How is tourists use of natural resources damaging the planet?

Answer 1

A tourist resort often brings tourists into clean natural habitats. If the resorts are not managed properly damage can be caused by:

• polluting
• leaving garbage and sewage
• cutting down trees to make Golf courses
• more people than the environment can sustain.

Tourists use of Natural Resources

Answer 2

My favorite example here is Mt. Kilimanjaro. The glacier here is losing some mass and blamed on global warming by alarmists that have not bothered to check facts. The reality is that the mountain has had a forty year drought and the major loss of ice on the mountain is due to people coming to see the ice loss!

Tourists will damage the planet as long as they breathe and exist. They will do so through the transportation to the vacation spot, they will drink the water and shower and want to have heat and air conditioning. That is what tourists do.

Now, the real question is if this is a serious problem that offsets the natural need for this refreshment? The bottom line answer is that tourists do not normally represent any problem if they do not overcome an area with their numbers.

There are a handful of sensitive areas, like the Galapagos Islands or Mt. Kilimanjaro. These areas are very sensitive to changes in the environment. Limiting volume of tourists to these areas makes sense.

Remember that the average human does consume natural resources. It is what we do. Transferring this use to another area normally is only inconvenient and not damaging to the planet.

It is very vain of some humans to believe that we have a large impact on our planet.

Answer 3

Tourists may be coming to see an unspoiled natural environment which they will then proceed to spoil, by their consumption of the natural resources that they have come to see.