Have you ever been to a national park? They are places of beauty: all natural plants, wild animals, and wonderful sights to see. You can camp there, and tourists often come to visit and have a picnic at these nice preserved places. However, ecotourism is getting out of hand. Most importantly, we want to preserve and protect our national parks so that future generations can enjoy them as well. Likewise, we would also want to protect them for us as well, so that we can enjoy them for a long time to come. But ecotourism should really make us wonder: are they actually helping the national parks? Or are they harming them?
Ecotourism is bad for our national parks. It harms, and it doesn't really do any good. It has very many cons, and not a lot of pros, as I have noticed, but there are still both sides to argue. Firstly, ecotourism is when humans come into the parks to see exotic things, like plants, or wild animals. People can be very interested in these things, but sadly, they don't seem to want to protect it. Maybe they are just really careless. Whatever the case, tourists tend to come on holidays, so there would be a lot of people there. So many, in fact, that there aren't enough parking spaces for all of them. The parks do want lots of tourists for financial reasons, but this could be a problem. People will want more parking space. Okay, get rid of this vegetation, relocate this family of bears, and BAM! New parking lot. But this isn't so great for the park itself. Why? Well, you had to cut out part of the park to do it, meaning that you had to get rid of those trees, chop away that vegetation, and relocate that family of bears. You got rid of some of the parks natural beauty! By making more space for the tourists, you reduced the size, wonder and beauty of the park itself, which is what the tourists come to see.
One of the best things about these national parks is the animals. The bears, the deer, the pretty birds. You want to feed the pretty birds. You want to pet the deer. You want to take a selfie with the bears. Don't do that. You have to keep the wild animals wild. The bears and deer are probably not afraid of you, since they see people everyday. They can be quite friendly to you, and they might get to know you. The rangers don't want this. If the animals get used to you, that will take away from the wild character they are supposed to have. They might keep smarming up to humans, and, if they do that, it might not be very safe or healthy for the people or the animals. If you or another tourist drops food, the animals will probably eat it. They will get used to human food and steal for picnic tables. This will reduce the amount of tourists that actually want to visit the park. Also, human food is not safe for bears and deer. It can make them very sick, which isn't very pleasant for the rangers, tourists, or the animals. The birds will eat the crumbs, but it won't harm them as much as it will harm the deer and bears. As has been noted by many of us, we shouldn't feed or be near the animals, for their safety and ours.
Some people think that ecotourism has a good impact on the national parks. The more tourists there are, the more rangers we will need, which gives more people job opportunities. This is true. Since ecotourism became big, we have needed more nature guides and rangers, thus opening the door for more people to get a job. Some people think that this is a really good reason for ecotourism being good. On the contrary, it isn't. Firstly, let's think about what the parks look like. Well, trees, plants, animals, it really depends on which park you're visiting. Okay, well, every park has animals. Let's have story time. There is always time for a story! And this one has a moral. See if you can guess it. Once upon a time, there was a bear named Harry. Harry the bear is an innocent animal living in a park. He sees people everyday, so he isn't afraid of them. People food is yummy, so Harry welcomes them. But it gives him a stomachache, no matter how delicious it is. Oh, well. People take pictures with Harry and post them on Instagram and Snapchat and other things he doesn't understand. Then one day, there are so many people that he can't believe it! So much food! Now that there are more people coming, there are more strange men and women dressed in a uniform than usual. One day, Harry wakes up, and he isn't at home! He rushes towards his house, but, to his dismay, Harry sees a gigantic expanse of black smelly stuff that is drying really fast. Right where his home was. It's very sticky, so Harry goes away, crying. A few days later, the black stuff has solidified, and Harry really have no chance of getting home now, since those scary multicoloured roaring things the rangers call 'cars' are blasting around. This is stuff that innocent animals like Harry have to face when ecotourism gets out of hand. What if you awoke, and you were in this strange house, and people had ripped away your home to make a mall? Is more money an excuse? Is more jobs for other people an excuse? No. This one reason of giving more people jobs, or having more money is far from being compelling enough to change this. As I have shown, ecotourism is bad for the innocent animals.
There are rules that tourists should follow. Those signs, "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS", and "NO WADING" or other signs are put around to protect the park from tourists. Tourists are there to see, to take photos, to make memories, not to wreck the parks. "Tourist: a person who is travelling or visiting a place for pleasure." Tourists are only there to see and be happy at the park's beauty. If they are throwing trash around, at sprinkling food places, and harming the animals, plants, and any other attractions of the parks, they totally wreck the nature idea. We are trying to preserve and protect our parks for future generations, not ruin them any more. If people are going to ruin the parks, there will be nothing beautiful or nature-like in our future. These parks are designed to preserve things. They have rules that we need to learn to follow. Our ignorance (or stupidity) is costing these innocent plants and animals their lives. We must learn to take care of them. If not, than we should just not go to the parks at all. In other words, we must educate ourselves on the purpose of these rules so that we can keep the parks nice looking for ages to come.
As I have shown, we must learn what damage our careless acts are doing. If we don't know, we won't try to stop it. And we should find a way to make people care, because if you don't care about a thing, than you won't try to help it. We should start cleaning up the trash and food we drop, we need to be careful about being too close to the animals, and we should learn the purpose of the rules so that we know why we have to follow them. We have to educate each other on what our actions are doing, otherwise more than just the parks are going to be damaged. The whole ecosystem inside them will be too. Our choices and actions make a huge impact on animals, plants and other humans that are innocent. They don't deserve the consequences that we give them without even knowing. We have to make sure that we aren't hurting anyone or anything before we choose something. As I have said before, lots of innocent beings in the parks suffer from our choices, like Harry. If we just tried to take care of the parks and their ecosystems, we might find that we can protect them. In conclusion, ecotourism is hurting our national parks. What do you think? Is ecotourism helping our parks? Or is it hurting them?
Sources:
https://docs.google.com/document
https://www.npr.org
https://docs.google.com/document
https://www.npr.org
https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/leavenotrace.htm
https://docs.google.com/document
Noice, I like it.
ReplyDeleteNoice, great WAC I like it.
ReplyDeleteEmily! Thanks! (Did you actually read it?)
ReplyDelete