How can tourism protect & promote mangroves?

Kev­in Phun passes a sus­tain­ab­il­ity lens over con­cerns about man­grove forests to determ­ine what it would take for our travel & tour­ism industry to be a respons­ible con­trib­ut­or to pro­tect­ing and restor­ing them. It’s his third “Good Tour­ism” Insight. 

Man­groves are import­ant to coastal com­munit­ies. They shield them from the worst effects of strong winds, tid­al surges, and even tsuna­mis. A source of live­li­hood for some of the world’s poorest people, man­groves provide food and con­struc­tion mater­i­als, includ­ing rat­tan used for furniture. 

Man­grove forests are also a per­man­ent hab­it­at for diverse flora and fauna, an essen­tial nurs­ery for valu­able sea­food spe­cies, and an import­ant pit stop for migrat­ory birds.

Not only are we dir­ectly and indir­ectly reli­ant on man­groves, many of us like to relax and recre­ate in coastal regions and along water­ways where man­groves thrive. It will come as no sur­prise then that humans gen­er­ally, and the travel & tour­ism industry spe­cific­ally, rep­res­ent both a threat and an oppor­tun­ity to our import­ant mangroves.

Mangroves are threatened

Unfor­tu­nately, man­groves have been in decline for more than 30 years. Glob­ally, their range has become smal­ler and more frag­men­ted. They are at long-term risk accord­ing to con­clu­sions drawn from data of the UN’s Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­iz­a­tion.

Also see Tom Allen’s “GT” Insight
“Tour­ism troubles in Tasmania’s World Her­it­age wilderness”

In the South­east Asi­an region, man­grove cov­er was more than 4.6 mil­lion ha in 2000. It has been declin­ing at a rate of about 0.18% per year since. Man­grove areas in Thai­l­and, for example, have been affected by sea-level rises and indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion, while in the Phil­ip­pines it is thought human activ­it­ies have con­trib­uted sig­ni­fic­antly to the dra­mat­ic reduc­tion of man­grove forests.

For­tu­nately, many coun­tries in South­east Asia and else­where are begin­ning to take the man­grove prob­lem ser­i­ously. Their travel & tour­ism indus­tries are too. As the sec­tor matures and recog­nises a need for bet­ter gov­ernance to man­age its dif­fer­ent effects, tour­ism plan­ning has become more inclus­ive. Plan­ners are listen­ing to the voices of dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers includ­ing those who worry about mangroves. 

Mangrove ecotourism is an opportunity

Eco­tour­ism refers to vis­it­ing nature-based des­tin­a­tions in order to learn from and appre­ci­ate nature, flora, and fauna, and bene­fit loc­al people. Eco­tour­ism policies are gradu­ally becom­ing more com­mon as both developed and devel­op­ing coun­tries devel­op products and pro­jects with­in their own cul­tur­al contexts.

For all the reas­ons man­grove forests are import­ant for numer­ous spe­cies, includ­ing humans, they are an inter­est­ing sub­ject and focus for eco­tour­ism. Man­grove eco­tour­ism poten­tially offers a way to strike an imme­di­ate bal­ance between urgent con­ser­va­tion and socioeco­nom­ic imper­at­ives, while build­ing aware­ness of the envir­on­ment­al import­ance of man­groves in the longer term. 

That poten­tial must best be real­ised through a shift in gov­ern­ment and busi­ness policy informed by con­tinu­ous con­sulta­tion between pub­lic, private, and com­munity stake­hold­ers. Gov­ern­ment policy may mani­fest as, for example, appro­pri­ate land use zon­ing, reg­u­la­tion, and enforce­ment in and around man­grove areas, while eco­tour­ism busi­nesses roll out their own cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity policies and prac­tices to bet­ter pro­tect and restore man­grove zones and include loc­al com­munit­ies as much as possible.

Also see Lajwanti Naidu’s “GT” Insight
“How tour­ism in India can help pro­tect olive rid­ley turtles”

As this will most likely res­ult in favour­able short- and long-term out­comes for our man­groves, it is fair to con­clude that eco­tour­ism will be import­ant in cre­at­ing aware­ness, for­ging the neces­sary part­ner­ships, pro­mot­ing more respons­ible prac­tices, and gen­er­at­ing the fin­an­cial resources needed for suc­cess­ful man­grove res­tor­a­tion and conservation.

Agree? Dis­agree? What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Mida Creek man­groves, Malindi, Kenya. By Timothy K (CC0) via Unsplash.

About the author

Kev­in Phun is a spe­cial­ist in respons­ible tour­ism who com­bines tour­ism and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment know­ledge and expert­ise. He is the founder of the Centre for Respons­ible Tour­ism Singa­pore (CRTS) and can be reached at kevin[at]crts.asia.