ties ecocurrents quarterly emagazine - 2006 q1

Irresistible Travel Experiences available at www.ecotourism.org SPECIAL FEATURE: GREEN SKI SLOPES MOVEMENT GREEN ON WHITE: REFORMING SKI TOURISM 1 A WORLD’ S FAIR ON THE ENVIRONMENT 1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCORECARD FOR U.S. SLOPES 3 SKI AREAS’ GREEN IMAGE NOT BACKED BY ACTION 3 ASPEN SKIING COMPANY 4 SUSTAINABLE SLOPES IN EUROPE 5 ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE: THE CASE OF SHARK FIN SOUP 7 UNEP MEETING ON TOURISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT FALLS SHORT OF EXPECTATION 9 GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON TOURISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT 11 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: EcoCurrents Uniting Conservation, Communities, and Sustainable Travel Price: $2.00 USD Editor: Katie Maschman The 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago showcased two giant machines – the ‘dynamo’ for the generation OF electricity and the first Ferris wheel for generation of pleasure – and thereby popularized new t echnologies. Similarly, the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris unveiled the Eiffel Tower as the world’s tallest building and raised the international profile of architectural innovations. Today the environmental movement needs something like a World’s Fair to propel it more firmly into the popular psyche and culture. We need a World’s Fair to help demonstrate new ways of thinking and then living. The Chicago World’s Fair brought together what had been spread in bits and pieces throughout the nation. It didn’t lecture and rant at the audiences. It showed them: The electric dynamo lit 200,000 incandescent alternating-current light bulbs in a nation where even cities were still dimly lit. And the Ferris wheel hoisted people 264 feet into the sky to show them how easily metallurgy and modern engines could transform their view and their enjoyment of life. Guest Editorial: A L’ I H EVI By: Ed Marston & Auden Schendler This issue of EcoCurrents features an examination of initiatives to implement environmentally sustainable practices within ski resorts. While ski resort tourism has not generally fall under the umbrella of ecotourism, the sustainable slopes movement is worthy of TIES’ examinat ion for several reasons. Our organizational mandate includes promoting efforts to use the environmental, social and economic principles that guide ecotourism to help reform the broader tourism industry. For instance, the rapidly growing “green hotels” movement has gained impetus and adopted lessons from ecotourism. Similarly, Committed to Green and other programs for more sustainable golf courses have been influenced by ecotourism practices such as use of native plants and grasses and recycled water. Ski resorts make an enormous environmental footprint. For example, they cause deforesta tion and polluted runoffs and consume large amounts of fossil fuels for lifts and buildings and water for snowmaking. In 2000, the Sustainable Slopes Program (SSP) was founded by the National Ski Areas Association in U.S. as a certification program to promote “beyond compliance principles of environmental manageme nt. ” TIES has a long track record in promoting third-party tourism certification programs with performance based standards to measure social and environmental impacts. We therefore wanted to take a critical look at this certification initiative within the ski industry. Editorial: G WHI: RI SKI TI By: Martha Honey (continued on page 2) (continued on page 4)

ties ecocurrents quarterly emagazine - 2006 q1

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