Galapagos Islands Essay

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Ecotourism Concerns Tyler Gunderstreet San Francisco State University Here in the United States, we wouldn’t really think of tourism as a major dictator of our economy. Some might not even realize that tourism is an actual industry or consider it an industry of its own. Although for the countries that we’ve read about, being Kenya, Zanzibar, South Africa, and The Galapagos, tourism affects the lives of everyone in these countries day in and day out. Tourism itself can have substantial environmental, economic, and socio-cultural impacts on a country. Ecotourism on the other hand, which is being implemented by the foresaid nations, attempts to take advantage of the powerful tourism industry while being conscious of how it can negatively affect their environment. Kenya has had an interesting history of positives and negatives throughout their history, dealing with tourism. Stability has been a challenge to the tourism industry of Kenya, due to factors such as the corrupt government, oil problems, and wars. Due to these impacts tourism has been in and out of Kenya’s top ranking as its lead export (296). Kenya has some of Africa’s best wildlife as a main attraction to tourists. Ecotourism was driven by locals in its early stages utilizing resources such as the wildlife. Early in the 1990’s Kenya was given much credit to such efforts towards its ecotourism and said to be one of the most effective African nations in doing so while incorporating with local communities (296). Kenya’s historic success with ecotourism is tarnished by the negative events of the past that seem to outweigh all of the positive efforts over time. The implosion of Kenya’s ecotourism began in the late 1990’s with a string of negative impacts from shady politics and international issues. This had a significant negative impact on Kenya’s entire tourism industry, which among other

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