need to push their agendas with their dollars and buy products that last. We need to be outspoken that we aren’t willing to buy things that are made to fall apart. We need to support companies who are dedicated to these greener principles; that buy back old products or take them back for recycling purposes. As individuals we need to take a serious look at our patterns of consumption. How many computers, cars, phones, i-pods have we gone through in the last couple years? How did we dispose of them when they had served their function?

Over 97 percent of computer contents can be reused or recycled. It is important to think of these items as valuable, reusable, not just junk.

What Has Been Done?:

The United States Congress is considering a number of e-waste bills including the National Computer Recycling Act introduced by Congressman Mike Thompson, Democrat from California. This bill has continually stalled.

Several states including California have passed their own laws regarding e-waste. California was the first state to create the legislation, followed by Maryland, Maine, and Washington. In 2004, California introduced a fee on all new monitors and televisions sold to cover the cost of recycling. The amount of the fee depends on the size of the monitor. That amount was adjusted in July 2005 in order to match the real cost of recycling.

• Many companies will now refurbish and recycle electronic equipment to keep them out of landfills.

• Many manufacturers are dedicated to take-back programs for used e-products.

• Alternative materials that have no hazardous material (although they still create regular waste the goes into landfills) have been developed such as LCD panels and plasma screens.

• A number of non-profits and charities have been developed to refurbish old computers and electronics to be donated to schools and underprivileged children in need of the technology and equipment.

Look at what YOU have, what you will buy, and how you will get rid of the old stuff! What is your role in this cycle?