Ecotourism in South American Countries Essay

Indigenous people are the people who were on the land first, before settlers came and took it away. In this case, Americans are the settlers, and we took the Indian’s land away. We didn’t gently take their land away, we pulled the rug out from under them and stole basically all of it. We took their land by force so that we could use it for our own benefit. In result of their land being taken away, the Indians had to move. The indians had to move to from the land that they called their own. They had to move to cramped, small, dirty, mold filled, unnourished lands called reservations. Including their land we also took their culture, so to speak. We made it seem like they shouldn’t embrace their culture, that doing that isn’t ‘normal’.

With globalization and colonization taking over almost the entire known world, native tribes who are indigenous to their lands are losing control of the lands that their people have lived in for ages to the hands of foreign colonizers who claim the land as their own. Now, indigenous people all around the world are struggling to reclaim the lands and rights that were taken away from them through non-violent social relations with national governments and large corporations. Anthropologists have recorded how indigenous people across the globe attempt to create relations with national governments to reclaim rights and lands that they once had before the colonization of their ancestral homeland.

According to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affair, the native people of America make up approximately 1.7% (5.1 million) of the diverse United States population. While that may not seem like much, it does not mean the indigenous are any less valuable or important than the rest of the population. The indigenous people are a group made up of native people whose line of ancestors started here. Their ancestors were native to, and had a claim to this land before North America was claimed to be discovered by Christopher Columbus. Since this “discovery” of America, the natives of this land have been viciously exploited and oppressed.

　　When European imperialists moved into a colony, many did not pay attention to the Indigenous peoples of the land and their needs, especially those that were centered around their relationship with the land. As a result, when Europeans needed land for settlements, railways, lumbering, mining, and large plantations, the Europeans displaced Indigenous peoples from their home and they ended up damaging a lot of their traditions and cultures, something that is still noticeable today. Additionally, when the European government made boundaries in a foreign country, they completely ignored the pre-existing boundaries of the indigenous people and their communities. The colonizer’s disregard for the Indigenous people’s lives, beliefs, and traditions left legacies of civil war, poverty, and starvation. Cultures and communities were also destroyed by the displacement.

The settlers from Europe have manipulated the people of North America into thinking Indigenous people are second class citizens, and this perspective has become the accepted cultural norm. The text “Why Say Settler” explains how North Americans have admitted that the Indigenous nations were wrongly treated in the past, yet they continue to colonize their land and discriminate against them today. The film “Kanehsatake: 270 years of resistance” demonstrates that even as late as the end of the last century, the settlers continue to treat the Indigenous communities as poorly as they did in the 18th century, building on their land and treating them as though they are of lesser importance. The film and the text are both examples of the lack of respect

Ever since the European settlements began in the America’s in the early 1500’s, indigenous tribes have endured continuous hardships in order to coexist with white settlements and still maintain a sense of self and native cultural identity. Many of the hardships experienced by the Native American Indians were the results of empty promises made by European settlers who used foreign laws, religion, and language barriers to oppress those Indians who were willing to conform. Later, and further into the development of the United States, foreign laws and languages were used as a premise to manipulate the Native Americans into giving up their promised lands so big businesses could harvest their resources. Because the Native Americans were a

Indigenous communities, which have otherwise been left untouched by traditional tourism activities, have now been targeted for a new tourism venture, ecotourism. A relatively new variant, ecotourism is described as environment-friendly, sustainable and nature-based. It came about as a response to the world’s growing environmental awareness. This activity involves “visiting relatively undisturbed natural areas with the aim

The indigenous have been mistreated by the Europeans since the 1500’s, from the cod fishing to the fur trading. The indigenous were kidnapped by the Europeans, forced to change cultures, and used for the European benefits. The indigenous life was not one of joy, but of sadness, and torture.

“There does not seem to be one definitive definition of indigenous people, but generally indigenous people are those that have historically belonged to a particular region or country, before its colonization or transformation into a nation state, and may have different—often unique—cultural, linguistic, traditional, and other characteristics to those of the dominant culture of that region or state” (Rights) The land to Native Americans is a very sacred object. To us, as nonnative individuals, we don’t look at the land the same. As agriculturists we have a respect for the land and want to maintain its fertility so it can continue to bless us with crops. While a ski bum may have respect for the mountains and terrain that was given to them to be able to ski and enjoy. Native Americans see the land as a whole. They as people don’t just respect it for certain entities they respect it for everything it has given to them. “Their ancestral land has a fundamental importance for their collective physical and cultural survival as peoples. Indigenous peoples hold their own diverse concepts of development, based on their traditional values, visions, needs and priorities.” As nonnative individuals it should be our job to help protect these sacred lands, and restore what damage that has been done to them. But instead, big companies are destroying sacred land all over the United States by mining, drilling for oil, or even building for scientific research.

As the environmental movement has brought attention to the severe ecological degradation that has occurred all over the world since the Industrial Revolution, more and more attention is also being brought to the injustices that have divided and marginalized certain members of society, both on local and global scales. Arguably the worst affected have been indigenous peoples worldwide. European colonialism brought pestilence, rape, murder and the destruction of entire civilizations to some of the most culturally and biologically diverse regions of the world. The remnants of those cultures that managed to survive are now being subjected to neo-colonialism in the form of expansive trade and globalization.

     Out of almost all of the other cultures, Native Americans are the most exploited. Not only was their culture subverted and their people forced to move, but also the Native Americans still today are trying to regain their cultural identity. It was only during the late 20's that the effects of this cultural genocide became apparent. With the Meriam Report, published in 1928, the inhumane treatment of Native Americans was brought to the public eye, and this made way for the establishment of progressive day schools where Native Americans could integrate their culture. Ever since, Native Americans have struggled to regain an identity of their culture.

Another country that has significantly embraced ecotourism is Costa Rica. A tiny Central American country located just a few hours’ flight from the United States, Costa Rica rapidly transformed to a green destination, and in 1992 the U.S. Adventure Travel Society declared Costa Rica “the number one ecotourism destination in the world” (160). Its success finds its root in a mix of positive conditions that most of the other ecotourism sites lack, varying from a stable democracy to the abolition of the army, and including one of the highest standards of

As mentioned by Rimmington & Morrison (2009), the assistance from different parts of the world presents a new and diverse outlook for future research including theoretical innovations and revelations, cultural and environmental aspects, tourist destination and other ecotourism and recreational aspects of tourism and hospitality industry (Brotherton,

The current research paper covers the main effects of global tourism, both positive and negative. International tourism is a significant sector of business. For some countries it is one of the main sources of national income. The most important positive economic effects of tourism are as follows: increase in budget revenues, production expansion, stimulation of investments, and improvement in the population’s welfare. Tourism influences social and cultural lives of people in a positive way by stimulating the development and revival of local cultures and encouraging intercultural exchange.

The Travel and Tourism industry is still one of the largest single businesses in world commerce and its importance is widely recognized. The tourism industry is now one of the largest sectors earning foreign exchange. In the face of many benefits, many countries have started assigning due weight age to the tourism industry in their national development agenda. Tourism is an industry that operates on a massively broad scale: it embraces activities ranging from the smallest sea-side hotel; to air-lines, multi-national hotel chains and major international tour operators. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry