_Lonely Planet_ Threat to Environment

"Tourism a Huge Threat to Global Environment
Fri Sep 12, 4:48 PM ET


By Ed Stoddard

DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - A boom in world tourism is posing a
huge threat to some of the planet's most sensitive ecosystems, according
to a study released on Friday.


The study, by Conservation International (CI) and the United Nations
(news - web sites) Environment Program (UNEP), said tourism rose by more
than 100 percent between 1990 and 2000 in the world's "biodiversity
hotspots," which include the tropical Andes and the Guinean forests of
West Africa.

CI has identified 25 such areas, which contain 44 percent of all
identified endemic plant species and 35 percent of all known endemic
species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.

The hotspots cover only 1.4 percent of the planet's land area and all
been significantly altered by human activities.

"In some places the growth (in tourism) has been staggering," CI and
UNEP said in a statement released at the fifth World Parks Congress in
the South African port city of Durban.

"Over the past decade, tourism has increased by more than 200 percent in
both Laos and Cambodia, nearly 500 percent in South Africa, (and) over
300 percent in the countries of Brazil, Nicaragua and El Salvador (news
- web sites)," it said. "

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