Australia s walking holiday boom: the environment versus tourism
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Australia s walking holiday boom: the environment versus tourism
brisbanetimes.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from brisbanetimes.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Filed to:eco tourism
Image: Sailaway Port Douglas
Australia is renowned worldwide for its natural wonders. So it’s no surprise that we’ve always had a thriving tourism scene as visitors from far and wide journey to see the local wildlife and scenery.
The catch-22 of this situation is that while tourism fuels the economy, it’s no secret that humans have a massive negative impact on the environment.
Most of the time this impact comes down to human negligence. You only have to look at the sheer amount of plastic that is found throttling wildlife in the ocean or the irreversible damage that has been done to Uluru after years of human climbing to see the damaging effect humans can have on the sites they travel so far to see.
Take a look at the Red Centre s full waterholes in the gallery above.
Half a dozen green-winged budgerigars chitter as they flit between the branches of tall gum trees. A kite wheels silently, high overhead. But the sight that stops me in my tracks is a pair of ducks – not a particularly exotic bird, except when you are in the middle of the desert. How did these two come to be bobbing along happily in a waterhole outside of Alice Springs?
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The Alice is famously dry. The Todd River that runs through town is usually a dry riverbed. The air itself is so dry that fleets of international aircraft are currently parked in deep storage at the airport. In short, the Alice is not an obvious swim spot.