April 19th - Reevaluating wildlife tourism with Paul Goldstein
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over 20 years in the travel industry, Paul Goldstein has gained a reputation as a forthright commentator on all things related to travel.
In today’s travel podcast, the wildlife guide and photographer shares forthright opinions on "eco-tourism", the value of visitors in preserving wildlife, and the value – or otherwise – of influencers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder, Friday the 19th of April. |
| 0:10.1 | I have an interesting guest for you. Paul Goldstein, wildlife guide, co-owner of Kichetechee Safari camps in Kenya, and somebody who's been making in the press |
| 0:24.0 | really quite a lot of noise about ecotourism, which, Paul, I gather you're not exactly |
| 0:31.2 | a particular fan of the term. |
| 0:33.2 | I'm frankly, eco-tourism, it's a sort of greenwashing term that people are happy to bandy around. |
| 0:39.4 | It came about about 20, 25 years ago when people realized that their customers were beginning to get an ethical conscience. |
| 0:46.2 | So we better do something about it. |
| 0:47.3 | So they put some little logo. |
| 0:48.4 | And the classic phrase was always, we contribute a percentage of our profits. |
| 0:52.7 | Well, the word profit, yes, percentage. |
| 0:55.9 | Hmm, sometimes as little as a pound, I mean, it's shameful. |
| 0:59.3 | It really is. |
| 1:00.1 | And as ever, the ones who really do something, generally don't bray about it in such a manner. |
| 1:04.8 | Is it important? |
| 1:05.6 | Yes. |
| 1:06.5 | Should you do your research before you take your holiday? |
| 1:09.7 | Yes, let's not be pious. |
| 1:11.4 | Those two weeks, three weeks, one week, almost always the singly most important part of the year, |
| 1:16.9 | hence so it generates considerable stress. |
| 1:19.3 | But also you can contribute so much by just maybe changing a few holiday habits, |
| 1:25.5 | and maybe not staying in an all-inclusive hotel, which all the money is kept in some vertically integrated glutton-fed bank vault, or, you know, the nine-decked cruise ship. Do they really bring so much good? I don't know. Have a look. And ask the awkward questions. Do. You know, I spoke to somebody the other day who went to Antarctica, didn't really enjoy it. I said, why not? They said, well, we could only get ashore twice in the whole journey. Well, that's what happens when you don't do your research. She was on a 500-birth, you know, morally questionable gin palace. And strangely, you know, the treaty says less than a hundred or you know you |
| 2:02.3 | you have to take it in terms research keyword in anything it really is what happens though |
... |
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