the debate!

The debates: To fly or not to fly? | Should we visit burma?
To fly or not to fly?

Tourism is a very lucrative industry. It accounts for 10% of global gdp, employs 234 million people worldwide and is growing at 4% annually. there is a great deal to be gained from the ability of people to cross borders but the environmental impact is enormous and the economic benefits, despite the amount spent on tourism, can be minimal.

As backpackers or independent travellers, we've long thought that the environmental impact of our journeys was less than that of your average package tourist. Unfortunately, the average backpacker spends over 55 hours in the air on their Round-the-World (RTW) trip creating around 4 tonnes of CO2, which is almost double that of a family of four flying to Malaga for their summer holidays. Mmm.

The problem is that most people read the headline 'to fly or not to fly' as 'to travel or not to travel' and for those who have a two week holiday and want to spend it lying on the beach in Phuket that might be an issue, but as backpackers travel for months at a time, do they really need to travel so quickly?

Ed Gillespie, co-founder of sustainability consultants Futerra, recently finished a twelve-month, Round-the-World trip featuring oceans, deserts, mountains and forests but absolutely no airports. He and his girlfriend, Fiona, covered 64,018 kms through 21 countries on five continents. If they had flown that distance they'd have created 7,898 tonnes of CO2, but by taking trains, ferries, tramp ships, and one banana boat, their journey was only responsible for about 17% of that sum. Ed and Fiona's journey didn't start well, with a storm in the Bay of Biscay which made the national papers (and which Ed and Fiona were on the middle of, on a ferry), but from what Ed says in his blog the journey threw up (pun intended) everything that is great - and sometimes not so great - about travel, all of which they'd have traded in for 50-odd hours of boredom, bad food and sore knees if they'd chosen to fly over it all.

The debate about whether we should fly or not is a heated and welcome one, especially in light of recent announcements that budget airlines are expanding their operations to include long-haul travel. Now is the time to examine why we travel, and how. Budget airlines say they are merely reacting to a market, others believe they are creating an artificial one with their low prices. There are many opinions in the debate ranging from those who say we must never fly, to those who say offsetting is enough. There are those who say we have a personal carbon 'allowance', and others who point out that the atmosphere already contains 35% more carbon than it should so your allowance would merely be maintaining an already unsustainable level of emissions. Have a look at the links below and make up your own mind.

Travellers' Checks
lowcarbontravel.com - Ed's blog
planestupid.com - Anti-airport, anti-plane activists
nrdc.org - An article in favour of carbon offsetting
cheatneutral.com - Getting away with it!
guardian.co.uk - The debate, from The Guardian newspaper
carbonneutral.com - A carbon offsetting company

Low-carbon Festival travel
Loco2, the UK-based travel site features low carbon solutions for getting to the summer's top European festivals including Denmark's Roscilde, Ireland's Electric Picnic and Benicassim in Spain. Visit loco2.co.uk to find out more.
 
Should we visit Burma?

Last year the International Red Cross published a report severely criticising the rulers of Burma (Myanmar) for human rights abuses. The Burmese government has been dominated by the military since 1962 and by the repressive regime of General Than Shwe since 1992. Reports of forced labour, religious persecution and violence against women are common. Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader who was democratically elected in 1990 (having been disqualified from standing by the military), and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has spent 10 of the past 17 years in detention. Amnesty International describes the regime's continuing campaign against the Karen peoples of the east of the country as 'crimes against humanity'.

The military junta owns or controls most of the tourist infrastructure in Burma. As the country opens up to tourism there are reports of forced labour being used to develop tourist sites and (if this is even in the same league) restoration techniques being used on ancient sites - including the 1000-year-old temple complex at Pagan - that appear to be doing more harm than good. So, should we boycott Burma?

Aung San Suu Kyi said in an interview in 1995 that any investment, aid or tourism should be "conditional on genuine progress towards democratization". The principal argument against tourism is that since the tourism infrastructure in Burma is largely controlled by the military, tourist dollars only prop up the current regime.

Lonely Planet has been criticized for publishing a guide to Myanmar (thereby encouraging people to visit) but as Joe Cummings, editor of the LP's Myanmar guide, points out, "It's interesting to compare Amnesty International reports for several countries, say, for instance, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, China, India and Myanmar. Myanmar doesn't come out the worst of the lot - not by far." His main arguments are that not only can we spend our money wisely but that more tourism means that the population will be freer from the abuses of the government if more foreigners are around to see.

Both positions have their flaws. Whilst cutting off the country completely is unlikely to hasten a change in government, there are many countries mentioned in Amnesty International reports who also have thriving tourism industries and who show little sign of improving their human rights abuses. Diplomacy, rather than tourism, may be the solution.

If you detect a whiff of hypocrisy it's because you've seen Guillaume Pernette's photos of Burma in the Day12 Zoom Room. Are we suggesting you visit Burma? Probably not. But check through some of the links below and make your mind up for yourself. Once you've done that see the forum where Nick Clarke has some more information on the subject from political activist Mark Thomas.

Travellers' Checks
burmacampaign.org.uk - UK-based campaign with excellent links page
uscampaignforburma.org - US-based pro-democracy campaign
lonelyplanet.com - Lonely Planet's view on the debate
daask.com - Nobel laureate and political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi
ibiblio.org - Interview in which Suu Kyi discusses the tourism boycott
amnesty.org - Anmesty International's 2007 report on Myanmar

OR! Check out the official Myanmar state website which features "tons of information on its people, its beautiful tourist destinations, where to go and eat, which supermarkets offer the best prices and so on." Read about General Than Shwe's 'message of felicitations' to Belarus, Lt-Gen Ye Myint's inspection tour of the Mandalay Division or Lt-Gen Thein Sein's edifying address to the special refresher course No 9 for faculty members of the Central Institute of Civil Service (Upper Myanmar). All this and more double-speak at the official, state-sponsored www.myanmar.com. To be taken with a pinch of salt, or a bag of crack.

Aung San Suu Kyi, known as Daw Suu (pictured right), nobel peace prize winner and
leader of Myanmar's opposition has been in and out of prison for almost ten years, a victim of her country's brutal military junta, and celebrated her 65th birthday, under house arrest, on the 19th of June 2010.

Unesco reports that the military regime in Myanmar, in an effort to monopolise the tourist industry, is 'restoring' the ancient temples at Pagan, an act Unesco calls 'archeological blitzkrieg'. Unesco has been, unsuccessfully, trying to negotiate World Heritage status for the site with Myanmar's ruling junta, which is using unauthentic materials such as poured concrete and even bathroom tiles for the project. For more information visit www.unesco.org