Wildlife Tours from Brisbane Australia
I have just returned from the German Alumni Summer School in Lombok, Indonesia (I’m not part of the alumni, but was invited as a representative from Australia by Professor Jolanta Slowik after she participated in our post-conference Intecol tour in 2009).
For a very brief write-up of this fascinating week, see the Wildlife Tourism Australia blog entry for 13th December 2010
Potoroo at Wildlife expo, Beaudesert 2010
What wildlife activities would you like to be involved in? Scenic Rim Wildlife (Scenic Rim branch of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland) is running a survey to find out out the kinds of activities folk would most like to participate in over the next few months. If you live in or near the Scenic Rim (Southeast Queensland) or visit from time to time, please let us know by completing our strictly confidential 2-minute survey
One of the reasons I personally went into ecotourism was to provide governments, developers etc. with an economic reason for preserving wildlife and its habitats (my other main reason was to share my enthusiasm with others for the wonderful diversity of wild creatures and wild places on this planet, and hopefully in so doing to deepen their understanding of the same, and appreciation of their intrinsic non-monetary values).
One of the positive benefits of wildlife tourism towards tourism conservation has long been identified as the potential for donations towards conservation, from tourism operators, their guests and perhaps local businesses and governments that directly or indirectly benefit from the tourism dollar.
But to give we need to also receive – at least enough to keep giving without going broke. And tourism operations that make non-financial contributions (e.g. habitat restoration, quality interpretation, conservation-breeding) have to make enough to survive. It also helps if the local community benefits, and continues to support their efforts.
Can all this happen, either at an individual operator level or a regional level?
One of Australia’s best-published economics researchers (amongst the top three in the country according to Wikipedia) – Clem Tisdell – has conducted many studies on the economics of wildlife tourism in Australia and elsewhere, including amongst many other topics rainforests and glow worm caves in Southeast Queensland, Antarctic voyages and an elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka. Apart from individual studies he has provided a number of very useful and wide-ranging review papers.
We will have a chance to hear Professor Tisdell’s latest information and advice at the Wild Benefits conference to be held at the Gold Coast 1st to 3rd September 2010, and it will be a great opportunity to ask him questions (and listen to his answers to the questions of others, both immediately after his presentation and at other times during the conference).
This is the third national wildlife tourism conference to be held in Australia. There are day registrations and student registrations available, ad the earlybird discount registration is open until the end of July.
channel-billed cuckoo
Perfect weather, a wonderful display of live locally-native animals, interesting displays and presentations and a crowd of cheerful people of all ages made our Wildlife Expo a great success. Visitors got to meet bettongs, potoroos, gliders, fruitbats, owls, cuckoos, flap-footed lizards, turtles, pythons and other creatures and learn about wildlife conservation, care of orphaned and injured animals, wildlife feeding, nesting boxes, wildlife-attracting plants, nature photography, wildlife art, tertiary courses involving wildlife, birding, reptiles shows and more.
The photo shows Martin Fingland of Gecko’s Wildlife, with one of his tame local species.
The Expo was run by the Scenic Rim branch of the WIldlife Preservation Society of Queensland.
For details of this great day, visit Scenic Rim Wildlife, and stay tuned for the next expo (either 2011 or 2012)