Emerging threats to wildlife and tourism
Possible theme for wildlife tourism workshop
Emerging threats to wildlife and tourism
Climate change
Some wildlife species seem to be responding faster than predicted: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wildlife-responds-fast-to-clim
We may still be unclear on the details of how warm how soon, what districts will get more rain or less,what percentage of the changes are induced by human activity etc. but the general consensus is that something is happening, faster than in any previous age. How are we going to adapt our businesses and our wildlife habitats for the future?
Habitat clearing and modification
This has always been a major threat to wildlife – how much more rapidly will it expand in coming years and how much are we likely to lose? How much does the clearing affect the wilderness experience of visitors to an area? How effective are wildlife corridors? What areas most urgently need monitoring? How and where is habitat restration most effectively and efficiently accomplished?
Urbanisation
Since Araucaria Ecotours started taking tours to Kooralbyn, progressively more open forest habitat has become suburbia, and wildlife have to contend with more traffic and more dogs
Brisbane was once dubbed the “Koala City” by Lonely Planet, but koalas have been rapidly decreasing here and other parts of southeast Queensland thgouh habitat loss, vehicle collisions, dog attack and stress-related disease
Urbainization is extending into many wildlife-inhabited areas, removing habitat, bringing in roads and uncontrolled dogs. Some new residents love the wildlife, others consider them a nuisance and want them removed, or are careless (e.g. running over lizards with motor mowers). Some appreciate the native vegetation in their backyards, others remove it for lawns, formal gardens or tennis courts.
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Eating and collecting wildlife
This is not usually a great problem in Australia (although some things o sip through the regulations), but is in some other countries.
It seems for instance wildlife parts are being readily sold in markets in Laos, and meat from endangered animals offered to tourists – visit http://www.southeastasiacampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Tourism-has-a-negative-impact-on-Laos-wildlife_Dawn-Starin.pdf
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