Amrita Pudasaini Bajagai
The
Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the iconic
Australian reef in northern Queensland, which is world’s largest reef, and has
been designated as a World
Heritage Site in 1981 [1]. This area is
called the financial lifeline of the coastal communities as millions of
tourists visit this area every year for tourism and recreational activities [2]. A significant number of people in
the GBR area are resource dependent to the reef, particularly served by the
tourism industry [3].
Lately, there has been lots of attention about the degradation
of the corals in the GBR region. Latest study reported the large scale
bleaching of the reefs in the area particularly north of Cairns [4]. The reef region is in the verge of
severe environmental, economic and social challenges like uncontrolled fishing,
plastic waste, unplanned coastal development, overload of infrastructure etc.,
which need to be addressed by whole of users approach, education and proper
resource planning for the sustainable tourism industry in the region. Sustainability
of tourism in GBR region can be defined as operating of the tourism business in
a way that the GBR maintains and improves its value now and for future
generations with engagement of all stakeholders (Australian Government, 2015).
There
are several environmental challenges to the GBR causing ecological degradation
of the reef particularly multiple episodes of coral bleaching. Although the
recurrent mass coral bleaching events have been believed to be associated with the
global climate warming attributable to much more sophisticated and wider causes
than tourism industry alone [4, 5, 6],
some of the activities related to tourism industry directly or indirectly causes
the degradation of the coral environment [7, 8].
Anthropogenic marine debris is another significant environmental problem
influenced by the tourism in the GBR region [8, 9].
Recent study based on beach debris survey in the GBR region has found that
there was widespread problem of marine debris throughout the region with up to
706 items recovered in one sample time on a beach [7].
This study has concluded that plastic fragments, cigarette butts, drinking
straws, lollypop sticks, plastic bottles, wooden ice-cream sticks, chewing gum,
balloon fragments and construction materials (bricks, tiles etc.) were the
dominant debris type and the recreational boating and fishing were the most
significant sources of such debris in inhabited and publically accessible
islands. Such debris, particularly plastic waste, promote colonization of
microbial pathogen in coral reef increasing the risk of coral reef diseases by
up to 20 times [8].
Moreover, marine debris has been found detrimental to marine fauna like sea
turtles [10]
and seabirds [11].
Not only the debris but the tourist activities can also damage the corals on
the reef [12].
Intensive recreational diving and snorkeling on coral reefs increases coral
diseases by up to 3-fold as compared to lower recreational activities in reefs [12].
The effects on corals and sea fauna consequently could affect the inflow of
visitors causing negative effect to the tourism industry. Other environmental
challenges in the reef region are deterioration of water quality from
land-based runoff, unplanned coastal development and over-fishing [4, 13].
These environmental challenges should be addressed on priority basis to
maintain the aesthetic, ecological and economic value of the GBR for
sustainable tourism industry in the region.
In
addition, tourism industry in GBR has some economic challenges to impede the
sustainability of this industry in this region. Marshall and colleagues [3]
has recently reported that tourism business operators in the GBR region were
overly resource dependent. Resource dependency is an economic concept that
describes the relationship between particular groups of people with natural
resources. A community is resource dependent when that community is
economically, socially and culturally dependent on the resource they have been
exploiting and they do not have easy alternatives if that natural resource were
changed or could not provide the initial function [14].
Tourism operators are economically dependent on the GBR and they are not
flexible to secure other forms of employment due to their age; lack of
education; number of dependents; duration in the industry and region [3].
This lack of flexibility influences their resilience and make them more
vulnerable during unexpected conditions [15]
forcing them to exploit the resources or depend on welfare. This form of
resource dependency should be considered while thinking about the
sustainability of the whole system. To achieve the sustainability of tourism industry
in the GBR, the real cost of the industry should be explored in broader sense
analyzing the cost of the tourism industry in the environment, local community
and the indigenous people because economic benefit from a booming industry
sometime may have unintended negative consequences to the people and community
outside of the industry as evidenced by the impacts of mining industry in
Western Australia [16].
Therefore, there should be an in-depth study about the economic impact of
tourism on the community outside the tourism business.
Moreover,
tourism industry in GBR also has some social challenges to consider for the
sustainability of the industry. One of the major social challenges is the conflicting
values about the GBR among the local community and tourism business operators [17].
Community defined benefits of reefs could be different from generally perceived
economic and ecological benefits. Local community members value undeveloped and
rubbish-free beaches, clean ocean water, reef fish, mangroves and coral reefs
more than the reef tourism [17].
Clean and clear ocean with healthy reef is the most important for the local
community than being able to exploit the reef for economic benefit [17].
Also, people or community independent of the reef (neither the local
communities nor the business operators) may have different perception about the
value of the GBR as they could see the reefs as protector of storms and large
scale nutrient recycler [18, 19]. This contrasting understanding of values
could create conflict between communities outside the tourism industry and tourism
business operators. Although no study was found about the effect of tourism on
local infrastructures, increasing number of inbound visitors may increase the
pressure on road, emergency services, local parks etc. Furthermore, local communities
in the GBR region are equally sensitive to preserve the indigenous cultural
values [17].
Increased overseas and interstate tourists movement could have negative impacts
on traditional culture and values of the indigenous people.
The
environmental, economic and social challenges as discussed above should be
addressed for the sustainability of the tourism industry in the GBR
region. Eenvironmental challenges should be dealt with urgently as protection of health
and integrity of this iconic world heritage site very crucial for its value
beyond the tourism. Engagement of all stakeholders in the planning,
implementing, monitoring and evaluation phase is important for any plan to be
success therefore whole of users approach should be applied to plan and
implement any sustainability interventions [2]. Adequate resource allocation and targeted strategic
communication to the concerned stakeholders is also paramount [6, 20]. Government should focus on policy and collective actions for
environmental protection such as use of renewable energy, efficient land
management, and proper waste disposal [6]. In addition, creating the awareness about the
sustainable tourism among all stakeholders including visitors and local
community is also important. Therefore, it is important to include such
information in the curriculum of the students in the GBR region to create awareness
among future generation about sustainable reef environment. A triad
demonstrating the relationship
among economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability as
proposed by Herremans an Reid [21] could be helpful to analyze
the issue and to be used as a tool to teach students the concept of sustainable
reef ecosystem. Such tool could be helpful to analyse the perception value of the GBR by different stakeholders and
possible conflicts between perception of one stakeholder’s to that of another [21]. For example, as presented above the value of coral
reef to the local community is different from the value to tourism business
operators and could be conflicting to each other [17]. An education material can be designed to deliver to
the students of the GBR region, which discusses all of these issues in the
context of their own values, which help them to understand the issue in broader
sense. Australian Government has prepared a long-term sustainability plan for
the GBR called ‘Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan’ based on research,
lesson learned from past programs and the recommendations from the World
Heritage Committee [2]. Effective implementation of this plan could help the
sustainability of all uses of the GBR including tourism industry in the region.
In conclusion, Great Barrier Reef is the iconic world heritage natural
resource in northern Queensland, which support the livelihood of millions of
people through tourism industry. There are several environmental, economic and
social challenges for the sustainability of tourism industry in the GBR region.
Degradation of coral ecosystem including recurrent mass coral bleaching is the
most prominent environmental issue, which is mainly caused by global climate
warming and supported by several other tourism related activities.
Anthropogenic marine debris, intensive diving and snorkelling, water quality
deterioration by surface water runoff, unplanned coastal development and
uncontrolled fishing are some environmental issues associated to tourism
industry. Similarly, resource dependence
of tourism operators is the major economic issue to be considered followed by
other possible economic issues like negative impact of tourism to the community
outside the tourism industry. Moreover, there is conflict about the perceived
value of the reef between tourism operators and community members as one of the
social challenges. These issues should be addressed based on the consultation
with all concerned stakeholders using whole of system approach. There should be
adequate investment, targeted communication and effective education for the
sustainability of tourism industry. Awareness created through effective
education, adequate resource allocation and engagement of all stakeholders help
to maintain and improve the value of the Great Barrier Reef now
and for future generations.
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