The program, which the NSW government calls “Supplementary Pest Control,” targets pests including rabbits, hares, wild dogs, pigs, goats, deer and foxes. It is currently expected to go into effect in July, although the start date remains under discussion. Similar schemes have been introduced in Victoria and South Australia.

A 2009 report by the Invasive Species Council of Australia stated that “it is likely that greater harm than good has resulted from recreational hunting of feral animals” and that “evidence indicates that recreational hunting is not effective as a major or primary method of feral animal control.”

A NSW parliamentary paper published the following year cited recent studies indicating that “professional, targeted feral animal control is much more successful than recreational hunting.”

Bushwalking in Kosciuszko National Park. Photo by Michael Jordan, used under a Flickr Creative Commons license.

Last month, an opinion poll revealed that the majority of NSW residents are opposed to the new laws. Alex Greenwich, the Member of Parliament who commissioned the poll, said this shows how concerned the community is about these proposed changes.

“The community is gravely concerned about the impact this will have on the families, ecotourists and bushwalkers who value the safety of our national parks,” he said. “National parks should not be turned into shooting grounds where hunters kill and maim animals for fun while ruining peace with gun shots and putting visitors at risk.”

The National Parks Association of NSW echoes this sentiment. “The results of this poll are a reminder to the Premier that his choice of actions around the hunting in national parks issue are politically motivated and do not serve the majority of NSW residents,” said Justin McKee, Campaign Coordinator for the organization. “No one disputes that there is a pest animal problem, but the Premier is failing to deal constructively with the issue. Recreational hunters have not achieved any real conservation gains through hunting in State Forests.”

Russ Nelson, President of the Brisbane Catholic Bushwalking Club, believes that while the government should act to minimize feral animal populations in national parks, the implementation of such processes needs to be carefully considered. “Such action should be properly resourced and managed and at the same time minimize the risk to people with in the vicinity of such action,” he said.

“We’re worried, a lot of bushwalkers are,” David Trinder, president of Bushwalking NSW, told news.com.au. “It’s a common conversation topic; bushwalkers are afraid that the native animals might be shot and that they’ll cop a stray bullet as well.”

One experienced bushwalker who frequently visits national parks in northern New South Wales said he will be staying away from tracks there once the new hunting rules take effect. “I won’t be walking there anymore,” said the bushwalker, who prefers to remain anonymous. “People will die.”

He added that “rangers working across the proposed national parks have expressed concerns for their safety.” During a recent walking trip, rangers told the bushwalker that they were asking for flak jackets and other safety equipment once the new laws come into effect.

“The risk of serious injury or death to park visitors and staff from accidental shooting is very real,” said another ranger, who also wishes to remain anonymous.

In New Zealand, where recreational hunting in national parks is legal, approximately one person is killed every nine months. In 2012, Alexander McDonald was killed when a member of another hunting party accidentally shot him in the head, and school teacher Rosemary Ives was killed during a camping trip when she was mistaken for a deer and fatally shot. In the majority of cases, the accidental shootings are due to human error – failing to properly identify the target before firing.

The NSW Government Game Council has proposed several safety measures, including a required Restricted Game license and a mandatory code of practice. Only time will tell whether or not these measures will be successful in minimizing fatalities.

Photo: Travelers Against Plastic (TAP)

Purchasing a plastic bottle of water or two while traveling may not seem like a huge deal on an individual level, but multiply that by the number of travelers crisscrossing the globe every day and the impact is massive. On a global scale, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used annually for water bottles. Of the billions of single-use water bottles consumed in the United States every year, 86 percent end up as litter or in landfills; in many countries this number is even higher. For local communities stuck dealing with the waste, plastic bottles can be a big problem.

Yet the environmental impact of plastic bottles goes beyond the question of garbage. PET plastic is made from crude oil, with toxic emissions 100 times those of glass production. In the US alone, more than 1.5 million barrels of oil are consumed annually to produce plastic water bottles – enough to fuel 100,000 American cars for a year. Add to that the fuel consumption and other transportation costs of hauling all those bottles around – often over long distances – and the energy use becomes truly astounding.

Plastic bottles littering a beach. Photo: TAP.

Most responsible travelers recognize that buying disposable plastic water bottles is bad for the environment – not to mention expensive – but that awareness doesn’t always translate into widespread behavioral change. In many cases, what’s holding travelers back is not a lack of will but a lack of awareness of how to eliminate their reliance on bottled water.

“I see responsible travelers who would never buy a plastic water bottle at home, but as soon as they travel abroad it’s a different story,” says Chris Mackay, co-founder of Travelers Against Plastic – appropriately shortened to TAP – a new campaign that aims to get rid of plastic water bottle waste by educating travelers and promoting simple solutions for safe drinking water on the go.

TAP organizers estimate that US travelers alone discard up to 3.5 billion plastic bottles worldwide on an annual basis. Many travelers buy bottled water simply because they don’t know what else to do, but Mackay points out that there are many viable alternatives. To make things as convenient as possible for travelers, TAP has partnered with Klean Kanteen and SteriPEN to offer a quick and easy way to treat water. Klean Kanteen makes durable metal water bottles that can be reused over and over again. SteriPEN is a simple gadget that purifies water using UB light technology, destroying more than 99.9 percent of bacteria, viruses, and protozoan cysts such as giardia and cryptosporidia. One SteriPEN will clean as many as 8,000 liters of water.

“The mission of TAP is just to get people to stop using plastic water bottles. I don’t care what system they use, but we’re just making it easy by suggesting something right off the bat. I’ve used just about every method out there to clean water, and I’ve found that SteriPEN is easy,” says Mackay. “It’s not something that requires people to think really hard and make a challenging choice. It truly is easy. And it’s cheaper than buying all that bottled water, too.”

TAP co-founder Chris Mackay with her reusable water bottle. Photo: TAP.

Mackay is co-founder and executive director of Crooked Trails, a Seattle-based nonprofit tour organization and a leader in educating people and communities about responsible travel. “We have always required that people who travel with us come prepared to clean their own water so we don’t leave a trail of plastic water bottles behind us,” Mackay explains. The idea for TAP grew out of Mackay’s desire to see other travelers follow suit.

Mackay enlisted the support of fellow Seattleite Kurt Kutay, founding president of Wildland Adventures and director of the nonprofit Travelers Conservation Trust. A sustainable tourism pioneer, Kutay was immediately enthusiastic about TAP, signing on as co-founder of the campaign and bringing the energy and talents of Wildland’s marketing and communications team to the effort.

“It is our responsibility as tour operators to educate our clients that simple steps like bringing reusable water bottles and a SteriPen or filtering system will make a huge difference to the communities we visit and even sends a message to local residents that they can do the same thing,” Kutay says.

TAP officially launched on March 22, 2013, and the response has been enthusastic and global. “We’ve had tour operators from Russia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Panama, Canada, and the USA all sign on already,” says Mackay. “We’ve also had well over 100 people already sign the pledge as individual travelers.”

SUPPORT TAP: To demonstrate your commitment to stamping out plastic, visit the TAP website and take the pledge to avoid buying bottled water. You can also purchase SteriPENs and Klean Kanteen bottles with the TAP logo. For all purchases made directly through the TAP website, Klean Kanteen and SteriPEN will donate five percent of their profits to the TAP campaign. TAP also welcomes donations and volunteers to help with the campaign’s educational efforts.

Tour operators are invited to join TAP by adding a TAP logo to their websites, spreading the word about the campaign, and supplying their travelers with pre-departure information about how to avoid bottled water.

Reusable TAP water bottle on a beach. Photo: Jonathan Burnham, Wildland Adventures.

Avaaz, an international advocacy and campaigning community, has recently realized this potential in a campaign in the Maldvies against an outdated law that has led to a 15-year-old rape victim being sentenced to 100 lashes. The Maldives rely heavily on tourism, and the fact that nearly two million people have signed this petition shows the potential power that tourists have. The Maldives’ former president Mohamed Nasheed recognized this potential when he asked for a tourism boycott last year, telling the UK Financial Times newspaper that tourists visiting the country would just be bankrolling an illegitimate government.

The idea of shunning a country is far from new. Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for a tourism boycott of her country in 1999, arguing that tourism is “a form of moral support for [the military regime]…they seem to look on the influx of tourists as proof that their actions are accepted by the world.” This decade-long boycott was declared ”over” in late 2010 following a statement from the National League for Democracy, the Burmese political opposition party led by Suu Kyi. In 2011, Survival International called for a boycott of Botswana following the closure of a local waterhole essential to the Bushmen at the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. This boycott was only lifted when the Bushman won the legal case and the borehole was reopened after nine years.

Sometimes the proposed tourism boycott is just for a particular area or a particular company. Environmentalists are calling for a tourist season boycott of a New Jersey shore town in the USA over the local council’s decision to use tropical hardwood to rebuild their boardwalk. Harpseals.org pushes for a Canadian tourism boycott in a bid to end seal hunting. British tourists are being asked to boycott Thai elephant camps, something international animal activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA) has strongly supported. Dutch journalist Jos van Noord called for a boycott of Egypt and other Arab countries last year in order to stop violence against local Christians. However, Arab-West Report argues that this tourism boycott will only hurt Christians, saying the international travel community should instead be working to promote and reinvigorate tourism in the Middle East as so much of the local economy relies on this trade.

Last year’s arrest and conviction of the first gay hotel owners in Granada, Nicaragua, has “prompted some members of the gay community to boycott Nicaragua tourism,” according to The Nicaragua Dispatch. The authorities claim that the Belgian men were exploiting minors; however supporters insist that the foreigners were targeted because of their sexual orientation. The town has already seen a drop in local tourism, although it is unclear whether this is a result of the boycott or of fear.

Back in the Maldives, recently dismissed Chinese employees of the Beach House Iruveli resort have claimed discrimination against staff and tourists from China. Initial reports suggest that, following an eruption of such claims through Chinese social media networks several potential tourists from that nation are concerned and reluctant to make reservations – not just with the resort but in the Maldives in general.

But do tourism boycotts actually achieve anything?

Corporate Ethics International’s Michael Max argues that “boycotts don’t have to reduce the number of tourists to be successful…The reality is that the mere awareness of a boycott causes the target constituency and its supporters to attend more to criticism of their government’s or companies’ policies and inevitably they become more aware of the legitimacy of the criticism.”

Travel consultant David Beirman, however, told Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald in 2007 that boycotts can be counterproductive as they hurt local people who rely on an income from tourism. This argument was widely used during the Burma boycott; Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler was particularly vocal in encouraging travel to the insulated nation over the past decade.

Should travelers adhere to calls for boycotts? 

Travel, particularly ethical travel, is a highly personal journey. Traveling exposures us to new ideas and concepts. By opening ourselves to these experiences, we will undoubtedly be faced with difficult moral and ethical decisions. Ethical travelers have a duty to make themselves aware of these issues and to act both appropriately and responsibly.

The best advice is to ensure that you are well informed of the political, social, and economic contexts of your destination before you travel, and make your own decision about whether you want your hard-earned cash to support that particular institution or regime. Wherever possible, try to support local businesses.

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

- Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India

“Never before has there been such an abundance of evidence demonstrating that socially and environmentally responsible travel has now entered the mainstream. It crosses age and income groups, different types of tourism, and destinations around the globe,” CREST Co-Director Dr. Martha Honey said in a press release.

At the consumer level, numerous pieces of market research indicate that the desire for greater social and environmental sustainability is a growing trend among travelers. This coincides with a drive to get away from “cookie cutter” vacations in favor of travel experiences that are unique, authentic and meaningful. CREST’s meta-analysis shows that travelers are not only seeking out unique and ethical experiences, but are also prepared to pay for them. In addition, the rise of traveler’s philanthropy programs and volontourism indicate that consumers increasingly desire to give back to the communities that they visit as tourists. These twin desires for unique and ethical experiences along with “giving back” have placed increasing pressure on tourism suppliers to improve their social and environmental responsibility.

Partly based on this demand from consumers, a growing number of businesses are paying more attention to sustainable operations. In the words of Bruce Poon Tip, founder and CEO of G Adventures (quoted in the CREST report), “Sustainability is at the forefront of our business model because of customer demand.”

Embracing responsible business practices at the environmental and social levels has a number of benefits for businesses. In addition to meeting a growing consumer demand, responsible practices give a competitive advantage in terms of branding and product differentiation. Beyond these advantages, businesses can also reduce costs and improve efficiencies, meet emerging legal and regulatory requirements, and improve employee satisfaction by engaging staff in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Even more compelling, however, is that companies that adopted environmental, social, and governance policies in the 1990s outperformed those that did not, according to a 2011 report by the Harvard Business School. In other words, responsible business practices are not just good for public relations. They are actually a vital factor in predicting business success.

The strongest case for responsible practices in tourism, however, is the fact that the tourism industry as a whole depends on the health of the destination. Even beyond the scope of individual businesses, attention is now being focused on enhancing environmental and social sustainability within entire tourism destinations. Criteria for “green” destinations are currently being developed, most notably by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), as well as by the European Union, National Geographic’s Geotourism Program, EarthCheck, and Green Globe. CREST also highlighted Ethical Traveler’s annual report on the World’s Best Ethical Destinations in this context.

Hand in hand with sustainable destination criteria, destination partnerships are emerging as a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach towards achieving sustainability. And since integrated ecotourism can return as much as 95 percent of revenues to the local economy, as opposed to about 20 percent for standard package tours, incorporating destination-wide sustainability goals can be a key force in achieving the maximum possible positive impact from tourist arrivals. Building on the success of the trends study, CREST is currently planning an Executive Symposium for Innovators in Coastal Tourism to bring together the movers and shakers of the coastal tourism industry.

The findings from the CREST study indicate beyond a doubt that responsible travel has entered the mainstream travel market, and that its influence is growing. “The tourism sector is embracing responsible tourism not as an option, but as a condition for its continuous growth,” Luigi Cabrini, director for sustainable development at the World Tourism Organization, said in the CREST press release. With the knowledge that sustainable tourism is backed by sound economic data using a triple bottom line, a move toward improved sustainability in all aspects of the tourism industry seems a reasonable expectation for the future .