This is a past event
Wildlife tourism has grown from a cottage industry to a multi-billion global industry. Have we gone too far?
This talk is aimed at an adult audience of 16+.
Wildlife tourism has grown from a cottage industry in the 1960s and 1970s to now a multi-billion global industry; not only influencing the welfare of local communities but also being a key player in national economies.
We have had a very light touch approach to managing wildlife tourism because it has always been perceived as unable to threaten the viability of the wildlife it uses. It has been promoted as a great alternative to consumptive activities (e.g. hunting) and a great promoter of conservation values. However, the evidence for the latter are weak and we are now coming to realise that repeated exposure to tourists causes behavioural alterations that can threaten the conservation of targeted wildlife.Have we gone too far? Has it always been a problem which we are now only detecting? How can we redress the situation? What populations are more at risk? Can we have a sustainable wildlife tourism industry?David Lusseau will present work he and his lab have been doing over the past 20 years on this subject to answer these questions and offer some avenues on how we can navigate wildlife tourism towards sustainability.David is Reader is the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen. He has worked at the coalface of conservation for the past 25 years, working with local communities, nations, and inter-governmental organisations to find ways to exploit wildlife sustainably. That work sees him and his lab innovate new solutions at the interface of ecology, biology, social science, and mathematics to predict the likely conservation impacts of a range of human activities. He now spends most of his time in front of a whiteboard writing equations and wishing he was back on a boat following dolphins.This talk is part of a series of Meet The Expert talks which will take place throughout May and June.
These talks are free to attend but donations are welcome. No booking required.
- Speaker
- Dr DAVID LUSSEAU
- Venue
- Aberdeen Science Centre
- Contact
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Email: info@ASC.scot
Phone: 01224 640340