AsiaLIFE

It’s been a long time coming, but ecotourism has finally arrived in Cambodia. The past decade has seen a ten-fold increase in international visitors to the country, and while Angkor Wat remains the main attraction, visitors are increasingly looking for more diverse, local, and eco-friendly experiences. Getting to the Kingdom will still rake up a big carbon bill, but once you’re here there are more and more options for a green peace of mind. Yet how do you separate the real deal from the green wash? Words by Nora Lindstrom.

Holidays are made for relaxation, exploration and having fun. They’re a departure from the greyness of daily routines, but often also a departure from common norms and habits, including recycling. Ecotourism offers a chance for travellers to stick to their environmental principles. However, given the marketing value of being eco-friendly, it serves to be wary of so-called green credentials. Part of the problem lies in a lack of consensus on precisely what ecotourism is?

“Ecotourism has come to mean what the market expects it to mean,” says Trevor Piper, a sustainable tourism consultant with Dutch NGO SNV. What in the 1980s started off as a vision of minimum impact travel, combined with environmental conservation and benefits for the local population, has become diluted, giving way to a multitude of definitions of “ecotourism”, many driven by market values. “You can now have your own definition, but as there is no definition shared by the industry, having your own definition doesn’t serve a lot of purpose,” he says.

SNV is involved in pro-poor sustainable tourism in Cambodia, which according to Trevor involves combining sustainable tourism with poverty alleviation, in an effort to join the dots between people, planet, and profit. “Ecotourism is one of the possible ways to achieve pro-poor sustainable tourism, but not all ecotourism would fall within pro-poor sustainable tourism principles,” he explains.

Willem Niemeijer, CEO of the Khiri Group, which organises responsible travel tours in the Mekong region, argues along similar lines. “Ecotourism puts an emphasis on nature,” he says. “It is a small part of socially responsible tourism, which also includes activities such as volunteer tourism and community-based tourism, activities that give something tangible back to the places and people visited.” The Khiri Group is involved in community-based tourism projects in the region. “Part of that is making communities aware that the natural resources around them are much more valuable in a pristine state compared to the short terms gains of plunder,” says Willem.

A GREEN SCALE

Mark Gately, Cambodia program director at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), explains that there is a range of definitions in the “ecotourism” sector. “At one end of the scale you have people who promise not to destroy the environment or the local social structures, but effectively it is just people visiting – there is no direct link between the tourism and actual conservation,” he says. “At the other end of the scale you have a much more direct link between the tourism activities and the local community.”

In Cambodia, WCS is involved in ecotourism projects, combining biodiversity conservation with supporting local livelihoods through tourism. “Globally, there is work being done to address the question of how to identify socially responsible, pro-poor, and eco-friendly initiatives,” Trevor says. “There’s a peak body organisation being put together at the moment to look at ecotourism certification,” he adds, pointing to the international star-rating for hotels as a successful certification regime in the sector.

For the moment, it is up to the consumer to establish how eco-friendly any particular initiative thus labelled really is. There are a variety of issues to consider. “For me, ecotourism has to involve some kind of mechanism for money to go back into either the local community or into some form of conservation management in the place the tourists are visiting,” Mark says.

Others argue the main focus should be in minimising impact. Setting up an eco lodge in a pristine area requires not only appropriate waste, water and power management, but also consideration of the effects of building in the area, such as whether or not trees have to be cut to make way for buildings, as well as what kind of materials are used for the facilities themselves. Still, there is an inevitable conflict between development and preservation. “You don’t have any tourism without there being impacts, and especially environmental impacts,” Trevor Piper notes. “So it’s a matter of managing those impacts, they can never be eradicated.”

CAMBODIAN EFFORTS

Those involved in “responsible” or “green” tourism in Cambodia range from commercial entities through to international and local NGOs. The Quay Hotel on Phnom Penh’s riverfront, run by the FCC group, markets itself as the capital’s first “carbon friendly and environmentally sound” hotel.

Douglas Moe, the Resident Manager, explains how the FCC Group employed French environmental NGO GERES to conduct a carbon audit of the hotel when it first opened in 2008. The Quay now claims to offset its carbon footprint through direct payments, as well as environmentally friendly initiatives such as recycling cooking oil into bio-diesel and using a solar-powered hot water system. Carbon offsetting for the classy hotel, which liberally cools its downstairs restaurant using air-conditioners, costs lots of money annually. Douglas admits the hotel’s green credentials are limited. “We’re trying to find a way as much as we can,” he says, adding that many guests see their carbon-neutrality as an incentive to stay at the hotel.

Despite the PR value of being green, not all who espouse green values make a point of using them for marketing purposes. Alexis de Sureiman, owner of boutique hotels Kabiki, The Pavillion, and Blue Lime, says green issues are a passion he tries to incorporate into his businesses where feasible, but prefers not to make a fuss over his efforts – at least not yet.

Alexis is currently involved in an innovative project to generate solar cooling. Explaining that cooling is one of the main challenges facing hotels both financially and from a green standpoint, Alexis is developing a prototype floating bungalow that can generate its own solar cooling.

The avant-garde technology focuses on cooling the bed, based on the idea that night-time is when guests require most cooling. “All this is very theoretical and it might not work at all,” Alexis admits. He adds that the technology is also expensive, making it unsustainable compared to electricity from a generator or off the grid. “But it has its own sustainability which isn’t related to the cost of electricity,” Alexis maintains. “It is sustainable because you say its eco, because you say its pioneer, and because of that people will come to your place.”

LOCAL-LEVEL INITIATIVES

Others are involved in more immediate projects. NGO Mlup Baitong set up the community-based ecotourism site Chambok in Kirirom National Park in 2002, after it realised its forest conservation project in the area clashed with the livelihood strategies of the local population. “The people couldn’t stop cutting the trees because they depended on logging,” says Va Moeurn, executive director of the organisation.

Seven years on, the site now makes enough profit to keep the community from returning to logging activities. Moeurn however notes there is a limit to what can be achieved through tourism activities. “We also have to think about the carrying capacity of the site. If we get too many visitors, they will destroy the environment,” he says.

WCS’s flagship ecotourism site is Tmat Boey in Preah Vihear. Following the discovery of two critically endangered ibis species in the Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, the community-managed site was established in 2005. Two years later, it was awarded as the best community-based tourism site in Asia by the WildAsia Responsible Tourism Awards.

The project has had wider effects than straight-forward conservation and income-generation. Mark Gately describes an instance when the Tmat Boey community stood up against land grabbers. “Ecotourism has given the local community the incentive to protect their land. Without ecotourism there, the financial incentive would not have existed,” he says.

The Mekong Discovery Trail is a joint destination development project between SNV, UNWTO and the Ministry of Tourism. In addition to alleviating poverty through tourism, the project aims to develop the Kratie-Stung Treng area as a secondary tourist destination. According to Trevor Piper, now is the time for broadening the tourism sector in Cambodia given increased demand for a more diversified “product”.

Mark cautions that not everything should be for sale. “A lot of people think that national parks should exist to facilitate tourism,” he says. “They don’t necessarily see an aesthetic role, or they don’t see the value in itself of having a wild area.” He argues that core areas should be left completely untouched. “Tourism is a part of a wider strategy for conservation – it’s one tool, but it’s not the only one.”

Trevor also accepts there is a danger of creating dependency on tourism, which generally is seasonal and can further be volatile. Nevertheless, he says there are clear benefits, particularly if projects are designed to allow local people access to the tourism value chain. “Not everyone can be a tour guide, but every tourist eats,” he notes.

GREEN FUTURES

Compared to neighbouring countries, Cambodia has been rather slow in developing its ecotourism niche. According to Willem Niemeijer, Thailand and Malaysia for example offer a lot of ecotourism activities, though both of course have been major tourism destinations for over two decades.

“In Cambodia, the tourism industry didn’t really exist in the 1990s,” says Trevor. He suggests that the draw of Angkor Wat may be a reason for the lack of diversification, as it alone drove double-digit growth in the sector for a decade. “You don’t really need to look for a diversified product until income starts to even out and the industry matures,” he says.

In comparison, Laos does not have one iconic attraction. Instead it satisfies tourist demand by offering a large variety of nature-based tourism opportunities. Trevor says Cambodia too has the ability to take advantage of this demand. “The profile of people visiting each of the two countries isn’t that dissimilar, so you can make the assumption that ecotourism based products will do well here too,” Trevor says.

Willem fears that without regulation the sector may seed its own demise. “With improving infrastructure, remote areas are becoming accessible,” he says. “However, better ecotourism education, as well as quality, health and safety standards are urgently required. I think Cambodia needs to do more.”

Overall, though, he is hopeful. “I am positive that socially responsible tourism and ecotourism will be increasingly in demand [in the future].” As with most sectors, the tourism industry is heavily dependent on image. “To be seen to be responsible can be a very important marketing advantage,” says Trevor. “It makes sense.”