1.

Ecotourism is a fast growing sector of the tourism industry that involves

visiting natural places to observe wildlife while conserving it.

2. This form of tourism sees money raised directly invested into the protection of
local ecosystems. On the surface, it sounds like a clever compromise between
experiencing exotic environments and preserving them, but scientists are
increasingly raising issue with the impact ecotourism have on local wildlife.

3. A report in New Scientist magazine warns that the massive growth of the
ecotourism industry is harming wildlife through stress, disturbance of daily
routines, and even increased transmission of disease.

4. While ecotourism has several obvious advantages over ordinary tourism, a

new study explores that it is harming the very animals it seeks to protect.

5. A recent study suggests that visits to wilderness preserves may pose a threat
to local fauna.

6. Lets take other example of Whale and dolphin watching. As shown by

research in New Zealand (Lusseau, 2003), socializing and resting behaviours in
dolphins are disrupted by interactions with boats to an extent that causes
concern. The amount of time spent resting and socializing was substantially
decreased by tourist boats

7. In case of Wild life tourism

A number of studies have shown that animal behaviour is affected by the

proximity of tourists. In Kenya, the activity pattern of female cheetahs is
affected by tourism, and this can be harmful to the animals if e.g. the ability to
hunt or to flee from enemies is thereby reduced

8. The New Scientist article reports that forthcoming research papers in

Biological Conservation detail reduced weight in yellow-eyed penguin chicks in
the Otago peninsula in New Zealand in areas frequently visited by tourists
compared with unvisited areas. In hoatzins, a bird found in the Amazon
rainforest, 50% of nests in restricted areas had at least one fledgling
compared with only 15% in tourist zones in research by the Frankfurt
Zoological Society.
9. Elsewhere, the number of tourists visiting Fraser Island in Australia has lead to
increased reports of dingo attacks, and a death from an attack in 2001 was
followed by a government-ordered cull of dingoes (Burns and Howard, 2003).

10. In Africa, while the International Gorilla Conservation Programme recognizes

that gorillas and tourism are now inextricably linked, gorillas are closely
related enough to humans to suffer many of the same diseases. With first-
time exposure to an illness or virus that is relatively innocuous to humans
being able to devastate an entire gorilla population, very strict rules have had
to be put in place to minimize the health risks.

11. Other cons are –

a. Ecotourism leads to littering

b. Naturals tribes are forced to leave their homes.

12. Ecotourism surely gives some fund for conservation of wild life but it is
counter productive if not implemented correctly. This risk will always remain
and so we can think of avoiding eco tourism and let the wild life survive in
their natural habitat.