Save Eco Destinations

Celebrity Cruises’s Celebrity Xpedition vessel sailing along the Galapagos Islands.

By Claire Harding

Over the last year the ecotourism industry has grown by 15%, and is one of the fastest growing areas of tourism worldwide. Ecotourism is often described as sustainable tourism or travel, often having an educational, ecological focus which is respectful and beneficial towards local cultures, geographies, communities and economies. Despite the rising popularity of ecotourism, tourism in general continues to rise, with more tourists wishing to travel from developing economies such as Brazil, India, Russia and China.

As more and more people want to see the world and experience new and interesting places, one of the major challenges for the tourism industry is to adapt traditional tourism in a way that is more sustainable, limiting its global ecological and cultural impact? This article suggests that tourism should head towards the seas.

Cutting long distances

When someone mentions tourism, the first thing that springs to mind is visiting new and exotic places. Almost by definition, it is impossible to get to new and exotic places without involving some form of travel. How can we fulfil our travel needs in a sustainable way?

Air travel

Air travel is often spoken of as a highly unsustainable mode of transport. However, many people also observe that travelling by plane can actually be more efficient than other modes of transport such as a train or a car. Although a Boeing 747 burns approximately 5 gallons of fuel per mile, it must also be remembered that the aircraft has a carrying capacity of 568 people, therefore using approximately 0.01 gallons per person per mile, using roughly the same amount of fuel as a car carrying four people.

So what is the biggest problem with air travel? One issue is that because of the altitude planes travel at, harmful emissions and greenhouse gasses are released directly into the upper atmosphere where they do more damage. However, by far the greatest problem with air travel is that it facilitates long distance travel, encouraging people to travel further and use vast amounts of energy more frequently.

Travelling over short distances

One of the most important challenges for sustainable tourism is the need to encourage people to travel shorter distances, and take their vacations locally or in neighbouring countries which are accessible by boat or train. The recent growth in UK tourism has been accredited to the economic recession and the fact that people are unable to travel long distances. In the US also, the economic climate and increasing fuel prices has resulted in people travelling shorter distances in their cars, taking their vacations closer to home.

The cost of travel clearly has a dramatic effect on the choices people make concerning their vacations. Higher tax regulations on fuel used for leisure and holiday travel, would be a very efficient way of encouraging people to travel shorter distances and use more sustainable modes of transport over long distances.

Long distance travel by boat

If you do need to travel long distances, one of the most sustainable modes of transport is to travel by boat, such as passenger ship or ferry. Recent advances in ship engineering, tighter regulations involving the use of sea water ballast in the fuel tanks of large cruise ships and ferries and Load on Top refuelling all mean that modern large ships are producing far less sea water contamination than traditional designs.

Furthermore, there is a large emphasis on producing modes of shipping which use less energy. For thousands of years, wind, which is a renewable energy resource, was the preferred mode of shipping before steam came along. Recent efforts are underway to bring wind travel to power large cargo vessels. If these are successful, it is very likely that wind may become a popular and entirely green option for mass human transportation. Could we see resurgence in cruising holidays as a method of ecotourism?

Cruising as sustainable tourism

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, cruising holidays declined in popularity. However, cruising companies are putting a lot of effort into restoring the image of this once highly glamorous mode of tourism. Furthermore, there has been a large emphasis on the development of green cruising, in order to make cruising holidays a more sustainable form of tourism.

If cruise ships are able to become increasingly energy-efficient and reduce their carbon footprint, cruising could be a highly accessible and sustainable form of ecotourism. The idea of a giant luxury cruise liner roaring through the seas may not sound very green. However, one fine example of how cruising can be considered ecotourism is by looking at the use of cruising on the Galapagos Islands.

Due to their isolated geographical location, warm water, and volcanic nature, the Galapagos Islands have one of the most diverse and visually exciting ecosystems in the world. These are tightly regulated and protected by conservation regulations which prevent any building or permanent dwellings on most of the Islands. The only way to see the abundance of nature available at Galapagos is on board small vessels which are effectively small cruises.

These cruises have a limited impact on the surrounding ecosystem and require little or no permanent infrastructure to be left behind on the Islands. In addition, money from tourism helps to fund education about the need for further conservation. The model of the Galapagos Islands suggests how ocean- or water-based vacations can be a sustainable and effective form of ecotourism, and meet our global tourism demands.

By David Frosh

Bioregionalism transcends the socially defined borders of our world. Instead of defining areas according to national and political boundaries, areas are defined by the tangible and natural features of the land. This idea also maintains the belief that cultures and traditions play a role in how physical regions are determined.

The term bioregionalism, along with its ideas, is a relatively young concept. In the early 1970′s Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann coined the term is their work. Since then, bioregionalisms have emerged in support of the ideals that Berg and Dasmann advocated. Bioregionalism bears some resemblance to environmentalism in that they both share the same spirit of appreciating and living peacefully with nature, rather than trying to clear it away or otherwise disrupt its presence in our world.

Bioregionalism vs. Environmentalism

It is important to note, though, that bioregionalism differs greatly from environmentalism in key ways. Bio regionalists have transcended the environmentalist idea that consumerism and human life must be at odds with nature. Instead, bioregionalism believes that humans and nature can coexist and even benefit from one another. The environmentalist perspective has long assigned the role of victim to nature and advocated the use of protests to protect and separate nature from human life. From a bio regionalists viewpoint, human culture and wilderness are inextricably tied and they can and should benefit from each other so that both can be sustained through time.

How does bioregionalism view land?

To understand the way that bioregionalism views land, consider the Ozarks. The Ozarks is a bioregion that ignores politically defined state boundaries. Southern Missouri, northwest Arkansas, the northeast part of Oklahoma, and the southeast part of Kansas make up what is known as the Ozarks Plateau. The terrain and other features of this area are environmentally and thus culturally, similar. Viewing an environmental area strictly from its state boundaries, according to the bio regionalist perspective, diminishes our ability to build a sustainable relationship with the environment. It also draws away from the basic tenets of bioregionalism that teach us to:

• Make sure that political boundaries line up with ecological ones
• Promote using local products and foods
• Promote the use and cultivation of native species of plants
• Pay attention to and celebrate the particular ecology of the bioregion
• Promote a sustainable relationship with the ecology of the bioregion

Bioregionalism as is described here has actually been around and practiced by people for hundreds of years, although it hadn’t been defined yet. Essentially, it is the practice of living a life that focuses on using local resources and sustaining those resources through responsible consumption and appreciation for the local biological community in which we choose to live.

David Frosh is a frequent blogger on higher education topics. Several schools offer MPA degrees, including USF and NWU.

By Annabelle Smyth

2013 has arrived, and to most people, a new year means a new beginning of sorts, a fresh start and a new chance at life. If you are looking to make a resolution this year about reducing your carbon footprint, consider getting a few of these environmentally friendly gadgets, which you can find at Vivint.

A Solar Powered Charger

There are a few solar powered chargers on the market and getting one would not only lower your energy bill and lessen your footprint, but it may as well be what keeps you connected in the event of an emergency. These chargers can charge anything from a laptop or a tablet to a few cell phones at once. If there was an emergency, and your power was cut, you would be able to use this charger to keep your electronics on and keep you connected with the outside world and able to make contact with people. It also is simply an eco friendly way to charge your phone, and gets that energy sucking phone charger out of your outlet.

Occupancy Sensing Light Switch

This amazing light switch is designed to turn on only when necessary. It detects if someone is in the room, and automatically turns on when someone enters. It also will shut the lights off after a period of inactivity. And, a super cool bonus, it has a sensor that determines the amount of natural light in the room and will turn the lights off accordingly, so they are only on when absolutely needed. Most people will leave their lights on when they leave the room, or even the house, and this handy little light switch will definitely lower their light bills and lessen their impact on our environment!

Shower Timer and Alarm

Wasting water is probably the most common bad habit among people who are trying to reduce their footprint. Whether it is from those long showers we insist on taking or running the water when we brush our pearly whites, most of us can admit to being careless when it comes to our water use. When you run the shower, you use about 5-8 gallons of water per minute, meaning that 30 minute shower could fill a small pool or an inflatable hot tub. That is a lot of water. Getting this gadget, which you can use to take shorter showers, will reduce your costs as well as your carbon footprint.

Getting some cool environmentally friendly gadgets can help you turn things around and go green in 2013! If you want more information about solar panels and security systems, you can follow Vivint on Twitter.

Thick black smoke emanating from the Sun Princess cruise ship headed from Malaysia to Hong Kong in September 2012.

It is well-known that cruises cause colossal amounts of pollution by pouring untreated sewage into the ocean. While some cruise lines do dispose of their waste responsibly, most unfortunately do not.

Cruise ships can carry as many as 5,000 passengers and function in rivers, seas, and oceans all over the planet. According to Friends of the Earth, a large cruise ship will release the following outrageous amounts of pollutants in one single week:

• 210,000 gallons of human waste
• 1 million gallons of gray water (water from sinks, showers, laundry, and galleys)
• 25,000 gallons of oily bilge water
• Up to 11,550 gallons of sewage sludge
• More than 130 gallons of hazardous wastes

Some of this waste isn’t even treated prior to its release into the environment, and it excludes ballast water and air pollution.

Cruise ships contaminate marine and other ecosystems on various fronts: by releasing sewage, greywater, ballast water, bilge water, and solid waste; and through exhaust emissions, sound pollution, and oil spills, among others. Some of these problems are present in several types of vessels, such as large tankers, as well.

Case in point: Alaska

As Alaska is such a popular destination for cruise ships, it makes sense that Alaskans would notice the toxic discharges, be alarmed by them, and seek to limit the harm done to local fisheries such as pollock and salmon, which plenty of Alaskans depend on for their livelihood.

In 2006, Alaskans passed an initiative curbing the release of dangerous discharges from cruise ships. But the Alaskan government subsequently buckled under and weakened the requirements of the initiative due to pressure from the cruise industry. In 2009, a compromise passed by the Legislature pushed back the date for full execution of the discharge rules to 2016, meanwhile requiring the industry to employ the “most technologically effective” treatment methods. Except this didn’t work.

Earth Island Institute’s Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters and Friends of the Earth then challenged the permit in court, represented by Earthjustice. The Alaska Superior Court recently ruled that the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) 2010 cruise ship wastewater discharge permit in fact did not show a correct interpretation of the law that requires cruise ships to use the most effective pollution prevention technologies, because it allowed ships to keep on discharging pollutants at current levels by claiming any technology already in use would be deemed the most effective, according to the green groups.

The permit decision will now return to Alaska for further review. Meanwhile, ships will be allowed to continue discharging under the 2010 permit. Sounds like Alaskans still have a long way to go. (Read more here.)

Increasingly important

As the Arctic continues to melt, it is becoming increasingly imperative to do something about the pollution caused by cruise ships and other large vessels. Melting ice caps will only incite more fishing companies and cruise ship lines to explore the area – and leave their waste behind both in the water and in the air, further exacerbating ecological issues and accelerating climate change.

By Lyndsi Decker

Saving the environment has become increasingly important. While recycling and reusing products are two ways to help the environment, using eco-friendly cleaning products is another. There are many benefits to using environmentally safe cleaning products. These products help reduce waste and do not contain toxic chemicals. Here are a few eco-friendly cleaning solutions:

Homemade Products

Learning how to make homemade cleaning products will decrease the household’s reliance on non-renewable products – and save you money. Some products can be made from items already found in the house. Baking soda doubles as a cleaning agent that cleans pots and pans, bathroom fixtures and counter tops  especially when coupled with vinegar and/or lemon. When you do buy green products, make sure they do not contain petroleum or other synthetic ingredients.

Use Natural Sponges and Cleaning Rags

Synthetic sponges, mops and cleaning rags are often made from non-biodegradable materials. If the products are antimicrobial, they more than likely contain toxic ingredients such as polyester. Consider switching from synthetic cleaning implements to natural ones such as cotton. Natural mop heads and rags will often be marked as such. The use of natural mops and sponges will decrease the need for non-biodegradable substances. Use recycled t-shirts as cleaning cloths. It gives the shirts another life; they can be reused and decrease the waste caused by paper towel usage.

Read the Labels

Pay attention to manufacturers’ labels. Labels that have words like “toxic,” “caution” and “poison” should be of concern to consumers. They are placed on products because they contain ingredients that are harmful to you and your family. These products should not come into contact with skin, be ingested or even inhaled, which will occur while you’re cleaning with them. Some of these products are also known to cause allergies. Making an effort to buy eco-friendly cleaning agents can reduce the amount of pollutants in the home and the environment.

Air Purification

Air purifiers are a good way to remove pollutants from the air. Some purifiers clean the air, but release unsafe byproducts into a room. Some plants have the ability to act as natural purifiers. They absorb the chemicals in the air and introduce oxygen back into the room. Aloe and ferns are examples of good air-cleansing plants. Not only are these plants a natural way to purify the air, but they are also lively and cheerfully decorative.

The cleaning products used in the home should be safe — but often aren’t. Many widely available cleaners contain dangerous chemicals that can harm the environment and affect your and your family’s health. By using eco-friendly products, the amount of poisonous chemicals and waste released into the environment can be greatly reduced. Natural products can also help improve the health of those in the home.

Lyndsi Decker is an entrepreneur and works with several storage facilities including storage units Fayetteville and Extra Space Storage – Lakewood. Lyndsi is also a photographer and a coach for her son’s little league soccer team. 

The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway entering Galveston Bay

Two hundred Harris County fishers have filed a lawsuit after learning that the fish and crabs they caught, sold and ate for decades may now be poisoned with dioxin. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently designated the area stretching from the San Jacinto River to lower Galveston Bay along the upper coast of Texas as “dangerous.”

The attorneys hired to represent about 200 Vietnamese-American fishers say they were never informed about the contamination in the San Jacinto River until 2008 — and that fish they caught may have made it onto consumer’s dinner plates.

They are accusing the companies of negligence, nuisance, and civil conspiracy causing economic loss.

“That seafood has been sold to commercial fish houses and therefore gone into the food chain,” O’Rourke said, ABC reports.

Dioxin is a toxin known to cause cancer, liver damage, birth defects and a serious skin disease.

The fishers want the four companies allegedly responsible to pay for medical monitoring of people exposed to the waste and other damages.

“Dioxin is the most toxic substance ever made by human beings,” First Assistant Harris County Attorney Terry O’Rouke stated.

There are warning signs in English, Spanish and Vietnamese along the river, and it became an EPA superfund site four years ago.

Texas State Agencies told that fish and shellfish tissue samples from the San Jacinto River and other areas contain unusually high dioxin concentrations, and issued a consumption advisory for crab and all species of fish from the area of the river near the site.

In the 1960s, a mill owned by Champion Papers located at the site discharged dioxin into the river, which flows into Galveston Bay.

“The Vietnamese community did not know. We did not know,” said Tammy Tran, an attorney for the fishers.

The fishers are suing International Paper Company, McGinnis Industrial Maintenance and Waste Management, alleging the release of dioxin into the river, or failure to clean it up since the 1960s.

But the defendants argue they are innocent.

Champion Papers, which was acquired by International Paper in 2000, claims to have lawfully disposed of the site’s material in the mid-1960s.

“Despite the fish advisories, the science, and the great weight of evidence of human health and ecological risks, Defendants have taken the position that there are ‘minimal health effects from dioxin’ and that  ‘dioxin is not bad for human consumption,’” according to the petition.

Last year, the Harris County attorney filed a similar lawsuit.

“They’re basically alleging the same thing, this dioxin has been oozing out since 1965,” Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan said.

The EPA has since built a cap at the river to stop the dioxin from spreading.

The attorneys for the fishers say the contamination warnings by the river were not translated into Vietnamese until 2008. They also argue that other people who may have fished or gone swimming in that part of river may have been exposed to the toxin.

By Kevin Vogel

Solar power is a great way to use an alternative, renewable energy source to provide electricity for a home. It is cheap and plentiful, and offers a long term energy solution for the home where the consumer does not have to rely on the utility company to provide their power. Even with tax incentives and rebates, the initial cost to the consumer can be expensive, and this added cost may scare the consumer away from adopting solar power. One way in which the consumer can manage the cost is through a piecemeal adoption of solar power units to target individual appliances in the home. A hot water heating system is often great place to start with solar power because it is a standalone unit and can be modified more easily for a solar hot water heating system.

A solar heating system consists of two main parts. There is the storage tank which holds the water and the solar collectors themselves. Depending on the system they adopt, the consumer may not need to replace their existing water heater with a system that will work with solar power, but this is still much more affordable than installing an entire solar system for the household. Essentially, there are two kinds of solar water heating systems. There is an active system which consists of circulating pumps and controls. There is also a passive system which has none of this added equipment. The storage tank in these systems operates in a very simple way. It can be a standalone solar system that preheats the water before it enters a conventional water heater. Some storage systems are combined into one system, but both require good insulation and additional inlets and outlets from the solar collectors.

The operation of an active solar powered water heating system is relatively easy to understand, and this in turn comes in two types. There is a direct circulation system that uses pumps to circulate household water through the solar collectors. The collectors themselves are what provide the heating element for the water. This kind of system works great in climates that are not prone freezing since the collectors themselves will be outside. The other kind of active system is called an indirect system. In this system pumps circulate a nonfreezing heat transfer fluid through the solar collectors and a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger then heats the water that flows into the home. A passive system is useful for climates that are prone to freezing.

For the passive solar powered water heating system, these systems are typically less expensive and less efficient than active systems, but they do last longer. In passive systems, the solar collector is separate from the system, and the hot water and cold water are kept separate and the storage tank is used as a backup. Because the collector tank must be kept elevated, there are some structural concerns that the consumer must keep in mind for installation.

Solar power can be a great way to providing hot water heating for a home. It can replace gas and electric hot water tanks, and provide an entry point for the consumer in adopting solar power.

Kevin Vogel writes for ecofriendly design sites. Check out http://www.exclusiv-home.de/#solarkollektor for solar power ideas for your home.

Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary

More countries across the globe are taking seriously the international goal of turning 10 per cent of coastal and marine waters into marine protected areas (MPAs) by 2020, according to a report prepared by the Nature Conservancy and presented this month at a United Nations biodiversity conference held in Hyderabad, India.

Mark Spalding, senior marine scientist at the Nature Conservancy who led the team that gathered the data, recognised that the size of protected areas is small when set against available sqmi of ocean.

Currently, MPAs cover much less than 1 per cent of the world’s oceans, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

But things are quickly changing.

Between 2003-7, MPAs expanded at a rate of about 11.8 per cent a year to cover about 2.5 million square kilometers. By 2010, they spanned some 4.8 million square kilometers – an average growth rate of 31 per cent for each of the intervening three years.

In 2012, protected areas stretch across about 8.2 million square kilometers, making the annual growth rate since 2010 an average of 35 per cent.

Over the next 12-24 months, another 5.2 million square kilometers of MPAs could be added if Cook Islands, Australia and New Caledonia push through with their plans.

One reason for the accelerated growth rate is that a few countries have been working to preserve vast breadths of pristine marine ecosystems that not commonly navigated, such as waters within the US exclusive economic zones (EEZ) off northwestern Hawaii and the Mariana Islands in the Pacific.

Although originally countries had agreed to meet the 10 per cent coverage target by this year, it was clear by 2010 that this target would not be reached, Spalding told. At a United Nations biodiversity conference in 2010 in Japan, negotiators moved the deadline to 2020, while simultaneously rewording the goals to offer more specific guidance on what areas were to receive protection.

The new goals detailed that MPAs would include regions that humans rely on for food or livelihood, regions that safeguard biodiversity and that conservation efforts must reach deep inland to embrace areas whose runoff flows into the rivers that empty into coastal waters.

“If you get it right, you’ll be generating such benefits for people that the whole system should snowball. People look over their shoulders, see an MPA down the road, and say: ‘We want one of those,’” Spalding added.