Very interesting website assisting Indigenous Peoples in Australia with establishing their ecotourism venture.  One of the things that struck me about this website is that rather than just being text based, much of it has the option of being auditory, both in keeping with the oral traditions of the culture and minimizing the exclusion potential for people who do not have certain levels of reading ability in English.  Visitors  to the site select a region of Australia in which they are interested in establishing an ecotourism venture, and then are guided through a series of steps/case studies that helps them determine what has been successful in the area and possible issues that one might have to deal with.

https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/toolbox/Indigenous/ecotourismToolbox/#

Grimwood provides a concise overview of the book Is the Sacred for Sale?  the premise of which is that “ecotourism is the greatest single threat to Indigenous Peoples.  Shielded by the doctrines of biodiversity conservation, the ecotourism industry creeps into the deepest recesses of culture and community life” and violates the full spectrum of Indigenous rights, culture and spirituality.”  Because government and industry continue to have control/interest in the development of these tourism initiatives, many are viewed as a way of alienating Indigenous peoples from their land.  Johnston proposes that this can be mitigated by the incorporation of  elders into the areas of governance and sustaining the integrity of sacred knowledge and grounded rituals.

Bryan Grimwood (2009) Is the sacred for sale? Tourism and Indigenous Peoples,  Journal of Ecotourism, 8:2, 217-220, DOI: 10.1080/14724040902786625

In searching for academic articles for my final project, I came across an articled entitled Indigenous Ecotourism’s Role in Transforming Ecological consciousness, and it is available via the UBC library in the Journal of Ecotourism. With numerous indigenous communities around the world using ecotourism to educate non-indigenous people about indigenous values and ways of life, the article “offers a critical perspective on the capacity of indigenous ecotourism to foster more sustainable lifeways by transforming the ecological consciousness of participants and stakeholders in ecotourism.”

Freya Higgins-Desbiolles (2009) Indigenous ecotourism’s role in transforming ecological consciousness, Journal of Ecotourism, 8:2, 144-160, DOI: 10.1080/14724040802696031