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Ecotourism

 

 

"Ecotourism is a popular example of SE’s contribution to the objectives of sustainable development. Ecotourism is one of the fastest growing segments of tourism, itself one the world’s largest and fastest growing industries. While accurate global figures for the economic impact of ecotourism are difficult to obtain, the sector has had obvious economic impacts in specific countries. In Costa Rica, for example, the number of foreign visitors to national parks increased from 65,000 in 1982 to over 400,000 in 1998 (UNEP, 2001). The benefits of ecotourism are well known. Ecotourism generates muchneeded revenues that can be used to support local communities and the conservation of natural resources. It creates jobs and opportunities for the acquisition and productive use of new skills. Community-based tourism can increase pride in local culture and make resources available for maintaining cultural assets and heritage sites (UNEP, 2001).

 

Ecotourism has the potential to bring the frequently conflicting objectives of poverty reduction and conservation into alignment. But ecotourism is not a uniformly positive phenomenon; it poses both contingent and intrinsic risks. If managed poorly, ecotourism can have serious negative environmental consequences, damaging the ecosystems around which it is organized. Critics of ecotourism note that the practice is an ‘instigator of change’ that ‘can be very demanding’ and ‘has the potential to be environmentally destructive’ (Wall, 1997). But there are deeper problems with the distributional impacts of ecotourism. Many models of ecotourism involve land privatization and forcible exclusion of indigenous peoples; benefits are concentrated in a limited number of hands. Traditional rights of access to the environment and the services it provides are lost as modern property rights trump these sometimes poorly defined claims, potentially intensifying poverty among specific groups. In the Philippines, hundreds of people were evicted and their houses razed by authorities clearing the area for an ecotourism venture, and in the Moulvibaza district of Bangladesh, over 1000 indigenous families face eviction from ancestral lands for the development of a 1500 acre ecopark (Wheat, 2002).

 

In Costa Rica, the designation of Tortuguero National Park disadvantaged local residents who had previously used the land for hunting and gathering activities (Place, 1991; Wall, 1997). In Surinam, one ecotourist business focused around a turtle reserve, benefited the reserve and one indigenous community, but provided no income for the larger community that was impacted by its operations. These inequalities created hostility, disinterest in conservation and social divides (Lindsay, 2003). Social systems are reoriented toward tourism and hospitality, a phenomenon responsible for altering traditional cultures and modes of existence. Ecotourism may drive population inflows, price inflation, and other socio-economic changes that destabilize communities and cultures. In Mexico, ecotourism oriented around the migratory patterns of the monarch butterfly led effectively to the coercive appropriation of indigenous lands (Barkin, 1996).

 

Ecotourism creates political benefits and trade-offs while strategies to promote it implicitly privilege the needs of certain groups and values above others. Ecotourism illustrates some of the central normative issues raised by SE. Defining the ‘social’ dimension of ecotourism is difficult because both its proponents and critics couch their arguments in the language of ‘social’ objectives. At issue are competing visions of the social good, both at the level of interests (protecting local people versus tourism developers generating economic growth), and values (environmental conservation versus economic development). Developers of ecotourist ventures can legitimately claim to be advancing social objectives because they may indeed be protecting resources and generating revenues. But ecotourism may ‘crowd out’ other kinds of initiatives that might be in the public interest, such as national conservation strategies or access rights for indigenous communities. While many of these potentially negative impacts can be mitigated by well-designed plans, limited regulatory capacity in many countries leaves environmental management in the hands of entrepreneurs whose social vision may not be consistent with the objectives of various social groups. Though ecotourism generates significant advantages for some communities and some benefits for society"

Taken from Cho (2006: 45-46)

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Introduction

 

  • The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh is a micro-credit institution that lends small amounts of money to poor people who are ignored by the conventional banking system due to their lack of collateral.

 

  • The Bank has helped 7,000 micro-lenders with 25 million clients worldwide.

 

  • Its method of small loans has advanced the economic rights of women in particular and has contributed to national economic growth.

 

  • Industrialised and developing countries have also adopted the Grameen Bank model to tackle poverty.


Background

Across the globe, women lack control over material resources and are generally less able than men to realise their full economic rights. The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh was set up to empower impoverished women.

The Grameen (village) Bank was developed by Professor Mohammed Yunus in 1976, when the country was stricken with famine. Using $26 from his own pocket, he lent cash to poor village women so that they could invest in the livestock and materials they needed to make money of their own. He received sponsorship from the central bank of Bangladesh as well as commercial banks, and in 1983 the Grameen Bank became an independent entity.

Reversing conventional banking practice, the Grameen Bank lends to the poorest in society. The bank rests on the principle that those who are too poor to get bank loans are actually good credit bets.

Women, who make up 94% of its customers, use loans from the bank to invest in business ventures like matt-weaving and small-scale agriculture.

The Grameen Bank now lends $1.3 billion to 2.3 million borrowers, most of them women. With 1,128 branches, the $2 billion operation serves 38,951 villages, covering more than half of the total villages in Bangladesh. The average loan is $160.

In spite of a national illiteracy rate of 62% (78% for women), economic activity in rural Bangladesh has seen a marked increase since the launch of the bank.

In 1998, Dr Yunus was awarded India's Indira Gandhi peace prize for his efforts to tackle poverty.

A Worldwide Trend

The Banco do Nordeste in Brazil and the Dagang Bali Bank in Indonesia have copied the Grameen Bank model.

The United States and the United Kingdom have also welcomed micro-lending institutions for their own impoverished populations.

The People's Fund in the US has been granting micro-loans to poor women and ethnic minorities since 1995.

There is a significant micro-credit infrastructure in Britain.

The British Bankers' Association said there are 62 local schemes lending £5,000 or less to help the 'financially excluded' begin self-employment or start a business. The British government has also promoted the expansion of credit unions.

The UN has encouraged Western banks to lend more money to micro-lending institutions, and the World Bank is a major supporter of the Grameen Bank.

Critiques

There are still many issues that constrain the aims of the Grameen Bank:

 

  • Critics have charged that micro-lending institutions rarely provide loans to those who most need them and that the interest charged in micro-lending institutions can be prohibitive, as it is 30% to 50% higher than commercial banks.

 

  • They argue that recipients often cannot make the most out of the loan they are given because they lack basic business skills. Moreover, the small sum they receive only enables people to trade goods, not become independent producers.

 

  • Although women are the primary loan recipients, often men are the key beneficiaries, as many husbands assert control over the money once their wives have obtained it.

 

  • Credit and income-generating programs frame the problem of poverty as a temporary, and easily remedied, cashflow problem, instead of one which bears on relations of inequality and their institutionalization in broader economic policy [White, 1991 in (Goetz & Gupta, 1996)].

 

  • In 2002, there were allegations in Western newspapers that the Grameen Bank had suffered an 85% fall in profits between 1993 and 2000.

 

  • At the level of grassroot credit operation, bank workers and peer group members inflict an intense pressure on borrowers for timely repayment, rather than working to raise collective responsibility and borrower empowerment as originally envisaged by the Bank [Yunus, 1997 in (Rahman, 1999)].

 

  • The culture in Bangledesh creates context in which it can work. As Grameen bank targets women not men, where women are sufferable by humilation if they miss a loan repayment, this creates a safeguard in which Grameen bank can operate. An example taken from Rahman (1999: 70) tells the story 'where a woman failed to pay instalments for a few weeks and was brought to the bank office by her peers. The bank workers asked the woman to sit inside a room in the Bank and locked the door from outside. The woman felt so humiliated (opomanito-hoy-se) that she hanged herself from the roof-fan by using her own sari (women’s clothing in rural Bangladesh)'. This is despite the fact that the loan is used by Men.

 

  • 'Men in the household use patriarchal ideology-women’s positional vulnerability-in their own interests. The bank workers manipulate it to recruit and extend loans, and men in the household rely on patriarchal gender relations to use women’s loans and to pay their instalments' (Rahman, 1999: 71)

 

  • Political problems with microfinance as a result of replicating the Grameen Bank business model

    • Crime, Loan sharks, payday loans

 

  • Grameen Bank has created wealth within poor, leading to political issues where 8 million+ Bangladeshis now have the power to vote and influence the government (Presidential Candidacies), which is leading to widespread political fear among Bangladesh as an entire country


Dr Yunus, however, claims that the Grameen Bank is in its 'strongest position ever.'

He noted that the bank is currently helping to finance renewable energy projects in 30 rural communities in Bangladesh. It is providing loans so that people can purchase solar panels and phone equipment to encourage Internet use.

The Grameen model does not offer a global solution to poverty but by helping to empower some of the world's poor in the short term, it paves the way for more long-term poverty eradication programmes.

 

The Beginning

 

In the late 1990s Aspire was the poster child for British social enterprise. Founded by two recent Oxford University graduates, Paul Harrod and Mark Richardson and driven by Harrod’s part time experience working for Betterware, Aspire was formed. As part of their Social Enterprise campaign Aspire employed homeless people in a door-to-door catalog business that sold fairtrade products.

 

 

The Expansion

 

By 2001, the company was doing £1.6 million in business, and was one of the first social enterprises in the United Kingdom to expand through franchising. By expanding through franchise, Aspire reasoned they could:

 

  • Reduce operating costs

  • Increase  purchasing power with suppliers

  • Expand into new markets

  • Still retain some degree of control

 

Given the scale of the proposed expansion, and Aspire’s already tight finances, Harrod needed investor backing. Therefore using his formidable charisma, he persuaded a prominent social investor to commit £400,000 to the franchise program. By September 2001, Aspire Group had opened nine franchises regional outlets distributed catalogs, delivered orders, and supervised and trained homeless and ex-homeless employees.

 

 

The Beginning of the End

 

Aspire Group and its franchisees came to rely on each other less and less. As the door-to-door catalog business became marginal, the ties between franchisor and franchisees dissolved. In July 2003 Aspire Group faced a cash flow crisis and put payments to creditors on hold. Recognizing the need for new skills in the executive team, Harrod stepped down as CEO in September 2003 and by the end of 2003, Aspire was effectively bankrupt.

The collapse of Aspire shocked the social enterprise movement in the UK, and inflicted a blow to social enterprise’s credibility as a way to address social issues. From this we learned that Social enterprises are not doomed to failure, and Aspire’s mistakes could have been avoided.

 

The full case study can be found here.

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