“‘Last chance tourism’ is like a kiss of death for the planet”

Tribune. Due to the pandemic, distant destinations are currently out of reach of new forms of tourism which have the explicit objective of achieving the conquest of the entire planet, under the cover of a marketing discourse that intends “Dgive a meaning to travel ”, “Reconnecting our passengers with nature”, “Promote a remarkable site while preserving it”, “Access the most secret places”, etc.

When the borders reopen, when flows resume, when we can once again visit elsewhere near or far, it will be important to place our tourist practices in the context of a highly populated planet, increasingly intensely enhanced, rendered smaller by the transport system, subject to inexorable global warming on which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) draws an even more alarming observation.

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The tourist places already at our disposal offer an extreme diversity, in all environments, near or far: let us be wise to be satisfied with it. It seems totally unreasonable to want to integrate the last uninhabited spaces of the planet into our tourist circuits, on the pretext that the dissemination of ecological ideas promotes a growing interest in nature. This “last chance tourism” – going to see the melting sea ice, the polar bears losing their habitat, and so on. -, which shamelessly exploits climate change alerts, is akin to the kiss of death.

Big game fishing parties

Examples of incursions into these still wild spaces are multiplying in cold or tropical seas. Tourism in Antarctica was booming until 2019 – the guide Lonely Planet dedicated to this continent is in its seventh edition! -, so-called exploration and / or expedition cruises are also increasing in the Arctic Ocean, taking advantage of the summer retreat of the sea ice. In 2018, a shipping company specializing in high-end, so-called “exploration” cruises, began lobbying in New Caledonia to disembark bird-loving tourists on the Chesterfield atoll, in the Coral Sea. This isolated, uninhabited atoll is currently frequented only by poachers from Vietnam, long-line fishermen and a few tourists who can afford big game fishing. According to Philippe Borsa, research director at the Institute for Research for Development, it is about “One of the last almost unspoiled reefs and islands of sea turtles and seabirds in the tropical ocean”.

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