travel council

I had been ranting for years about the impacts an Industrial Tourism economy could create. My pleas fell on deaf ears, especially with the mainstream environmental community. Organizations like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) embraced the change and even devoted an entire issue of its newsletter praising the amenities economy as a clean, non-polluting way to bring economic prosperity to areas that had previously depended on the extractive industries to survive. What they failed to consider was that while coal mining and oil and gas exploration and ranching could scrape bare the skin of the rural West, a massive monolithic tourism economy would eventually bare and destroy its very soul.

How can we continue to condemn the irresponsible and unacceptable behavior of people that we believe are damaging our irreplaceable natural resources, while ignoring or playing down the ever-growing destruction caused by us! Non-motorized recreationists–hikers, group hikers, bikers, climbers, rafters, kayakers, runners, action tour groups!–all those enlightened sportsters who wrap themselves in the environmental flag and send money to the Sierra Club while wreaking their own kind of enviro-havoc?

But that is the route we took–instead of taking the noble route and simply stating that the designation of wilderness was the right and courageous thing to do, we tried to promote the economic advantages of wilderness. Wilderness Pays in Spades! Since then, the cumulative effect of billions of footprints and tire tracks, and the transformation of rural communities into ‘tourist towns’ from millions of ‘amenity migrants’ have left an indelible mark. In short, the natural beauty of our land was packaged and commodified and sold. By us. We’re not just talking “surface rights” anymore. This goes right to the soul.

Tag: travel council

From 2007: “Brave New West”(The Amenities Boom & Meltdown) w/ 2024 Updates —Jim Stiles (ZX#103)

21 Zephyr Years Ago—“It’s Time to Look in the Mirror”— by Jim Stiles (ZX#12)