生態旅游我先行

Imagine the scene. You’re sitting in the hot sunshine beside the swimming pool of your international luxury hotel， drinking your imported 1)gin and tonic. In front of you is the beach， reserved for hotel guests with motor boats for hire. Behind you is an 18-hole golf course， which was cleared from the native forest and is kept green by hundreds of water 2)sprinklers. Around the hotel are familiar international restaurant chains and the same shops that you have at home. You’ve seen some local people—some of them sell local3)handicrafts outside the hotel. You bought a small wooden statue and after arguing for half an hour you paid only a quarter of what the man was asking. Really cheap!

Is this your idea of heaven or would you prefer something different?

Nowadays， many of us try to live in a way that will damage the environment as little as possible. We recycle our newspapers and bottles， we take public transport to get to work， we try to buy locally produced fruit and vegetables and we stopped using 4)aerosol sprays years ago. And we want to take these attitudes on holiday with us. This is why alternative forms of tourism are becoming more popular all over the world.

But what is ecotourism?

There are lots of names for these new forms of tourism: responsible tourism， alternative tourism， sustainable tourism， nature tourism， adventure tourism， educational tourism and more. Ecotourism probably involves a little of all of them. Everyone has a different definition but most people agree that ecotourism must:

5)conserve the wildlife and culture of the area;

benefit the local people and involve the local community;

be sustainable， that is make a profit without destroying natural resources;

provide an experience that tourists want to pay for.

So， for example， in a true ecotourism project， a nature reserve allows a small number of tourists to visit its rare animals and uses the money that is generated to continue with important conservation work. The local people have jobs in the nature reserve as guides and 6)wardens， but also have a voice in how the project develops. Tourists stay in local houses with local people， not in specially built hotels. So they experience the local culture and do not take precious energy and water away from the local population. They travel on foot， by boat， bicycle or elephant so that there is no pollution. And they have a special experience that they will remember all of their lives.

But before you get too enthusiastic， think about how you are going to get to your dream “eco” paradise. Flying is one of the biggest man-made sources of 7)carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 8)Friends of the Earth say that one return flight from London to Miami puts as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the average British car driver produces in a year. So don’t forget that you don’t have to fly to exotic locations for your “eco” holiday. There are probably places of natural beauty and interest in your own country that you’ve never visited.

想像一下這樣一個場景:在烈日下，你坐在國際豪華酒店的游泳池旁，喝著進口的杜松子酒補劑。在你的眼前是給酒店的客人專用的海灘，當然，還有隨時可供客人租用的汽艇。而在你身后則是一個18洞的高爾夫球場，場地上原有的天然植被早已被清除干凈，現在有幾百個水噴頭把球場保養得翠綠誘人。那些你在家就已經熟悉的國際連鎖餐廳和商店分布在酒店的周圍。你在這里還見到一些當地人，他們有些人在酒店門外兜售當地的手工藝品。你挑了一個小木雕，在經過長達半個小時的討價還價后，你只付了對方開價的四分之一的價錢。太便宜了!

這就是你理想中的天堂嗎?或者說你有另一番期待?

如今，許多人都力圖以一種盡可能少破壞環境的方式生活。比如說，我們會回收報紙和瓶子，我們乘坐公共交通工具上下班，我們盡量購買當地生產的蔬果，還在多年前就停止使用噴霧劑等。而我們在度假時也應該采取同樣的生活態度。因此，在世界各地，非傳統的旅游方式越來越受歡迎。

可到底什么才是生態旅游呢?

這些新型旅游有各種各樣的名稱:負責任的旅游、另類旅游、可持續旅游、自然旅游、冒險旅游、教育旅游等等。而生態旅游可能與以上的各種旅游都有點關系。每個人都對什么是生態旅游有著自己的看法，但大部分人都同意生態旅游必須包含以下幾點:

保護旅游地區的野生動植物和文化;

使旅游地區的當地人受惠，并參與他們的活動;