International Canopy Conference: Symposium follow-up
The 5th International Canopy Conference in Bangalore was a great event. More than 250 scientists got together to present their latest findings and exchange their views on the future of canopy research.
The symposium on canopy tourism went very well. We had a great variety of speakers from different fields and research backgrounds. You can find a short summary and download links to the presentations here.
Suchismita Das: Consensus Building In Ecotourism: Concepts and Contradictions. Suchismita Das provided us with the theoretical background on ecotourism, pointing out the critical issues which have to be kept in mind before incorporating canopy tourism as a tool for conservation and community development.
Markus Seibel: Forest Canopy Tourism – analyzing a Flagship Attraction in the Ecotourism Arena from a Political Ecology Perspective. My own talk was an introduction to canopy tourism, what it is and what it can be used for. I then presented some of the canopy tourism related findings from my ongoing research on the political ecology of rainforest ecotourism/ canopy tourism.
Meg Lowman: Canopy Walkways for Conservation Education — A Tropical Biologist’s Panacea or Fuzzy Metrics to Justify Ecotourism. Meg Lowman presented some very interesting case studies from different parts of the world where it was proven that canopy walkways were of benefit to conservation through education and generation of income. But she also pointed out that future research is needed to establish sound data on the metrics of canopy tourism.
Stephen Michael Turton: Evolution of canopy ecotourism in Australia: experiences from the land down under. In his presentation Stephen Turton brought us down to Australia to give us an overview over a good number of different canopy tourism facilities. The majority of them was privately run, most of them have interpretation centres and some of them have elements of research included.
Saroop Roy: Canopy Tourism: Concept and practices in the Indian context. Saroop brought us back to India and showed us some examples of canopy based tourism offers. Canopy tourism is not really developed yet and Saroop pointed out possible negative impact like insufficient community involvement and damage on ecosystems.
Ian Green: Employing canopy tourism to benefit the environment — building a network of conservation based canopy walkways/flightlines: Past, Present and Future. Ian Green couldn’t attend but he sent in a short presentation which was played at the symposium. The company believes that investing in nature is necessary to generate sustainable revenue streams from conservation based business that supports on going conservation efforts. Greenheart is working on a global network of conservation-based canopy walkways.
Phil Wittman: Canopy Access Construction Methods. Phil presented some technical and financial aspects of canopy walkway building. We learned about different technologies like bolting trees vs. girdling them and also saw which local materials and workforce can be employed and where international expertise is needed.
It was a very interesting session showing how wide the field of canopy tourism is. Examples ranged from low key wooden constructions to high end facilities like some of those in Australia presented by Steven Turton. The mode of operation reached from privately run facilities to walkways in public protected areas and community based projects. Some are stand alone projects where the canopy facility is the sole attraction whereas in other cases canopy access is one attraction among many in a whole package of rainforest tourism activities.
That makes it difficult to establish sound data on the metrics of canopy tourism. Often the revenue from walkway use does not go directly back into walkway maintenance and operation, meaning that no clear connection between investment and turnover can be established. In cases where canopy access is only one of various offers, it is difficult to establish in which proportion the canopy activities contribute to the overall aim of conservation and community benefit. In other cases again such a connection may not be established because the canopy tourism offered cannot be considered a sustainable ecotourism approach at all.
The speakers agreed that canopy access offers great potential for interpretation and understanding of forest ecosystems. However, often this potential is not fully used, turning the canopy access facility into a pure adventure site. This often seems to be due to a lack of understanding and the absence of sustainable management planning. A way to solve this problem could be a better linking of research and tourism. A facility which is not only used for tourism purposes but also for research has a higher credibility and gives visitors a more authentic feeling. Depending on the kind of research, some of the findings can even be used for educational purposes.
Future research will also help to strengthen canopy tourism as a tool for conservation and community benefit. Some of the following research fields were suggested during the symposium:
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Visitor surveys comparing and contrasting visitor expectations and experiences in private versus publically owned facilities, large versus small facilities (high vs. low key), also looking at different forest/ecosystem types.
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Use of canopy ecotourism experiences to convey conservation and science to the broader community (outreach) with regards to climate change, deforestation and species loss.
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Direct and indirect economic benefits of canopy ecotourism to regional areas and communities.
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Best practice examples for canopy ecotourism interpretation as well as infrastructure construction and maintenance?
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Long term research and monitoring at canopy ecotourism sites.
A summary of the symposium can also be found at the ATREE website.