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14.1 (Spring 1990) Breaking Out of the Tourist Trap Part 1

Tourism Development in Quintana Roo, Mexico

This essay is an outgrowth of our work in Quintana Roo on the impact of tourism on the Maya communities of this previously very remote Yucatecan region. These communities are experiencing intensified pressures to participate in the tourism industry as it undergoes a shift from highly localized resort development to a mode that increasingly stresses the marketing of the physical and human environment, including the archaeological remains of pre-Hispanic Maya civilization.

The Silent Jungle: Ecotourism Among the Kuna Indians of Panama

In the early 1980s the Kuna Indians of panama set aside a chunk of virgin forest along the southern border of their territory - the Comarca of Kuna Yala - and transformed it into a wildlife reserve. (For more detailed information, see Breslin and Chapin 1984, and Houseal et al. 1985.) The core of the "Kuna park," as it is usually known internationally, encompasses an area of some 60,000 hectares. It is situated about three hours' drive from Panama City along s serpentine gravel road that winds through the foothills up to an altitude of 500 meters.

The Response to Tourism in Ladakh

Ladakh is a high-altitude desert in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Covering an area of 40,000 square miles, it supports a population of only about 120,00, the majority of whom make their living through subsistence agriculture. The climate is extreme: rainfall averages less than four inches per year and winter temperatures can fall as low as - 40°F. In 1974 the region was opened to international tourism, and the old culture faced a rapid invasion of the modern world. Tourist arrivals grew rapidly from a few hundred in the initial years to around 15,000 by the mid-1980s.

The Paradox of Tourism in Costa Rica

The New York Times Magazine published a special issue on 11 October 1989 entitled "The Sophisticated Traveler." Costa Rican Pacific beaches were featured in an article that discussed Manuel Antonio National Park, a "naturalistic paradise of 1707 acres of jungle coming right to the high-tide mark of some of the most beautiful beaches in the world." The tourists who travel there, as with all the other national parks in Costa Rica, "tend to carry binoculars and serious cameras along with their sunscreen" (Rose 1989).

The Lacandone Rainforest Project

The Lacandone rain forest is the northernmost in the Americas, located in Chiapas on the Mexico-Guatemala border. It has been inhabited for more than 1,500 years by Mayan Indians who remain in the region, living in the tradition of their ancestors.

In the past 100 years, half of the original 526,110 acres of the Lacandone rain forest has been destroyed in the face of logging, cattle ranching, destructive agricultural practices, and energy development.

Spear Fishing Rights in Wisconsin

This issue of Masinaigan is dedicated primarily to document the events of the 1989 Chippewa spring spearfishing season and those surrounding it. The season was unfortunately highlighted by scenes of racial hatred and harassment and dominated nightly by the necessary presence of numerous enforcement personnel to ensure the safety of Chippewa fishermen, families, and friends.

The scenes have created an ugly scar on the face of northern Wisconsin and even deeper scars within the hearts of both non-Indian and Indian people, as we shall see, particularly in the children.

Searching for Uranium in Western Australia

The Martujarra are a traditional Aboriginal people of the Western Desert of Australia. After a generation of living on the edges of the cities, these people have returned to the desert to reestablish a modified traditional lifestyle. The Martu people chose sites in and around the Rudall River National Park for their permanent camps, believing that the region would remain undeveloped because of the national park designation.

Introduction: Breaking Out of the Tourist Trap

Work, buy, consume, die" - graffiti scrawled across a redevelopment project fence in downtown Palo Alto, California. The way we work, what we buy, our levels of consumption - all these contribute to how we die. For some reason this graffiti comes to mind as I ponder the current media fix on "Earth Crisis," the growing demands for structuring and supporting a sustainable lifestyle, and the booming segment of the tourism industry that capitalizes on the vanishing wilderness, wildlife, and "wild people."

Hostages to Tourism

Although most tribal refugees from Burma's frontier war are unwelcome in Thailand, two women of the Padaung tribal group who sought refuge have been encouraged to stay on - as tourist attractions. Thai authorities actually "negotiated" to keep them in Thailand, while repatriating other tribespeople to the Burma war zone. The Padaung is the tribal group of the "long-necked women," and two of them had become, through a series of coercions, a lucrative tourist draw at Thailand's Mae Hong Son Resort.

"The Land of the Giraffe Women"

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