Ecolabels in tourism: eco-colonialism or eco-protectionism?

Previously, we established that ecolabels represent an attempt to educate and influence travellers to select tours and destinations that have been certified as operating along ecologically responsible and sustainable lines. That article showed that there are many ecolabels in tourism, a fact that in itself sows confusion in the market, but it also pointed out that perceptions of ecolabels vary greatly between stakeholders in the Third World (the poor and developing South) and the First World (industrialised and developed North) where most ecolabels originate and where most proponents are to be found. The fault line in perceptions is widened by the facts that most ecotourism destinations are located in the South; that the majority of eco-travellers are from the North; that not only do most ecolabels originate in the North, but so does the bulk of their funding.

It is perhaps easy to see why some critics view the drive for ecolabels, specifically in ecotourism, as an extension of "eco-colonialism". Although this may represent a somewhat cynical - and even extreme - viewpoint, it is worth exploring the meaning of the term a little.

Further reading

In Environmental Ethics: an anthology (at amazon) environmental philosophers make arguments for and against wilderness preservation. Michael Nelson covers all the arguments made for preservation.

Another Nelson - Robert - challenges our assumptions about wilderness and Africa in Environmental Colonialism: "Saving" Africa from Africans (PDF document)

The title says it all - The Myth of Wild Africa (at amazon)

John Reader's highly readable Africa: a biography of a continent - a history safari as stimulating as it is broad (at amazon)

Jane Carruthers' The Kruger National Park: A Social and Political History (at amazon) gives us an updated insight into the great park's history.

Why and how the trade tail wags the environmental dog....

Balancing Trade and Environment. An Ecological Reform of the WTO as a Challenge in Sustainable Global Governance by the Wuppertal Institute.

Some scholars charge that eco-colonialism is but one manifestation of neo-colonialism, in the post-colonial world; that it stems from and relates to unequal power relationships in the political and economic spheres. And so Western (or Northern) sensitivities and values about "the environment" are projected onto the South, where many ecosystems still remain intact. Just as the South's mineral and energy riches have been exploited by the rich nations for their own advantage, so, these scholars argue, the rise of Western "environmentalism" means that its natural wealth should be preserved as laboratory for the environmental movement and for the enjoyment of the new consumer - the tourist. They would say that its a case of "saving Africa from the Africans" or "the West knows best".

Furthermore, it is claimed that the idea of "wilderness" - or unspoilt and pristine Nature often devoid of humans - is a Western ideal, propagated and perpetuated by specialist TV channels, romantic movies and memoirs, and evocative travel marketing. While it is clear that poor people who live close to Nature, who depend on her for sustenance and are exposed to her vicissitudes and moods, would experience wilderness differently from those of us whose ties with nature are loosened and who have the luxury of our basic needs satisfied, it seems to be "colonial", ironically, to suggest that local, rural peoples somehow do not value pristine Nature.

However, there is truth to the claim that westerners sometimes expect Africa's wilderness to be unpeopled and believe that it has been so since time immemorial. In fact, the human colonisation of its game-rich plains has cycled through stages of civilisation and pastoralism, and alternate periods of human absence. Some of these stages have been triggered by natural calamities and pestilence (such as the rinderpest epidemic of the late nineteenth century, itself a product of Italian colonisation, that indirectly decimated the Maasai people of the Serengeti and Maasai Mara), others by the acts of fellow humans. The Mfecane ("the crushing") or Difaqane ("the scattering") of the early nineteenth century, an event that cannot be blamed on colonialism (although some recent re-interpretations do try), for example, led to massive population dislocations and movements amongst the tribes of southern Africa that left vast tracts of land denuded of inhabitants.

But more recent phenomena in areas that have since become the cathedrals of nature tourism, for example, have been the removal of people from the iconic Kruger National Park, or the prevention of the Maasai's return to the Serengeti. National parks and game reserves have thus been colonial artefacts and more often than not have been designed to keep indigenous people out. Conservationists have responded to these concerns, however. The most recent IUCN World Parks Congress, fittingly held in 2003 in South Africa, emphasised the link between "people and parks" and perhaps recognised that the hitherto accepted ways of proclaiming and operating protected areas are unsustainable.

In fact, the only certification scheme in South Africa that approaches an ecolabel, and which is endorsed by the government and which is an initiative of the IUCN - Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa - emphasises economic and social benefits for local people by targeting North-South trade inequities.

If the "eco-colonialism" charge doesn't stick to ecolabels in tourism, then the flip side of the same coin - "eco-protectionism" - might. Again the logic of such an argument follows from the fact that ecolabels originate in the North, are often applied to destinations and travel in the South and, as some charge, represent standards and criteria that serve the business interests of companies from developed countries. Protectionism in matters of trade usually implies protecting one's own markets by excluding products and services from foreign countries and their companies through the erection of barriers to entry such as quality standards, amongst others. Eco-protectionism thus, some claim, uses environmental concerns and standards as reasons for excluding the South's tour operators from access to the lucrative tourism markets of the North.

Not unnaturally tour and ground operators and establishments in the South are leery of international ecolabels. They are aware of the financial power of the North's large outbound tour operators and carriers and may suspect the requirements for ecolabels, which in many cases are relatively expensive and difficult to obtain for them, of being a business strategy to exploit the environmental awareness of the North's tourists to large enterprises' advantage. In this way local companies may conceivably be marginalised in their own backyards.

There may be an element of this thinking in resistance to the only truly international certification scheme that was originally launched as Green Globe in 1998 by the World Travel and Tourism Council, an industry body generally representative of big tourism businesses in the developed world. Perhaps significantly, in its latest incarnation as Green Globe 21, it has largely failed to penetrate Africa.

Consequently, it is entirely logical that the developing world's tourism businesses will gravitate, if at all, towards ecolabels that are locally initiated and governed, and serve local interests, which as we have seen, may lean more towards social and trade equity concerns. The ultimate irony may well be that such initiatives are viewed as anti free trade by the North - if they threaten to limit Northern firms' access to markets - and are trumped by employing the provisions of GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services, which guarantees the right of firms to enter markets internationally. It might be a case of using trade agreements to prevent reverse eco-protectionism by the South....

This article is based on a research application entitled Ecolabelling, certification and accreditation: elements of a possible model for the ecotourism industry in southern and eastern Africa, submitted to Stellenbosch University in April 2004 by Ralph Pina (contact the author), chairman of ecoAfrica Travel, in partial fulfilment of an M Phil in Environmental Management. The application's references are listed here.