Living Water: Marine Ecotourism, Communities and Conservation

LIVING WATER is an attempt to highlight and discuss some of the most striking examples of how Marine Ecotourism, or the non-consumptive use of marine wildlife and environments, can benefit both local people, economies and the environment itself, by providing much better alternatives for communities than 'business-as-usual' destroying species after species to simply make a living in a harsh world. But it is also a warning on how this amazing potential for good is being hampered or maligned by, first, neglect in developing adequate recognition and protection of these activities and their stakeholders at appropriate public policy fora-especially most Multilateral Environmental Agreements, where extractive use lobbies prevail-and a relentless barrage of attacks by the scientific establishment and even sectors of the environment and 'traditional community' movements on the perceived 'impact' of these activities which, as we shall see, oftentimes are anything but, regardless of sensationalistic headlines and published paper titles to the contrary. We need a less academic, proactive, local-based approach to acknowledge non-extractive uses and promote their benefits and sustainability. LIVING WATER is a call to arms for change, so that Marine Ecotourism can fulfil its promise even better and wider.