TIES Founder Megan Epler Wood to Write for VISION

Megan Epler Wood, founder of the International Ecotourism Society, is to write a series of articles for VISION on Sustainable Tourism. Her first article Ecotourism Needs More Links to Social Enterprise -– is now online.

Megan Epler Wood is the founder and past-president of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES). In January 2003, she launched an international consultancy EplerWood International, an international exchange program for her home city of Burlington, Vermont in cooperation with the Institute of Sustainable Communities, and a web-based Epler Wood Report with analysis, trends, and reviews on issues in the field of sustainable development, conservation and tourism.

Epler Wood was named as a Trail Blazer in Conde Nast Traveler’s September 2008 issue, which highlights 10 eco-travel watchdogs including Epler Wood – a 20-year veteran and pioneer of the ecotourism movement. The watchdogs are recognized in this World Savers issue for their work to help ensure that tourism respects the environment and human rights. Their work also helps to preserve indigenous cultures.

Epler Wood’s decade of seminal work in the 1990’s running The International Ecotourism Society, which she founded, helped to define ecotourism and create the field that exists today. In recent years, Epler Wood has increasingly focused on the business and economics of tourism as a means to combat poverty – demonstrating how tourist dollars can help countries ethically and sustainably develop even in the most challenging circumstances, such as after civil wars.

“I have learned that without applying good, solid business solutions in developing countries all efforts to make tourism ethical or green go for naught,” she says. ”I find myself helping folks develop small tourism businesses in just about every remote rain forest region on the planet”, she jokes.

Epler Wood has seen the demand for ethical tourism in remote parts of the planet skyrocket in the last 10 years. “Governments around the world and their people see tourism as a means to bring their economy to a new level,” she comments. She believes helping folks with good business practices first is key to paving the way for responsible tourism.

Upcoming she will work with partners in Bangladesh to create an ecotourism program at a tiger preserve on the Bay of Bengal. Adjacent to the reserve is one of the longest beaches in the world which is increasingly heavily populated by local travelers.

“What is amazing is that in the last few years, my job is not to attract foreigners but to help design tourism for local travelers because of the growing demand for leisure travel in natural areas among local citizens even in developing countries,” she notes.

Her new website, www.eplerwood.com www.eplerwood.com was recently created to allow non-technical specialists to understand how ecotourism consultants approach their work. Dramatic pictures showcase EplerWood International’s work to help prevent tourism from overrunning fragile landscapes in places like Honduras and Cambodia, to build a better opportunity for poor workers on coffee and tea farms in El Salvador and Sri Lanka, to assist a devastated economy in a post-civil war country like Sierra Leone to rebuild. Each of these countries has begun to emerge as tourist destinations both during and after EplerWood’s work.

“I think few people realize that behind the scenes there is an extraordinary amount of effort to help countries, businesses and their citizens to better understand how to make the tourism economy work for them,” she notes.

“What the tourist sees is the tip of the iceberg. The steps required to prevent tourism from destroying the places you visit are my stock and trade, but I want more young people to get involved in helping countries develop ethical tourism around the world, and have more travelers worldwide understand what it takes to make tourism responsible.”