There can be little doubt that the tourism, aviation and transport sectors are particularly at risk both from direct effects – such as sea-level rise, changing ecosystems, species extinctions, extreme weather events, etc. in the case of tourism – as well as from attempts to mitigate climate change by cutting carbon emissions. Regulated reductions in travel-related carbon emissions, carbon taxes and rising fuel prices precipitated by the looming oil crisis will all conspire to seriously crimp long-haul tourism (bad news for ecotourism) and air travel, assuming that substantive goals are agreed on at Copenhagen. Even if the world’s politicians lack the courage to agree to substantive emissions reductions, as might be the case, “peak oil” will eventually force what we fail to do voluntarily.

KPMG's Risk Preparedness Framework (Source: KMPG IT Advisory: Find your shade of green. Copyright KPMG 2009 All rights reserved)

KPMG’s Risk Preparedness Framework, reproduced here (click to view full size), shows the transport, tourism and aviation sectors in the “danger zone” where risk as a result of climate change is perceived to be greater than preparedness. What might “preparedness” mean? Prepared to mitigate (or prevent) climate change as the designers of Copenhagen envisage? Or prepared to adapt to the inevitability of climate change?

Should Copenhagen fail we all enter a brave new world of adaptation to climate change, where we place our trust in geo-engineering technologies and where, without massive transfers of technology and resources to developing nations, they will be cut loose and left at the mercy of the elements. Failure at Copenhagen will amount to a vote for vested interests – and some of those interests may include the airline industry, economies dependent on mass and growing tourism, etc.

The language in the World Tourism Organization’s (WTO) Davos to Bali declaration suggests that adaptation is the preferred and expected course for most of its members. Developing countries, it seems, have resigned themselves to adapting to the “inevitability” of climate change. Consider the Indian delegation’s statement at the Ministers’ Summit on Tourism and Climate Change in London in 2007:

…we must significantly shore up our abilities to cope with and adapt to climate change. To be able to do so, we need development, which is also the best form of adaptation. … we need to …. see what can be done to adapt to the inevitability of further global warming.

One wonders whether “development” will be enough when a 100 million Bangladeshi climate refugees stream into India as they flee their flooded delta?

Brazil’s delegation also weighed in with a plea for assistance with adaptation:

Assist developing countries where the tourism sector is particularly vulnerable to the adverse effect of climate change, in order to allow them to meet the related costs of adaptation.

Never mind that the continuing assault on its Amazon rainforests contributes massively to climate change, or that the country is banking on exploiting recent deep-sea oil finds.

Australia, a developed country which has distinguished itself by failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol along with the USA, and probably informed by its economic vulnerability as a long-haul tourism destination dependent on air travel, put a different spin on it:

The tourism sector … should not be disadvantaged through the imposition of a disproportionate burden either on tourism as a whole or on vital components such as aviation.

The tourism-sector-as-victim argument.

If all else fails however, reach for the jobs/poverty alleviation/economic growth arguments – as the WTO Secretary-General did in Bali. The message seems to be: yes climate change is potentially catastrophic, but don’t touch tourism (and by extension, air travel) as it creates jobs, grows economies and benefits the poor in far-off destinations (Australia excluded).

I have also wrestled with the dilemma of the climate implications of long-haul travel versus the dependence of biodiversity conservation on ecotourism, especially in Africa. This is however not an environmental-socio-economic trade-off, but an attempt to weigh ecological alternatives. One could, however, argue that biodiversity is doomed by climate change over the long-term, notwithstanding short-term attempts to mitigate biodiversity destruction… And when biodiversity goes, species, livelihoods and the ecosystem services that sustain all life will follow in short order.

Another indication that the tourism industry has not quite come to terms with what sustainability might entail is a reference to the need for “tourism to grow in a sustainable manner” in the Davos Declaration after the Second International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism at Davos in 2007. Besides the incongruous proximity of the words “grow” and “sustainable” in that phrase, the methods of achieving this through mitigating emissions, adapting to climate and employing technology to improve energy efficiency are insufficient, although laudable. True (strong) ecological sustainability means that material and energy throughputs must be limited to what the ecosphere can sustainably supply (resources) and absorb (waste, emissions). Best effort mitigation and minimisation are not going to cut it.

Take as an example the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 60%-80% of current levels by 2050 in order to limit the average global temperature increase to 2^oC. Suppose air travel volumes and aircraft-miles were clamped at current levels and that all airline fleets were replaced with Boeing Dreamliners tomorrow. Even in this unlikely, zero-growth scenario aviation emissions would be reduced by only 20%, which means that tourism would not be contributing anywhere near its share of reductions. Outside of hoping for a technological silver bullet to come to the rescue, the implications for tourism are pretty stark and understandably nobody wants to really deal with them.

So, no – the tourism industry is not ready for climate risk.

Deforested slopes under cultivation

A few kilometres outside Lilongwe the contrast could not be starker. Lumbering 4×4′s give way to the dominant mode of transport – bicycles. Bicycles by the thousands, bicycles loaded with towers of wood and charcoal, bicycles as taxis. So while the inexorable rise in the oil price over the longer term has serious consequences for Malawi’s small formal economy as it gets priced out of the world oil market – not to mention for the operations of the 4×4-mounted NGOs et al – 85% of the population who live and sustain themselves in the rural areas could well be less affected by peak oil. However, there is a new indirect and perverse threat as indigenous woodland is replaced with Jatropha, a cash crop for biofuel, in a country already suffering severe and accelerating deforestation and destruction of biodiversity. I’ll return to the issue of deforestation later.

Bicycles everywhere

It is difficult to comprehend how dependent Malawi is on agriculture until you have travelled there (of course we all are ultimately; supermarkets alone are not sufficient – Bartlett’s 16th law of sustainability). Agriculture accounts for a third of GDP and 90% of exports. But dependence on agriculture is more fundamental: almost everybody is a farmer and a subsistence farmer at that. Malawi suffers from an ongoing food security crisis that affects more than five million people in the south of the country. Every scrap of land is cultivated, even the road verges in Lilongwe, to feed a burgeoning population growing at 2.39% annually. No wonder that much of the development aid is targeted at developing agriculture. While I am no agricultural expert it did bother me somewhat that the input of chemical fertiliser, which has as feedstock natural gas, to improve agricultural yields is regarded as one of the major interventions. To my mind this creates a new dependency on an imported resource, which is in any case unsustainable, and over the long term and with injudicious use, destroys the soil.

Bags of charcoal at the roadside

Almost as critical as the food security situation is hunger for basic energy in the rural areas. From simple observation I concluded that the average rural peasant’s day consists of cultivating, collecting and preparing food, and collecting building materials, wood and charcoal. Access to electricity, almost all of it generated by the hydro plants on the Shire River, is limited to the towns and cities and to only 7.9% of the population. Ninety percent (90%) of the country’s energy demand is met by burning wood or charcoal. And the effect of this hunger for biomass can be seen in a landscape denuded of woodland. Rural people are having to travel further and further for wood, and the production and sale of charcoal for cash is a serious problem.

At the same time small, informal brickworks dot the countryside and consume massive amounts of wood. Perhaps there is a perception that a house is only truly a house if it’s built from brick.

In summary there seem to be two drivers of deforestation:

1) energy demand: for cooking, for firing bricks, somebody else’s demand for biofuel crops

2) food cultivation.

As we climbed out of Lilongwe on the flight back to SA, the difference in vegetation cover along the border between Malawi – stripped and cultivated – and Zambia – forested – was stark, a light-dark line of contrast. Between 1990 and 2005 Malawi lost 12.7% of its forest cover. The situation is plainly unsustainable.

Charcoal transporter

Firing bricks with forest

All this got me wondering about development projects that address rural energy needs, deforestation and loss of biodiversity. In my short week in Lilongwe and 500kms of driving to Cape Maclear and back I had seen little or no evidence of rural energy projects, although clearly there must be. And there are – as a cursory Google search will reveal.

The obvious solution to the demand for cooking fuel is solar cooking, and it seems to be getting wide attention and government support. An alternative project involves the production of briquettes from wood and paper waste and other agricultural residues, and another promotes the use and manufacture of clay stoves. Clearly a wide array of technologies, methods and resources are being employed to address the problem of basic energy production.

So, if you want to make a contribution to sustainable development and biodiversity conservation in Malawi, make a contribution to these basic energy projects, especially the solar cooking projects. They need to be scaled up drastically to make a substantive difference. Some links are provided below.

Livestock transport

There are alternative paths too. Africans are resourceful and this young Malawian built a home-made wind turbine to power the family compound from what he had to hand from ideas that he read in a text book. You must watch this remarkable story:

Ralph Pina is ecoAfrica‘s chairman and is currently studying renewable and sustainable energy

References:

Ndirande Nkhuni Biomass Briquette Programme: http://www.undp.org/energy/publications/2001/files_2001a/06_Malawi.pdf

Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi: http://www.escommw.com/distribution.php

Programme for Basic Energy and Conservation in Southern Africa (ProBEC): Malawi: http://www.probec.org/displaysection.php?czacc=&zSelectedSectionID=sec1192918473

The World Fact Book: Malawi: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mi.html

Malawi Deforestation Rates and Related Forestry Statistics: Malawi: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Malawi.htm

Malawian Food Crisis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi_food_crisis

The Solar Cooking Archive Wiki: Malawi: http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Malawi

Let’s take the second question first: what is eco-travel? Without entering into a debate about eco-travel – or ecotourism – definitions, it is worth pointing out that ecotourism represents a travel ethic rather than a market segment or type of tourism. It is purposeful travel, where the salient purpose, besides experiencing Nature, is the preservation of Nature.

Two generally accepted definitions of ecotourism are:

Ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation.

Ecotourism Association of Australia

Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.

The International Ecotourism Society (TIES)

One could write an academic article on just the differences between these two definitions e.g. “ecologically sustainable” versus “responsible” travel; and the one’s emphasis on “understanding” versus the other’s call to improve the “well-being of local people”. But let’s suffice by observing that there are usually three core elements in most definitions: preservation or conservation of nature; understanding of natural and cultural environments through education and interpretation, and benefits to local communities.

Eco-travel and sustainability

However, eco-travel is also a human economic activity and therefore has to be (ecologically) sustainable. And here we head into contested territory once more, because the concept of “sustainability” (and sustainable development) has been hotly debated since 1987 when the UN’s Brundtland Commission attempted to define “sustainable development” for the first time. I subscribe to the notion of strong sustainability, which basically means that human (e.g. people, knowledge, skills, etc.) and human-made capital (e.g. technology, goods, money, etc.) cannot substitute for natural capital (e.g. ecosystems, species, natural resources, etc.) ^[1] and that human and natural capital should be separately maintained. Eco-travel satisfies strong sustainability conditions as it is primarily concerned with the conservation (maintenance) of nature, with minimal trade-offs, if any. I would go further by arguing that nature should be conserved and preserved for its own sake, and not only because it has value to humans (ecotourism is a way of assigning human value to nature).

For eco-travel to be sustainable, the consumption of non-renewable resources should occur at a rate at which renewable sources can generate substitutes, and secondly, waste and pollution should be generated within the absorbtive capacity of the ecosphere. Eco-travel to Africa, which generally involves long-haul, air travel from the rich, developed countries, consequently has a problem on two counts:

1. Air travel is powered by non-renewable fossil fuels, and for air travel there is as yet no viable renewable fuel substitute;
2. Air travel greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contribute a growing proportion of global GHG emissions, although the absolute amount is small. And as we know GHG emissions are probably influencing climate systems in unpredictable ways.^[2]

By these measures, even eco-travel fails the sustainability test. Does this then mean that we shouldn’t fly to Africa to experience its wild places? In the next section I will try to argue why one should.

Eco-travel makes a difference

Deforestation is the second largest source (20 to 25%) of anthropogenic carbon emissions globally. Conservation International has identified the miombo-mopane woodland and savanna of southern Africa as a global biodiversity hotspot, threatened by unprecedented deforestation. The vast wooded wilderness stretches from coast to coast, from Mozambique to Angola, spanning ten countries. It is the habitat for a diverse and vast collection of Africa’s animals, who live cheek by jowl with millions of poor, rural Africans, who use the woodlands and savanna as a natural resource and depend on its ecosystem services. One result is increasing deforestation. Zambia is a case in point where charcoal has become a major energy source and its production a livelihood for its rural peoples – and where the population is set to double by 2020.

So how does eco-travel contribute to avoiding deforestation?

It is fortunate that a large proportion of Africa’s charismatic mega-fauna occur here, making wildlife tourism a major economic activity. Eco-travel and wildlife safaris depend on, and occur most often, in protected areas. The miombo/mopane wilderness is reasonably well protected by national parks and reserves, and more recently the advent of transfrontier conservation areas (TFCA) and parks (known as peace parks) are stitching protected areas together to ensure the integrity of entire ecosystems. Traditionally, national parks and other formally protected areas exclude humans, and thus prevent deforestation. However, the TFCAs recognise that people are part of the ecosystem and national park policies are becoming more enlightened. Unfortunately, the reality is also that in many of these poor and under-resourced countries, protected areas’ continued survival is increasingly dependent on tourism – so that protected area security is at the mercy of global and local political-economic events and conditions and yes, the response of western tourists to calls not to fly…

While conserving biodiversity irrespective of its perceived value for humans is essential – which is what formal protected areas are meant to do – it is also clearly vital that local communities must benefit from conservation. Ecotourism is one way that they can. So it is important to vet tourism operations in these areas for the extent to which they invest in and help to develop local communities and establish sustainable livelihoods. Without a stake in the continued existence of wild lands and animals, it is understandable that locals will degrade the land in their efforts to survive.

In the final analysis, I suppose that it boils down to an ethical question: do I as a traveller heed the call not to fly to long-haul destinations in Africa because of concern about my contributions to carbon emissions and the depletion of non-renewable fuels, or do I rather continue flying in the knowledge that my visit will contribute to avoided deforestation, continued protection of wilderness, biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods for and development of local communities?

I would argue that you should make the trip and buy the carbon offsets^[2], but be sure that the suppliers of the trip truly adhere to the tenets of ecotourism and that the suppliers of the offsets invest in projects that ensure true sustainability.

If these conditions are met, then eco-travel does make a difference, not only in Africa, but also globally – and on various levels, including mitigation of climate change.

Links to ecoAfrica’s pages for selected protected areas in the miombo/mopane wilderness:

• Chobe National Park, Botswana
• Moremi Wildlife Reserve, Botswana
• Kafue Nationa Park, Zambia
• Luangwa Valley, Zambia
• Kruger National Park, South Africa
• Manda Wilderness, Mozambique
• Mana Pools World Heritage Site, Zimbabwe
• Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia
• Liwonde National Park, Malawi

About the author: Ralph Pina is ecoAfrica’s chairman

[1] Weak sustainability would almost always countenance trade-offs between socio-economic benefits and ecological impacts. This would generally be the type of sustainability that the business and industrial sectors would subscribe to.

[2] Although there are ethical problems around buying carbon offsets to make your air travel carbon neutral, it does have value if the carbon offset scheme a) invests in renewable energy projects that would generate renewable energy equivalent to your proportion of the fossil-fuel energy used in your flights, and b) invests in projects that result in substantive reductions in emissions, because our emissions have already overshot what can be absorbed. See a previous post on carbon offsets.