Many people don’t realize the enormous size and importance of the tourism industry. It is the largest business sector in the world economy and is responsible for 230 million jobs. If tourism were a country it would have the second largest economy in the globe, second only to the United States. But tourism has a large environmental impact, especially from the transportation needed to get to and from destinations. The niche area of ecotourism, which strives to minimize tourism’s impact, has been growing three times faster than regular tourism.

The importance of promoting ecotourism was reflected in the opening keynote speeches given by dignitaries such as Bill Bennett, the BC Minister of Tourism, Rod Harris, CEO of Tourism British Columbia, Graham Whitmarsh, Head, BC Climate Action Secretariat, and Amy Fraenkel, Regional Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

The four main themes of the conference were Indigenous People and Local Communities, Tourism and Climate Change, Parks and Protected Areas, and Greening Operations and Technologies. Much discussion was aimed at defining exactly what ecotourism, sustainable tourism, nature tourism and similar terms mean, and developing formal guidelines to implement them. A keynote luncheon speaker, Anna Pollock, reprimanded the audience, saying that this is wasting time. Instead she said we should recognize that ecotourism is all about caring. “Ecotourism,” she said, “needs to care about two main areas: ecological protection and enhancement, and also cultural protection and enhancement.” She urged everyone to spend less time on definitions, and instead get down to making things happen.

The Lake Superior area was well represented by Heidi Strobl, Community Economic Development Officer, Industry Canada, and Paul Pepe, Manager of Tourism for Thunder Bay. Their presentation, Lures to the Land of the Sleeping Giant, described how the Thunder Bay region made a major strategic move to enter the ecotourism market. This required informing the world that the region is not just a hunting and fishing destination, but is one of the most beautiful and rugged outdoor places in Canada. As Strobl and Pepe described the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area (the largest fresh-water marine park in the world), Slate Island Provincial Park (a herd of caribou), numerous shipwrecks (including the Gunilda, considered the most beautiful shipwreck in the world by Jacques Cousteau), Isle Royale (with resident moose) and much more, it became apparent that Thunder Bay is indeed an idyllic place for outdoor adventure. “With an endless “Group of Seven” landscape and myriads of islands, the most awesome way to tour is by kayak,” said Strobl.

“We launched the Outdoor Adventure of a Lifetime program,” said Pepe, “ and it has been so successful we plan to make it an annual event.” He attributed at least some of the program’s success to embracing the world-wide web, including the use of social media such as Face Book. “In addition, we minimized red-tape and bureaucracy and just got on with doing the job,” he stated.

Strobl described how the nature-oriented programs are having a green influence on other companies in Thunder Bay to make their operations more environmentally friendly. “It’s a win-win situation,” she said. A measure of the success of the program to re-brand Thunder Bay as a region for outdoor adventure is the launch of a new glossy magazine, Superior Outdoors, devoted to exactly that topic. A copy was given to each session attendee.

The importance of native people’s culture was noted several times by different speakers, but none did it better than keynote speaker Dr. Wade Davis, an anthropologist, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and author who has spent much of his career studying cultures around the globe. Showing prize-winning photos of indigenous people in Tibet, the Amazon, deepest Africa, the Arctic and the Australian outback, he eloquently explained how cultures and languages are treasure houses of knowledge and that they must be protected.

Afterwards, Strobl explained that the First Nations and their culture has considerable ecotourism potential in the Thunder Bay region and she hopes it can be developed in the future, perhaps as in British Columbia where a number of beautiful and imaginative cultural centres have sprung up in recent years. These are like museums that showcase native history and culture. They have become cultural focal points for the native communities, magnets that attract caring people and are also teaching places. Included with these are performance halls that feature dancing and performances, carving sheds for making masks, totems, jewellery and canoes, and even restaurants featuring native cuisine.

The American Lake-Superior state of Wisconsin was represented by James Armstrong of the public-relations firm, Good for Business. His presentation, which described an innovative method of communicating the purpose of place, was one of the most interesting at the conference. His method requires planners to look much deeper at what they are doing. Instead of setting a goal of, for example, “increasing profit” they must instead set goals that improve their lives and those around them. He worked with Madison, Wisconsin, which was recently selected as one of the ten greenest cities in the United States. Their goal became “to make people happy”, and a plan with 16 specific components was developed to achieve the goal. This philosophy ties in nicely with ecotourism, and contrasts to the usual materialistic outlook.

Chief Bill Cranmer of the ‘Namgis Nation from Alert Bay near northeastern Vancouver island, BC, was part of a dance group who performed at the evening reception. After the dancing Chief Cranmer hushed the crowd, “Salmon are disappearing, and without the salmon the grizzlies and eagles won’t survive.” He described how overfishing, destruction of spawning rivers by logging and sea lice from farmed fish are killing wild salmon. “Everything in nature is connected,” said Cranmer, “so if the salmon disappear, our people won’t survive. None of us will survive. We must protect the environment before it’s too late.”
It was a message we all took home from the conference.

by Hans Tammemagi