November- Swimming polar bear with attendant 'paps', Svalbard, Norway.
I've noticed an increasing amount of disquiet lately about the impact of so-called ecotourism. Photographer and presenter Mark Carwardine, has taken a bit of stick in BBC Wildlife magazine about on the one hand, bemoaning the impact of mass tourism on threatened or vulnerable species, and then on the other, travelling the globe and effectively encouraging a new audience to visit those same species through his and Stephen Fry's 'Last chance to see' TV series.
I have sympathy for Mark's predicament. It is inevitable that when you stand up for anything, there are those waiting in the wings to seek out any hint of double-standards which will erode your argument. Responsible travel is riddled with contradictions and solutions are inevitably a compromise.
I would ask those that criticise Mark's travel (or mine come to that): What would you rather have - a polar bear, gorilla or tiger temporarily disturbed by tourists, or the habitat in which they live irreversibly destroyed to provide income for those who live in otherwise unproductive remote areas? As the owner of a fishing trawler once told me: "It's hard to be green when you're in the red."
