Australian Eco-Tourism
and Rammed Crocodiles

Big operators often vertically integrate providing every facet of travel from air to accommodation, and experience.  Such organisations often buy supplies elsewhere, and even import labour, or as they do in Kakadu, hire back-packers.

And if a destination loses its appeal, as happens commonly with those that are oversold and overcommercialised, then those big luxury hotels drop their prices until they are competing directly with small, cheaper, locally-owned accommodation.  The latter are forced to the wall and the destination loses diversity of accommodation.  This happens in every aspect of tourism, from travel agents to guides like myself.

Operators who have the eye of the market get away with all sorts of things. One big Australian tour company advertised bird tours of Litchfield, a park not far from Darwin.  Of the four birds advertised one was common all over Australia, another was so secretive that it was rarely seen, and yet another flew in on storm fronts in the wet season, so high that all one usually saw without binoculars, were specks against the clouds (I can't remember the fourth bird).

Travel agents advertise those who pay the biggest percentage to visitors whether the operators they highlight know anything about flora or fauna or not (and most know very little). And government tourist bureau staff here in the Top End know nothing of wildlife and so can't judge an operator's knowledge anyway.

Here, at least one operator who was linked with ecotourism organisations, had driver/guides who rammed crocodiles with their boats to make them jump.  When I complained I was told 'everybody did it' and that ramming crocodiles gave people a thrill.

Operators still ram crocodiles, and do other inappropriate things here.  After all they need to compete with others and what better way to do it than to give people intimate contact with wildlife! 

My attempts to alert the ecotourism authorities in Australia fell largely on deaf ears. Oh, they did say I was reactionary and that their job was 'to educate, not discipline'. A problem with such organisations is that often much of their income is derived from their biggest members.  The response was that ecotourism lost much credibility.

All of us need to speak up, point out what we do to ensure our business is sustainable.  Ask the critics to suggest ways we can make it better. 

And there is hope. I ran a national campaign agains the crocodile-rammers. And while I was blacklisted here in the Top End as a trouble-maker, my letters made it into every major newspaper in Australia, and onto national radio as well.  Tourists, Aboriginal organisations and conservation bodies all contacted me to give encouragement. 

Americans in particular want to make contact with both local people and nature, not because they wish to tick birds off a list or boast to friends and relatives back home about where they spent their holidays, but because many see locals and wildlife as an affirmation of values they grew up with.  Local people (as ecotourism operators tend to be) are seen to be without guile, and almost as part of an extended family.

Ecotour operators can help bridge social and environmental divides.   And more and more travellers are insisting that hotels and airlines and travel agents put them in touch with such operators. So people out there, promote yourselves as human beings with similar value systems to ecotravellers.

I'd say to other operators, you have a beautiful lodge in the middle of rainforest, sure, wonderful, but so do many other operators including Club Med.  Promote the differences, not only between your infrastructure and market, but between yourselves and the staff and owners of such destinations.