14-1 Breaking Out of the Tourist Trap Part 1

Update from Cultural Survival (Canada) - 14.1

The Innu The indigenous people of Newfoundland and Labrador, a mix of populations of Inuit, Montagnais, Quebec Naskapi, and other Indians loosely referred to as Innu, are involved in opposing a major expansion of low-level military training flights over their territory (an article on this will appear in Cultural Survival Quarterly 14(2)). Over the last few decades, the Innu have been centralized…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Editorial: The Future of Nations in the Nineties

The Berlin Wall is not the only thing that is crumbling in Europe. Our basic assumptions about the role of the state, which appeared to be written in stone only a few short months ago, are crumbling as well. This is an exciting time, one of those times in history where old assumptions have been challenged but new ones have not yet taken their place. The rise of nationalism and recent moves toward…

Cultural Commoditization in Tana Toraja, Indonesia

In 1984 the Indonesian director general of tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the touristic "prima donna of South Sulawesi." In a little more than 15 years the Toraja people of upland Sulawesi had gone from anthropological obscurity to touristic celebrity. Known for their spectacular funeral rituals, effigy-filled burial cliffs, and elaborately carved architecture, the Sa'dan Toraja people of…

Commoditizing Ethnicity in Southwest China

Domestic and international tourists alike are drawn to China's southwest region, which borders Tibet, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam, by its tremendously varied scenery and its unique indigenous people. Ethnic tourism - the "marketing of quaint' customs of indigenous and often exotic peoples" (V. Smith 1989:2) - is promoted by China for local economic development and foreign currency. Yunnan Province,…

Arctic to Amazonia: An Alliance for the Earth

From the 19th through the 27th of September, 1989, indigenous representatives from around the world met on Abenaki land in Western New England for a series of conferences conceived and organized by Catalyst's New England Tropical Forest Project. Entitled "From the Arctic to Amazonia: Industrial Nations' Exploitation of Tribal Lands," the conference gave voice to the people most affected by the…

A 2-Million-Acre Headache in Zaire

From February 1984 until this past year, Patrick Giantonio walked from Mombassa, Kenya, to Douala, Cameroon, in an effort to learn about Africa's development, health, and environmental issues from Africans. Patrick's efforts are supported by his family, friends, individuals, and organizations throughout the United States and in those countries through which he has walked. He published an article…

"Where Are Your Moccasins?" A Guide for Tourists

EY CHIEF!" the sun-reddened, gray-haired tourist called, approaching my husband's kachina doll booth. It had been a great day at the big Indian Market so far. But I had a feeling… "Hey!" he called again, grinning. "What time is it chief?" My Hopi husband lifted his head and set aside his carving knife. I had a barely controllable urge to take it up and brandish it in the greenhorn's flushed face…