Jennifer Merin It’s vacation time, 2111 A.D. Your great-grandchildren pack up their camping gear, get into their jet car and speed off for the woods. After skimming miles and miles of blacktop highway through blocks of concrete buildings and barren arid suburbia, they reach the forest.
They park, unpack their gear and enter a sort of futuristic Noah’s Ark. It is a glass-enclosed ‘environmentoriam’ that contains what’s left of Earth’s natural trees and wildlife.
Similar environmental bubbles have been constructed in each state of the USA. They are publicly supported and funded heritage sites that have replaced the government’s system of National Parks.
Maintained mechanically at great expense, the bubble environments have air that’s purified on a massive scale, pumped in and recycled, and purified water that re-circulates in streams and waterfalls inside the enclosed area.
The ‘environmentoria’ are so popular, you need a reservation at least three years in advance to get in. Everyone wants to see and experience what Earth used to look like during your era on the planet.
And, the bubbles are pricey destinations. Even with public funding in place, the bubbles are so expensive to maintain, tourists are charged $1,000 per person just for the privilege of walking through the double-sealed air-locked gates.
Is this an unlikely scenario? Well, it’s a bit extreme, perhaps, but not really all that unlikely. At least, not according to environmentalists who are concerned about the cumulative effects of acid rain, deterioration of the ozone layer, pollution of Earth’s fresh water resources and the industrial exploitation of the planet’s remaining forests.
Environmentalists have voiced their concerns for decades and, despite the raising of public awareness by production of issue-related films like “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Earth Days,“ and “The Eleventh Hour,“ and other media alerts, little has been done to further environmental preservation and prevent society’s evolution to a time of environmental bubbles.
Additionally, there’s increasing concern that current increases in tourism to remote and ecologically fragile areas essential to Earth’s overall environmental wellbeing -- areas such as the Antarctic, the Amazon and other rain forests, the Galapagos, African wildlife preserves and trails through the high Andes and Himalayas -- will cause irresistible environmental damage on a scale that will ultimately effect the entire planet. Unfortunately, travel to many of these places isn’t sufficiently regulated.
Case in point, during the 1990s, an Argentine cruise ship that was carrying 100 passengers on an eleven-day Antarctic cruises sank two decades ago, in 1990, spilling about 250,000 gallons of fuel into the clean ocean waters around Antarctica. None of the passengers nor cre were injured but rookeries of some 20,000 penguins were seriously polluted with long-term consequences that could not be assessed at the time and are still playing out.
Of course, travel to such remote places can have a positive effect, as well -- provided it’s done in the right way.
Tourists who venture to Antarctica and the Amazon, who trek to see the top of the world in the Andes or Himalayas, are so awe-struck by the extraordinary beauty and majesty of what they see, that all but those with hearts of stone come home with a strong commitment to save their planet -- our planet -- from environmental desecration.
But tourists must respect and protect the remote, unspoiled areas they visit, and the wildlife that inhabits them. Numbers of visitors should be limited. Tours must be run by environmentally-concerned companies who hire well-informed and experienced guides.
With good guidance, tourists to ecologically fragile environments learn how to respect and protect those places by committing themselves to follow a seven-point code of behavior that’s endorsed by leading conservationists and environmentally-conscious tour operators:
*Don’t disturb fragile habitats in any fashion whatsoever.
*Don’t introduce non-native plants or animals into an area.
*Don’t dump plastic or other non-biodegradable garbage overboard or leave garbage behind in areas visited.
*Don’t disrespect cultural heritage, customs, habits and traditions of indigenous peoples.
*Don’t violate personal space of native animals in fragile or endangered habitats.
*Don’t interfere with protected areas or scientific research in those areas.
Don’t collect or buy specimens -- whether living or dead -- or products that threaten wildlife and plants in fragile or endangered habitats.
This code is simple and sensible, and endorsed by many environmentally-concerned travel organizers, including the Cousteau Society, Earthwatch, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and others.
Tourists who are venturing into fragile environments should do so only with experienced guides who work for or with tour operators who are environmentally-sensitive and committed to preservation.
Every tourist should adopt the code, commit to it and apply it wherever they go.
When applied to Antarctica, for example, the code implies leaving no footprints in mosses, lichens or grasses, staying at least 15 feet away from penguins, seabirds and true seals and at least 60 feet away from fur seals, and always giving animals the right of way and never touching them. Don’t try to hug a penguin, even if he or she waddles up to you and seems to want to be your new best friend!
While the seven-point traveler’s code is especially important for visitors to ecologically fragile areas, it is also applicable in more densely inhabited environments ranging from Paris to the Pocono Mountains, and to other places where tourists tend to disrespect or ignore existing wildlife and dump trash without thinking twice -- or even one -- about the consequences of their actions.
Think about it this way: tourists who visit the Tuilleries should take time to study the birds and flowers they find in the gardens, as well as to make sure they dump the remains of their Brie and pate picnics in the trash bins instead of leaving them on the ground.
Copyright 2011 Jennifer Merin
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