CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

We're moving!

We’re moving!

After almost 12 years, the CABI blog is migrating to a new platform and a new URL: https://blog.cabi.org/ Our new blog will be built on WordPress, which means it’ll look better and load faster on mobile devices and feature better social media integration. The commenting system is also more robust, and the CABI blog is now better integrated with CABI’s other blogs (on Plantwise and Invasives).

 

If you currently subscribe to the blog via RSS or email you will no longer receive updates. To keep receiving alerts whenever we post a new article, please visit https://blog.cabi.org/ and re-subscribe. Don’t worry about losing your favourite article from the last 12 years – all of our archives have been migrated as well.

 

We look forward to sharing stories about our online resources, publishing products and our work in international development in our new home!

‘Walkshops’ and ‘Talkshops’ on Sri Lanka’s Holy Mountain

By Ian McIntosh

Back in the 1980s, in the midst of Sri Lanka’s civil war, an initiative by the NGO Save the Children Norway, sought to promote ethnic and religious harmony through what they called ‘walkshops’ and ‘talkshops’ on the holy mountain, Adam’s Peak.

Up until the 1960s, Adam’s Peak - also known as Sri Pada (the sacred footprint) - was the greatest interfaith pilgrimage site on earth, attracting Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Christians and others in vast numbers. Prior to the civil war, members of these faith groups would climb together and worship by the imprint in the rock that they recognize as the mark of Buddha, Shiva, Adam (after he was expelled from paradise), and the apostle to the world, St Thomas. The indigenous god of the mountain, Saman, was also venerated. Except for perhaps Jerusalem, there is no other site with such widespread religious significance.

 

Sri Pada. Photo credit to the author.

 

Tourism creates 8% of global carbon emissions - can they be curbed?

The global carbon footprint of the travel and tourism industry has long been a concern, with aviation in particular being a major source of greenhouse gases, and the major component of the estimated carbon cost of tourism. But a new analysis published in Nature Climate Change says that the carbon footprint of the industry is much higher than previously estimated. Gossling and Peeters (2015) estimated that in 2010, the global tourism system caused about 1.12 Gt CO_2, or about 2.5–3% of global CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions. But the latest analysis by Lenzen et al. (2018) claims that in 2013 tourism’s global carbon footprint was 4.5 GtCO2e, four times more than previously estimated, accounting for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The new assessment is bigger because it includes emissions not only from travel, but also the full life-cycle of carbon in tourists' food, hotels and shopping. 

Cutting plastic bottle use in adventure travel

Earth Day 2018 is on Sunday April 22, and the theme for this year is ending plastic pollution. One of the biggest sources of plastic waste from the general public is single-use plastic bottles, and tourists are a big source of this waste. Even those of us who rarely use disposable drinks bottles when at home often use several a day when travelling. Western tourists travelling to developing countries where they do not trust the local drinking water are regular high users, often buying single-use bottles for all the water they use. The travel trade is trying to reduce this use, and the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) committed to curbing the use of single-use plastic bottles as one of its strategic initiatives in 2018. To get a picture of the current situation among ATTA members, ATTA teamed up with Travelers Against Plastic (TAP) to create and distribute a survey to the ATTA and TAP’s database of adventure tourism businesses. The results show that despite high levels of awareness and concern, most adventure travel firms still use plastic water bottles on many of their trips. 

Water, tourism and gender – how tourism can increase inequalities. From the work of Dr Stroma Cole

March 22 is World Water Day, designated to focus our attention on the importance of water. The theme for World Water Day 2018 is ‘Nature for Water’ – exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century. But of course water is essential for life, and thus affects every aspect of human development, as well as the ecosystems that support us. Today, 2.1 billion people still live without safe drinking water at home; affecting their health, education and livelihoods. Earlier this week, on a visit to CABI Headquarters in Wallingford, CABI book author Dr Stroma Cole gave a talk on gender equality and tourism in which, with World Water Day this week, she focused particularly on water issues, and how women bear the brunt of the problems which can be created when tourism development increases demand for water. Dr Cole, a senior lecturer in tourism geography at the University of the West of England and a Director of Equality in Tourism, has worked on tourism and water inequality in Indonesia, Costa Rica and India, and in her presentation focused particularly on the situation in Labuan Bajo, a rapidly growing gateway town to Komodo National Park in Indonesia.

What do tourists want and how can DMOs deliver? Q&A with author Alfonso Vargas-Sanchez

We spoke to CABI author and professor, Alfonso Vargas-Sanchez, about the disruptive power of technology and its impact on the management of tourism today. Here's what he said about how Destination Management Organizations can adapt for the most sustainable growth and development.

 

The Baby Boomer Travel Market is Booming! by Ian Patterson

The populations of most developed, and some developing societies are growing older. This is because birth rates have decreased and life expectancies are increasing due to medical advances and better health care, as well as greater public health education with regard to diet, exercise and improved safety awareness. As a result, population projections have estimated that there will be a huge increase in the numbers of older people who are living longer; and it has been estimated that by 2050, 2 billion people will be aged 60 and older, accounting for 22% (or 1:5) of the world population.

Invasive species, climate change and tourism impacts the greatest threats to natural World Heritage

A new report from the IUCN looks at conservation prospects, threats, protection and management of natural World Heritage sites. The IUCN World Heritage Outlook 2 summarises the key trends in the state of conservation of natural World Heritage sites, the threats and pressures they are facing, and the effectiveness of their protection and management. The top three current threats are all areas in which CABI works, with invasive species, climate change and tourism impacts, in that order, being assessed as the most significant threats to natural World Heritage. 

World Travel Market debates Responsible Tourism and Overtourism

This week, a number of CABI staff attended the World Travel Market, the annual gathering of the travel industry in London. Among a packed Responsible Tourism programme at the event on Tuesday 7 November was a panel session looking at what the priorities for Responsible Tourism should be for the next five years. Fifteen years on from the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism, new challenges have arisen, and issues such as climate change have become more urgent. So what should policy makers, tourism companies and destinations be focussing on? A poll leading up to the WTM on the Responsible Tourism blog had put carbon emissions as the most pressing priority, followed by water and then waste. But did the panel agree? 

Pilgrimage and Peace-building

 by Ian McIntosh

It was Aboriginal Australia and the spiritual traditions of the first peoples that introduced me to the world of religious pilgrimage. Over many years, beginning in the early 1980s, I would join the Aborigines of northern Australia on journeys to sacred sites to learn about their timeless mysteries through song, dance, folklore and art. It was this experience that was also my entry point to peace studies, and in particular, the study of truth and reconciliation - making amends for historical injustices.