TY - JOUR
T1 - Are feral pigs (Sus scrofa) a pest to rainforest tourism?
AU - Koichi, Kana
AU - Cottrell, Alison
AU - Sangha, Kamaljit K.
AU - Gordon, Iain J.
PY - 2012/6/1
Y1 - 2012/6/1
N2 - Invasive alien species potentially pose a threat to the sustainability of ecotourism by degrading the quality of the environment on which the industry depends. However, little research has investigated such implications. In this paper, we offer a case study on the impacts of feral pigs (Sus scrofa), a major environmental pest in Australia, on rainforest-based ecotourism in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA) of North Queensland, Australia. Our study found that feral pigs seem to have negligible implications for tourists' rainforest experience owing to their lack of prior knowledge about the existence of these animals within the WTWHA and rare sighting and acknowledgement of the damage caused by them. Nonetheless, values that tourists ascribed to the WTWHA rainforest were negatively affected once they acknowledged the existence of feral pigs. We propose that effective provision of environmental education as part of ecotourism experience can result in the management of both sustainable ecotourism and the invasive species.
AB - Invasive alien species potentially pose a threat to the sustainability of ecotourism by degrading the quality of the environment on which the industry depends. However, little research has investigated such implications. In this paper, we offer a case study on the impacts of feral pigs (Sus scrofa), a major environmental pest in Australia, on rainforest-based ecotourism in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA) of North Queensland, Australia. Our study found that feral pigs seem to have negligible implications for tourists' rainforest experience owing to their lack of prior knowledge about the existence of these animals within the WTWHA and rare sighting and acknowledgement of the damage caused by them. Nonetheless, values that tourists ascribed to the WTWHA rainforest were negatively affected once they acknowledged the existence of feral pigs. We propose that effective provision of environmental education as part of ecotourism experience can result in the management of both sustainable ecotourism and the invasive species.
KW - environmental education
KW - invasive alien species
KW - Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
KW - pest management
KW - the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area
KW - total economic value
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84863895035&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14724049.2012.703672
DO - 10.1080/14724049.2012.703672
M3 - Article
SN - 1472-4049
VL - 11
SP - 132
EP - 148
JO - Journal of Ecotourism
JF - Journal of Ecotourism
IS - 2
ER -