I thought about this topic for the first time during my undergrad education at Florida International University when a professor asked us this question. I further thought about it when I visited Crystal River to kayak with the manatees. If you’re unaware, Crystal River, FL has some very unique eco-tourism activities including swimming with manatees and kayaking with manatees.

Eco-tourism offers so many benefits to people. It allows everyday people to see wild animals in their natural habitat and learn about them. People are able to really observe these animals in their ecosystem and ask questions, which helps facilitate learning and helps people develop an interest about these animals. This is important because we need more scientists and researchers to study these endangered animals. We also need more people informed and passionate about these topics, so that they can have intelligent conversations with others and share their knowledge.

Eco-tourism is also great for children because it is so important to educate children at a young age about science and wildlife. This helps cultivate good intentions and interest towards the ecosystem and the wildlife living in it.

I’ve always thought that eco-tourism CAN be sustainable, if done correctly. There are unfortunately some draw backs to eco-tourism. These include things like littering, feeding wildlife, harassing wildlife, disturbing wildlife, etc. These are all harmful behaviors that make eco-tourism NOT sustainable.

All in all, I think if we can do eco-tourism correctly, it CAN be sustainable. The benefits of eco-tourism are very appealing and I hope that we can all work together to keep eco-tourism sustainable.