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  • Ecotourism to Heal the Scars of the Past

    Ecotourism to Heal the Scars of the Past

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The legacy of underdevelopment during the communist era in parts of Eastern Europe is now being seen as an advantage in the global tourism trade. Well off the beaten path for tourists, areas as diverse as Chechnya and Romania are working to turn their rustic rural hinterlands into a strategic advantage in grabbing the market for ecotourists. Ecotourism – tourism that takes people to fragile and beautiful areas – is one of the tourism industry’s fastest growing areas.At stake is the lucrative and ever-growing world tourism market. Global tourist arrivals passed 800 million in 2006, with tourism in the world up by 5.5 per cent (World Tourism Organization), earning US $680 billion globally. In 1993, just seven per cent of travel was nature tourism; that share has now passed 20 per cent.

    Romania, now a member of the European Union, boasts rural countryside like Europe of old: all hillsides are common land and there are no walls or fences to impede the view. Life is heavily dominated by agriculture and the rhythms of farm life.

    Southern Transylvania is a high plateau of wooded hills and valleys and shielded by the Carpathian Mountains.

    “The Carpathians of central and eastern Europe,” said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme, “are among the world’s richest regions in terms of biodiversity and pristine landscapes. I have no doubt that the Carpathians, like the Alps, the Himalayas and the Rocky Mountains, will become world famous for walking, hiking, climbing, wildlife watching, photography and similar leisure pursuits.”

    In order to preserve this way of life and generate income, various schemes are encouraging low-key tourism. This takes the form of renovating decaying farm buildings for guesthouses. The guesthouses are kept clean and simple and the focus is on typical local food like hearty stews and soups and pork sausages.

    Much of this has been paid for by the Mihai Emenescu Trust, a charity seeking to preserve the traditions of the Saxon villages.

    Patrick Holden of the Soil Association, a patron of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, thinks the organic agricultural methods of the local farmers could be a model for the rest of Europe.

    Romania is also part of the Organization for Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), which is taking the lead in promoting ecotourism as an economic development option.

    Ex-communist nation Bulgaria has also turned to ecotourism, launching its “Ecotourism: Naturally Bulgaria” campaign in September.

    Even the once-war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya is trying to radically re-shape people’s perceptions. It is hard to believe, but the former site of a bitter civil war that left the capital Grozny in ruins now wants to be Russia’s Switzerland.

    Shatoy region in southern Chechnya, during Soviet times, saw 20,000 visitors every month to ski, ride horses, and hike in the Caucasus Mountains. The new government plans to spend UK £40 million on new hotels, reconstructing old holiday camps, building spas and health centres. The region’s head of government, Mr Khasukha Demilkhanov, is confident that natural beauty can compete with the West: in the Argun Gorge, he pointed out to the Guardian newspaper, the scene is reminiscent of a 19th century woodcutting. Stone towers litter the hills, alpine meadows are full of wild flowers, the mountains are snow-capped and new roads have been built.

    The Chechens hope to start with Russian holidaymakers and extreme tourists from the West, before moving more into the mainstream market.

    Published: October 2007

    Resources

    • Ecotourism.org: The International Ecotourism Society.
    • Ecotourism Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan has put together a dedicated website on ecotourism.
    • Planeta: one of the first ecotourism resources to go online (since 1994) and still offers plenty of information for those wanting to start a business.

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/african-tourism-leads-the-world-and-brings-new-opportunities/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/africas-tourism-sector-can-learn-from-asian-experience/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/02/07/boosting-tourism-in-india-with-surfing-culture/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/09/27/caribbean-island-st-kitts-goes-green-for-tourism/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2023/02/03/environmental-public-awareness-handbook-case-studies-and-lessons-learned-in-mongolia/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/21/from-warriors-to-tour-guides/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/23/kenyan-safari-begins-minutes-from-airport/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/08/07/mongolian-green-book/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/10/a-solution-to-stop-garbage-destroying-tourism/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-5/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2023/01/17/war-peace-and-development-may-2018/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

    Environmental Public Awareness Handbook: Case Studies and Lessons Learned in Mongolia by Robert Ferguson.
    Environmental Public Awareness Handbook: Case Studies and Lessons Learned in Mongolia by Robert Ferguson.
    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Session 4: Political Economy Dimensions of Crisis

    Session 4: Political Economy Dimensions of Crisis

    A Report from the UN Conference on the Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Implications for Developing Countries (12-13 November 2009)

    Organised by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, Switzerland. Held at the Palais des Nations.

    Just as now (2021) 2009 was a year in which the questions revolved around receiving a vaccine (for H1N1) and how best to affirm a person’s identity and citizenship.

    Session 4: Political Economy Dimensions of Crisis

    A message of hope came from Bjorn Beckman of Stockholm University. He believed alternatives lie to the neo-liberal orthodoxy elsewhere, not in welfare capitalism but in places where workers are on the rise. They will provide the backbone to popular movements in the future. And this means new alliances have to be re-defined, the face of the balance of forces being massively against the working class and their organisations.

    The ability of trade unions to defend workers’ rights depends on reaching out to the informal economy, where so many now work.

    The impact of the crisis in South Africa has reinforced opposition to neo-liberalism, where auto and garment workers have suffered greatly. This has led to them pressuring government to introduce more reforms.

    Nigeria chose to push with deregulation in the face of the crisis but found serious opposition. With a government that is corrupt and inefficient, the current crisis intensifies contradictions.

    And he concluded that beleaguered unions in the North can only resist if they ally themselves with the South. The current crisis will not deliver change that is more democratic or increase workers’ rights. Instead, it presents more opportunity to suppress and to extort concessions. In short, no changes to the anti-union logic of neo-liberalism.

    Another country to think it would not be severely affected by the crisis is South Africa. Yet, as Seeraj Mohammed of the University of the Witwatersrand pointed out, this is not the case.

    Conventional wisdom in South Africa thought the economy and the country’s financial institutions were not caught up in the bubble mania. Yet, in reality, the dynamic was the same as was happening in the United States.

    South Africa experienced debt-ridden consumption and the wrong kind of growth. There was limited social and infrastructure investment, property bubbles were allowed to happen, and liberalisation supported the financialisation of the economy. There was a casualisation of jobs, tending towards not high skill. For example, cleaning services rather than manufacturing. And the crisis has just made things worse.

    During the crisis to date, 1 million jobs in manufacturing and services have been lost, many connected to the debt-driven economy. Unemployment is estimated to be between 22 percent and 40 percent.

    There was significant growth in household consumption since 2003. Yet the flow of credit into the country went into financial assets, most of it into mortgages and credit cards. It was not invested.

    Emma Allen from the International Labor Organization (ILO) focused on African cooperatives in the crisis. She found coops, by their structure, were both prescient – they had flagged up systemic problems in the economic system as far back as 2004 – and resilient, continuing to grow their memberships. They were not, however, immune to being hurt. In Africa, many members of financial coops had made the mistake of investing their funds in pyramid schemes/scams that then went bust in the crisis.

    Ying Yu from the University of Durham found Chinese workers were withdrawing from the public pension system in the crisis. The vast number of migrant workers within China have learned protests are effective, and are using the internet to mobilise support.

    Yu suggested new responses are required. These include third way localism and building mutual trust, collaboration between public/private sectors, for intellectuals to go local, and to forge specific action plans based on local characteristics.

    A Report from the UN Conference on the Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Implications for Developing Countries (12-13 November 2009)

    Session 2: Social Policy: Country and Regional Perspectives

    Session 3: Social Policy: Global Perspective

    Session 4: Political Economy Dimensions of Crisis

    Relevant stories previously covered in Development Challenges, South-South Solutions:

    Making the World a Better Place for Southern Projects (https://davidsouthconsulting.wordpress.com/south-south-case-studies/development-challenges-south-south-solutions/making-the-world-a-better-place-for-southern-projects/)

    Toilet Malls Make Going Better (https://davidsouthconsulting.wordpress.com/south-south-case-studies/development-challenges-south-south-solutions/toilet-malls-make-going-better/)

    SOS Shops Keep Food Affordable for Poor, Unemployed (https://davidsouthconsulting.wordpress.com/south-south-case-studies/development-challenges-south-south-solutions/sos-shops-keep-food-affordable-for-poor-unemployed/)

    Rainforest Gum Gets Global Market (https://davidsouthconsulting.wordpress.com/south-south-case-studies/development-challenges-south-south-solutions/rainforest-gum-gets-global-market/)

    Disabled Congolese Musicians Become World Hit (https://davidsouthconsulting.wordpress.com/south-south-case-studies/development-challenges-south-south-solutions/disabled-congolese-musicians-become-world-hit/)

    Other articles on the Global Crisis:

    “Prepare for Global Collapse”: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6599281/Societe-Generale-tells-clients-how-to-prepare-for-global-collapse.html

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2021

  • Session 3: Social Policy: Global Perspective

    Session 3: Social Policy: Global Perspective

    A Report from the UN Conference on the Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Implications for Developing Countries (12-13 November 2009)

    Organised by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, Switzerland. Held at the Palais des Nations.

    Session 3: Social Policy: Global Perspective

    The third session attempted to capture the overall state-of-play at this juncture in the crisis. The panel found states are competing to reduce the welfare state to pay off debts. The global downturn was being used as an opportunity to reduce the wages of workers. The downturn was being characterised as not a banking failure, but a social one: the message being given is that income inequalities are not caused by economic causes but by social choice.

    The orthodoxy of neo-liberalism is well-prepared and is taking advantage of the crisis, while left alternatives are much more divided. The neo-liberals see this an opportunity to roll forward the neo-liberal agenda, not roll back. As one panellist said: “I wish it was the demise of neo-liberalism, but it is not.” It’s a crisis for the left – capitalism will stagger back onto its feet.

    Ben Fine from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, drew attention to the fact 200,000 homes could have been built for the cost of bailing out the failed UK lender Northern Rock.

    The “crisis has sharply discredited the model of development we have been under for the past 30 years. But I am afraid it is being resurrected,” concluded Fine.

    The panellists outlined the conditions for a sustainable developmental state. Two things are required: do not have exclusion; and reduce inequalities that affect 60 to 70 percent of people.

    With neo-liberalism far from finished, we do not hear the articulation of an alternative that is strong as we build a new world order, added the panel.

    The global downturn has led to emerging crises: 1) cost will be distributed on to labour, yet it is very difficult for workers to move around, 2) it will be distributed from North to South – example, a reduction in economic aid, 3) youth employment: mostly young workers will suffer with unemployment, and they will live with climate change.

    Any alternative vision put forward will have to resolve these crises.

    Anger was directed towards the two Bretton Woods institutions: the World Bank and the IMF. It was claimed the World Bank is destroying what has been achieved in Vietnam – and they did not recommend any country borrow from the World Bank. Other options include the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which is more progressive.

    Some of the policy options the panel suggested included prices/incomes policy, debates over limiting incomes of the elite, and introducing high taxes on financial transactions.

    The panel noted that hardly anyone has raised questions on global governance, “and the structural failure of the UN system to deliver really depresses me,” concluded one panellist.

    A Report from the UN Conference on the Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Implications for Developing Countries (12-13 November 2009)

    Session 2: Social Policy: Country and Regional Perspectives

    Session 3: Social Policy: Global Perspective

    Session 4: Political Economy Dimensions of Crisis

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2021

  • Session 2: Social Policy: Country and Regional Perspectives

    Session 2: Social Policy: Country and Regional Perspectives

    A Report from the UN Conference on the Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Implications for Developing Countries (12-13 November 2009)

    Organised by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, Switzerland. Held at the Palais des Nations.

    Just as now (2021) 2009 was a year in which the questions revolved around receiving a vaccine (for H1N1) and how best to affirm a person’s identity and citizenship.

    Session 2: Social Policy: Country and Regional Perspectives

    China’s role in the crisis and the recovery was tackled by UNRISD’s director, Dr. Sarah Cook. China has travelled a long way from 30 years ago, when it was poor and isolated. Twenty years ago it faced severe internal crisis, but by the Asian economic crisis in 1997 it was economically dynamic enough to help pull the rest of Asia out of the crisis. Cook noted China now sits at the cusp of becoming a global leader and this poses the question: Can China save the global financial system?

    The country was able to draw on its substantial cash reserves to launch a large fiscal stimulus of 4 trillion Yuan (US $600 bn). This has meant most of the current growth in China is being generated by the stimulus. And the main driving factor behind government policy is social stability, with the state and bureaucracy playing key roles in setting priorities.

    Thailand in 1997 was compared with India today by Govind Kelkar, from the Institute for Human Development. India saw a big fall in domestic demand, and lost confidence in short-term growth. There has been a 30 percent growth in women in low-pay occupations, while skilled workers have lost jobs, and temporary workers at construction sites have all but disappeared. Even India’s prosperity darling, information technology, has experienced a slowing in growth. Many IT workers had their pay cut 50 percent and were seconded to NGOs to keep them busy.

    Women and children are entering the workforce to help families survive. And more people are working longer hours for less pay.

    The Indian Government has been able to offer help to the rural, agricultural sector through fertiliser and food subsidies. The NREGA (http://nrega.nic.in/) (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) is reaching 50 million households. However, mostly men have benefited because the work on offer is skilled work.

    The Indian stimulus for rural areas is a direct result of the rural poor vote being a large lobby in the world’s biggest democracy. And while the rapid growth of the past decade has helped the urban upper class, the government is being forced back into inclusive growth because of the pressure of politics. This contrasts with Thailand in 1997, where many women went into sex work, and the government targeted its stimulus at the urban market because the rural vote was not powerful.

    Shiree (http://www.shiree.org/), Bangladesh, an NGO supporting the Government of Bangladesh to achieve the Millennium Development Goal targets on income poverty and hunger, called for a portion of the bank bailouts to go to the poor.

    It reported Bangladesh was unprepared for the crisis and has not responded well. Interestingly, Shiree believes any organisation targeting the extreme poor should be obligated to graduate them from poverty within three years and to keep them out of extreme poverty for at least three to five years.

    Another country that has been caught out by the global economic crisis is Senegal. Elizabeth Paul from the University of Liege and Ousmane Faye from African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), pointed out subsidies for fuel and food hurt the public finances but didn’t help the poor. Within Senegal, 44 percent of people believe poverty in households has grown. While at first Senegal didn’t think it would be affected, the consequences of the downturn have been many: tourism is down, foreign direct investment (FDI) is down, exports are down 13 percent, there is a reduction in aid flows, and overall government revenue is down.

    Senegal is a member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (http://www.uemoa.int/index.htm) and found its hands tied when it came to how it could respond because it must stick to the terms of the Union. Overall, the researchers observed, the government has not reflected on the crisis and just focused on the public finances, with no special measures for the crisis.

    Funding pensions is a hot topic all around the world. While the legacy of well-funded public pensions in developed countries after the Second World War had become much-admired, recent years have shown these funds to be inadequately funded to meet need. This has led to many governments seeing a solution in privatising public pension funds. But the cases of Argentina and Nigeria – both inspired by the experience of Chile – offers lessons in what not to do.

    Camila Arza, Latin American School of Social Sciences  (FLACSO) Argentina (http://www.flacso.org.ar/), explained how much of the new money was absorbed by administration costs, rather than expanding the fund. It also failed to keep up with the expansion of informal employment and extending coverage to these workers.

    The experience of the Nigerian pension system was presented by Bernard H Casey, of the University of Warwick. Inspired by reforms in Chile (unfortunately just around the time Chile was abandoning those reforms), the Nigerian pension scheme only covered 10 percent of the workforce, comprising some of the public sector and large private sector firms. Yet most employment in Nigeria is informal and outside the pension system.

    The new fund had such high administration fees, around 40 percent of what is saved over a lifetime was eaten up by the fees. Worse, the fund invested in the highly volatile stock market and earned returns that were 5 percent below the inflation rate: a loss of 60 percent during the lifetime of the pension.

    Casey concluded it is a mistake to use pension reform to spur economic development; economic development should instead create well-funded pensions. This sort of massive mismanagement of government programmes has the effect of generating significant public cynicism in the government’s ability to run social programmes.

    A Report from the UN Conference on the Social and Political Dimensions of the Global Crisis: Implications for Developing Countries (12-13 November 2009)

    Session 2: Social Policy: Country and Regional Perspectives

    Session 3: Social Policy: Global Perspective

    Session 4: Political Economy Dimensions of Crisis

    Relevant stories previously covered in Development Challenges, South-South Solutions:

    Accessing Global Markets Via Design Solutions (https://davidsouthconsulting.wordpress.com/south-south-case-studies/development-challenges-south-south-solutions/accessing-global-markets-via-design-solutions/)

    Info Ladies and Question Boxes: Reaching Out to the Poor (https://davidsouthconsulting.wordpress.com/south-south-case-studies/development-challenges-south-south-solutions/info-ladies-and-question-boxes-reaching-out-to-the-poor/)

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2021