What We’re Reading, Listening To, Watching, and Talking About
5 Ways Global Tourism Must Rethink Its Influence as an Industry
By Lebawit Lily Girma
Norie Quintos, ATCF board member
ATCF board member Norie Quintos says: “This Skift piece surfaces the thinking of Kenyan ecologist Mordecai Ogada which challenges conventional wisdom about the role of tourism in conservation. He says, for example, that tourism must avoid “sustainability” unless locally defined. “Someone might think a guy herding his goat is destroying the environment,” said Ogada, “but the same person saying that thinks a tourist flying from New York with a huge carbon footprint to come and sit here and see elephants and drink champagne that’s refrigerated, is sustainable.”
The Last Tourist
from Born Explorer Films
Steve Barker, President of the ATCF board
“This is a must-watch for anyone in the business of tourism, and frankly everyone who travels,” says Steve Barker, president of the ATCF board. “The film shows the very real consequences of the way we travel and see the world today. I see it as a clarion call for change.” The film visits 16 locations and interviews people such as Elizabeth Becker, author of Overbooked; Judy Kepher-Gona, Kenya-based sustainable tourism expert; and Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures.
Soraya Shattuck, ATCF Executive Director
According to the Washington Post, Seattle Audubon, one of the largest chapters in the National Audubon Society network, has decided to change its name to distance itself from John James Audubon, the famed naturalist who was also an enslaver and a strong critic of those who sought to free African Americans from bondage. “The broader American conservation movement is just now starting to grapple with its racist historical roots,” says ATCF executive director Soraya Shattuck. “This is a fascinating article.”