I have already replied privately to my friend Rachel but thought it might be worthwhile to reply to the list:

One specific point with regards selecting and supporting eco-tourism is to find out where your money is actually going. Case in point: many who travel to Sabah (Borneo) and visit the Kinabatangan river near Sukau frequently stay at the more luxurious and comfortable (and expensive) Rainforest Lodge. I think it is owned by outsiders and they employ some of the locals (staff, food source, etc.) but I think most of the profits go outside the community.

In the same area is a community based tour company called Red Ape Encounters. Guests stay in homestays or local B&B's. More of your dollars go into the community and have a direct effect on the local environment. Here is their website to check out (BTW, I have no financial interest in plugging this company):

http://www.redapeencounters.com/

For those of you more interested, check out Tourism at the Grassroots: Villages and Visitors in the Asia-Pacific. 2008 ed. John Connell and Barbara Rugendyke. In particular, chapter 13: Ecotourism and Indigenous Communities: The lower Kinabatangan Experience by Rajaratnam, Pang, and Lackman-Ancrenaz.

If anybody is interested, contact me off list and I can send you a PDF of chapter 13 (since the book is $162 on Amazon.com)

Eric Kowalczyk
Seattle

From: Guttman,Burt
To: Rachel;tweeters
Sent: 2/6/2010 1:53:04 PM
Subject: RE: [Tweeters] Good reasons to travel in search of birds


Just to say that Rachel makes a very good point in promoting eco-tourism; the interest of the local people in employment is probably a very important factor in promoting the preservation of natural areas. And to add a point to Adam's note about wearing binoculars: This is a good practice for the reasons he states, but consider, also, that your binoculars are probably the most valuable thing you're carrying on your birding trip and the item most difficult to replace in case of loss, and that if you were to lose them, much of your pleasure in birding would go with them. So wearing binoculars is a way of keeping them safe. I say this primarily because of my experience in Spain where one of the cars of our birding group was broken into within hours of our arrival and a lot of stuff was stolen. I lost my spotting scope, and some other people lost their binocs; luckily, the tour leader was able to get some binoculars for them pretty quickly from his home base, but it was a ve!
ry sad situation.

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503