For the past few years, ecotourism has rapidly developed, bringing many positive implications for local authorities. However, for ecotourism with the huge investment to bring more revenue for the country, we need to increase sustainability, further raise the awareness environmental protection in the development context of this type of tourism.
Illustration image (Source: Internet)
Take ecological value as the goal
With the advantage of locating in the tropical monsoon climate, Vietnam has a system of special-use forests as reservoirs of genetic resources, all kinds of rare animals stretching from South to North, from the inland to the islands. Moreover, we have many historical monuments and landscapes recognized by UNESCO as cultural heritage of humanity and world natural heritage ... These advantages make Vietnam a destination with great potential to develop ecotourism.
In fact, in recent years, the development of ecotourism has brought about many economic resources, creating more jobs, increasing income for local people. The potential of Vietnam for ecotourism is abundant with increasing investment. In the future, it will bring huge revenues for the country. However, according to the judgment of some experts, this type of tourism is also unsustainable.
Ms. Dang Thi Thu Huong - Director of Nam Phuong Tourism Co. said, nowadays many private businesses rush in investment as they see potential in ecotourism. "They do not even understand the concept of ecotourism, ecotourism in the strict sense is not for every tourist, but only for those who really take the ecological value as the goal of the trip. They have to respect, learn and preserve nature. Thereby, they are willing to do specific actions to protect, conserve and preserve the natural beauty and national culture,” she said.
The misunderstanding of the basic knowledge leads to wrong actions, it not only wastes ecotourism potential, but also ruins the whole ecology population. In recent years, the image of the famous tourist destinations surrounding by garbage has become common. When participating in ecotourism, tourists are still unaware of the environmental protection, resulting in indiscriminate waste disposal ... It seriously affects the ecological beauty, natural environment as well as the cultural and spiritual life of local people.
Along with the waste, waste water has not been thoroughly treated; overexploitation of natural resources distorts the landscape and degrades the species. Besides, at the ecotourism sites, people still easily purchase venision or wild birds...
Save the natural beauty
To remedy environmental pollution at the beautiful spots, many local authorities have promoted dissemination and education on environmental protection for travel agents, tourist accommodation establishments and for environmental protection staff and employees. At the same time, encourage tourist accommodation establishments to use clean energy sources; economicalyl use resources and minimize the impacts on the marine environment.
Besides, the ministries, agencies and local authorities have also issued a number of mechanisms and incentive policy for entities applying environmental technologies and apply "green label" to businesses with outstanding environmental protection task.
Particularly, many volunteer groups are praiseworthily set up to prevent “garbage attack” as they feel painful to see natural beauty being ruined. For example, along the path up the Ba Den hill (Tay Ninh), tourists often see groups of young people picking up trash near the tree bushes. Thus, the amount of waste littering in the area has reduced.
This is a gap in cognition of not only tourists and tourism businesses but also the management agencies. Thus, in the time to come, we need to further improve the awareness of people on the protection of natural resource and environment in tourism. We could not destroy long-term potential because of the immediate benefits.
However, sadly there are still a large number of tourists and local people who lack common sense. Mr. Dao Viet drom Thanh Mountain, Quang Nam, who founded a group of volunteers to pick up garbage around Doi Duong beach in Lagi (Binh Thuan), said: "There are times tourists stared at us with inscrutable eyes as we picked up trash in front of them. Then, when we went away, they continued to litter".