Global tourism stakeholders can play a significant role in addressing climate change if the innovativeness and resources of this sector are fully mobilised and oriented towards mitigating its negative impacts, a Nepalese member of parliament said.
Mahalaxmi Upadhyay Dina told delegates to the 15th General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentarians' Conference on Environment and Development (APPCED) here Tuesday that the tourism business and destinations also needed to adopt work ethics that exerted minimum impact on the environment and to capitalise on new opportunities in sustainable ways.
She said this was critical because despite having a huge potential in tourism development, climate change had caused a big setback for the sector as well as the socio-economy of the people at large.
Citing Nepal which is situated 60m above sea level, she said a recent report observed that the hot weather was rapidly shifting from a lower tropical climate to a higher range of alpine climate, causing serious impacts such as water sources drying up and warmer days in winter.
"Nepal, despite being a non-emission zone is directly or indirectly being affected by the global emission of greenhouse gases which causes temperature rise.
"It is observed that the people living there are finding it hard to adapt to the changing weather patterns, as they are traditionally unprepared to cope with extreme weather conditions such as frequent droughts and floods, breakout of crop and livestock diseases and conflicts over water-sharing," she said.
The Malaysian MP for Simpang Renggam Liang Teck Meng said that in Malaysia, the phenomenon had also disrupted functioning of the ecosystems, rendering low survival or extinction of some species of flora and fauna, and was also affecting the marine ecology.
"For instance, the problem of coral bleaching that happened in many diving spots in Malaysia in 2010 due to rising sea-water temperature to 30 degrees Celsius had deprived tourists of their favourite activities - scuba diving and snorkelling," he said.
Liang presented the country report titled, "Impact of Climate Change on the Tourism Sector in Malaysia", at the conference.
However, he said, despite the challenges, the tourism industry in Malaysia had managed to maintain its growth at nine per cent from 2000 to 2010.
"The number of international tourist arrivals had reached 24.6 million in 2010, while Malaysia was also ranked the ninth most visited destination in the world by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation," Liang said.
While climate change may bring about more adversities than advantages, a Canadian delegate said Canada to a certain extent was benefiting from the phenomenon as the longer spring and summer seasons also meant a longer tourist season.
"However, there will be other aspects of Canada's tourism sector which may suffer, so adaptation of the industry or community to the climate change impacts will be necessary," said Senator Paul J. Massicotte, pointing out that skiing was an obvious industry that might be adversely affected by climate change.
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