Abstract
Ecotourism, a sustainable form of tourism, is increasingly being viewed as a tool that can promote global biodiversity and forest conservation. This study explored the scope of ecotourism in forest conservation practices in the developing context by taking the Sitakunda Botanical Garden and Ecopark (SBGE), Bangladesh’s first ecopark established in 2000, as a case study. Using GIS and remote sensing technology, NDVI analysis revealed that, unlike the anticipated outcomes of the SBGE project, after a brief increase in vegetation coverage of 84.6% from 1995 to 2000, the vegetation coverage fell drastically from 2000 to 2015, wherein 33.4% of vegetation had been completely removed, and much of the dense and medium vegetation had been converted to sparse vegetation or other land uses. Anthropogenic activities, namely, unplanned urbanization, are suggested as the major contributors to this decline. From the period of 2015 to 2020, however, vegetation was seen to regenerate, potentially due to the decelerating urbanization or the possible manifestation of the ‘U’ shape relationship between the changes in vegetation and rates of urbanization. Sustainable land-use policies may help attain the targets of the project and lead the SBGE to emerge as a success story of the Bangladeshi ecotourism industry.
Highlights
The tourism industry has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the service sector, wherein between 2009 and 2019, the real growth in international tourism receipts (54%) exceeded the growth in world GDP (44%), contributing USD1481 billion in total international tourism receipts alone [1]
The results obtained from the spatiotemporal analysis of the vegetation coverage of the Sitakunda Botanical Garden and Ecopark (SBGE) and their corresponding accuracy assessment are presented in the following subsections
Incidences of lower vegetation cover in SBGE could be a result of the activities of individuals from local communities who rely on forest resources for their livelihoods
Summary
The tourism industry has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the service sector, wherein between 2009 and (pre-pandemic) 2019, the real growth in international tourism receipts (54%) exceeded the growth in world GDP (44%), contributing USD1481 billion in total international tourism receipts alone [1]. The tourism industry has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the service sector, wherein between 2009 and (pre-pandemic) 2019, the real growth in international tourism receipts (54%) exceeded the growth in world GDP (44%), contributing USD. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic significantly lowered tourism across the world, having caused a drop of 73% in international global tourist arrivals in 2020, international tourism experienced signs of a rebound in June and July 2021, attributed to the easing travel restrictions and the advancing global vaccination rollout [2]. Tourism can be of different kinds, usually deriving its characteristics from the intentions of the tourist. One such facet of tourism is ecotourism. Ecotourism primarily emerged as the need for sustainable tourism and was recognized since mass tourism often constituted uneven development and high social and environmental costs [4]
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