The environmental costs of travel is an ever-growing discussion. It’s easy to say that less travel worldwide would mean a smaller environmental impact, but many nations are dependent on tourism for their livelihood, making the issue a bit trickier than it may seem. The Maldives is a perfect example.
The island nation in the Indian Ocean has made big environmental news in the past few months as its geography is threatened by the impending climate change crisis; rising sea levels would make the many islands and coral atolls of the lowest lying nation on earth disappear. Because of the impending threat, President Mohammed Nasheed is not only attempting to make his nation the first to be carbon neutral, but he’s looking for a new homeland. But all of that comes at a cost, which is where tourist dollars come in quite handy.
In 2008 some 683,000 visitors came to the Maldives — twice the size of the local population — and now the President is planning on banking on those tourists, charging a $3-a-day green tax.
Charging tourists isn’t the only thing President Nasheed is doing; he’s also advocating strongly for countries to look beyond national interests and come to a progressive agreement this December at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. “[T]he core point is, there’s hope. It’s not doomed,” President Nasheed was quoted in the Economic Times. “We can reverse the situation.”
The President’s green-tax does open up an interesting question for green travel: how do we sustain economies that are dependent on tourism without hurting the environment? Is a tax the answer?
[Via: Treehugger]
[Photo: Chi King, Flickr]
