14-2 Breaking out of the Tourist Trap Part 2

Update from Cultural Survival (Canada) - 14.2

The Innu Recent months have seen growing criticism of the Environmental Impact Statement filed by Canada's Department of National Defence (DND) on its proposed expansion of the Goose Bay air base as a NATO center for low-level flight training. Scientists and environmental groups have attacked the report for glaring deficiencies, including a near-total lack of original research and conclusory and…

Tourism, Conservation, and Culture in the Kalahari Desert, Botswana

The impacts of tourism on indigenous peoples is a subject of concern in both anthropology and socioeconomic development (Smith 1977a, 1977b; Swain 1977; Wu 1982; Wood 1984). As Smith (1977a:3) notes, tourism can be a powerful force in bringing about cultural change. On the positive side, it can heighten people's appreciation of indigenous customs and serve as a source of employment and income.…

Tourism to the Rescue?

One of the most dramatic wilderness battles in Canada was fought over the fate of a chain of magnificent islands known to the Haida Indians as Gwaii Haanas, "place of wonder and beauty." On most maps, the archipelago, 130 km off the northwest coast of British Columbia, just south of the Alaska panhandle, appears as the "Queen Charlotte Islands." The islands are remote and romantic, misty and…

Tourism Research: Resources and Trends

Tourism research in North America developed in the early 1970s, more than a decade after the introduction of jet airplanes and the subsequent expansion of the tourist industry. In the 1970s the World Bank was funding resort projects in the Third World, using international tourism as a tool for economic development. It was inevitable that social scientists would become aware of the economic,…

The Portals of Tradition: Tourism in the American Southwest

Tourism is big business in the American Southwest. In the state of New Mexico, for example, the travel industry is now a billion-dollar enterprise and the number one employer. Native culture is one of the drawing cards for that industry; many tourists feel that seeing and interacting with "real Indians" adds an important dimension to their travel experience. This curiosity about Southwest native…

Sustainable Development: Whatever Happened to Hana?

Through a number of influential conferences in the 1970s and 1980s held by organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, the UN Environmental Program, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), and the World Resources Institute, it became abundantly clear, especially from a Third World viewpoint, that no economic development would ever exhibit permanent…

Justifying Injustice: Law and "Tradition" as Moral Argument?

This article is a response to an article in Cultural Survival Quarterly 12(3), by Fay G. Cohen and Vivian L. Bowden, entitled "A Legacy Restored." It is part of an ongoing dialogue on the Boldt Decision, a landmark ruling on fishing rights in Washington State. Fifteen years have passed since Federal Judge George Boldt passed the "Boldt Decision," splitting the Washington State salmon fishery…

Innu Women and NATO: The Occupation of Nitassinan

Militarism is a form of colonization which takes away from our lives. That future is without hope for us. But, we will fight for our rights. I believe in nonviolence and civil disobedience. I am ready to go to jail, to take blows or die for our cause, because I believe in the struggle for the freedom of my people. I don't want your sympathy, I want your support, your strong and collective support…

From the Taj to the Tiger

Although the natural heritage of the Indian subcontinent remains largely unstudied and underappreciated, the range and diversity of its biological wealth matches the grandeur and magnificence of its historic civilization. Geological events that took place millions of years ago have created an incomparable diversity of ecosystems. Positioned at the confluence of three biogeographic realms, India's…

Editorial: Earth Day 1990

Earth Day, April 22, is an important occasion for all of us. We could simply allow the day to come and go, or we can use it as a starting point for determining our goals and actions for the next decade: to halt the environmental degradation that confronts us at every turn. If you want to learn about the ways in which others are making a difference, large and small, or if you want to know how you…

Defining Solutions: The Annapurna Experience

Better to let them do it imperfectly than to do it perfectly yourself, f it is their country, their way and your time is short. - T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) People travel to the far reaches of the world in their desire for a adventure and experience of a culture different from their own. Although such remote areas are considered uninhabitable and inaccessible, they are often the home of…

Close Encounters: "Intimate" Tourism in Tibet

The rise - and fall - of ethnic/adventure tourism in the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China has been disastrous for indigenous and outside tourism investors, the host society, and liberal Chinese policy. "Intimate" tourism (tourism that places novel and extraordinary demands for goods and serves on a neophyte host community) in Tibet is not sustainable, primarily because…

Cats, Kippers, and TT Races: Tourism and Culture in the Isle of Man

Cats, kippers, and TT Races! That's all this island is known for!" My elderly informant spat these words at the coal fire. Mr. Cregeen (not his real name) was, I knew, referring to the tailless Manx cats, the special local smoked herrings, and the internationally famous Tourist Trophy Motorcycle Races held every year in the Isle of Man. (The Isle of Man is legally and politically separate from…

Book Review: A Concise Dictionary of Indian Tribes of North America

Reference Publications has a program of producing systematic and generally accessible reference works on ethnic groups. "Too often, in ethnic studies as in other subject areas, over-specialization and specialists' jargon have presented a barrier to the general diffusion of useful knowledge." With A Concise Dictionary of Indian Tribes of North America, the publishers aim to present historical,…

A Place Without Apology

As a child I spent many hot, humid summer afternoons in the regrowth forest that rimmed a cornfield behind our family's house in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio. Sitting on fallen logs, tracking garter snakes and frogs, and picking raspberries, I tried to imagine the ancient forests of Ohio: the beech and oak giants that once towered from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, the prairies that stretched to…

"Save Our Beach Dem and Our Land Too!" The Problems of Tourism in "America's Paradise"

As you fly into St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, your attention is captured by the changing pattern of brilliant blues and bright greens, where islands interrupt the Caribbean seascape. Leaving the plane, your first impression is a blast of warm, slightly humid air. Ah, vacation has begun! Hey, did you notice the beach right next to the airport? Did you sip on the rum punch, offered to you by…