Rural tourism in Latvia is a form of tourism taking place in rural areas or settlements, providing employment and income to local population, and offering individualised holiday products to consumers. Rural tourism is based on accommodation service which is complemented by additional services/facilities relying on the local social, cultural and natural resources, which are exploited according to the principles of sustainable development.
Accommodation
Country and village homes, vacation cottages with accommodation capacity up to 20 bedplaces. Number of extra bedplaces up to 50% of the number of permanent bedplaces. Catering for parties and mass tourism events is not the main focus of the accommodation establishment.
Additional services/facilities
Food service, sauna, excursions, country meals from local products, nature trails, holiday activities, etc.:
1) Recommendable activities (complying with principles of sustainable development): eg., horse riding, boat rent, bicycle rent, fishing, cross-country skiing, skating, etc.
2) Non-recommendable activities (contradicting to the principles of sustainable development):
- Mass tourism and recreation, e.g., sports halls, sports centers and sports grounds, mass sports competitions, organised games – paintball, camps., etc.;
- Forms of tourism or tourist activities bringing negative environmental impact, e.g., golf, off-road, water skidoos, downhilll skiing, etc.
Location
Rural areas and settlements with up to 5000 inhabitants. Rural environment with a characteristic agrarian landscape or natural values. Tourism is not the only or dominant economic activity in the area.
Inadequate location:
- urban or industrial area
- mass tourism environment with respective infrastructure
- noise, risk/danger to safety and health, pollution, dirtiness, etc.
Social resources
Local cooperation – between accommodation owners, traditional and non-traditionl farms, craftsmen, open farms, bird and animal watching, local products for sale. Opportunities for tourists to meet with local people. Rural tourism establishments are owned by local entrepreneurs which provides for income and jobs for the local population. Maximum relation "tourist beds / inhabitants in the respective area village, town, rural municipality)" is 1/1.
Cultural resouces
Traditions and customs reflecting cultural identity and values – traditional festivities, food recipes, music, traditional crafts (e.g., pottery, beer brewing, etc.). Traditional architecture, private collections, etc.
Natural resources
Waters, forests, meadows, bogs, rural landscape, flora and fauna. The environment is not industrialised/urbanised. Biological diversity is mainatined in surrounding areas.
Development of rural tourism in particular area does not threaten the above described natural, cultural and social resources, at the same time stimulating economical development and increasing the quality of living space of the local population.
Tourism, Travel, Hospitality, Conservation: News,Stories And Experiences From Allover The World
Showing posts with label forests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forests. Show all posts
Saturday, 14 May 2016
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
MALAYSIA: Destruction Of Forests By Palm Oil Company Contiues
Data shows that in 2014, Malaysia experienced deforestation and plantation activity on more than 493,000 hectares of its land area, with 171,743 hectares affected in Sarawak alone.
The company is continuing to develop a large plantation in a Sarawak peat forest despite a government commitment to conservation.
Local and international environmental activists have alleged that BLD Plantation Bhd, a Malaysian palm oil company with a less than stellar sustainability record, is relentlessly deforesting a peat-rich land concession it holds in the country’s vulnerable and oft-exploited Sarawak State.
Satellite images recently from Friends of the Orangutans (FOTO Malaysia), to Mongabay appear to show that the firm is significantly revving up its destructive operations on the Lassa Land District concession, located in Sibu, Sarawak.
BLD is thought to have felled some 10,600 hectares of the 20,466-hectare plot since it obtained the lease in 2000, and new data and images suggest the company has continued clearing about 11 hectares per day between June 30 and September 18 of this year, or over 900 hectares in roughly two and a half months.
BLD’s rampant deforestation was among the topics brought up in an October meeting between Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan and a coalition of activists and specialists from NGOs including FOTO Malaysia, the Center for International Policy (CIP), Borneo Resources Institute (Brimas) and Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SATIA), among others.
The group sought to encourage Adenan, who has drawn praise for his willingness to address and acknowledge the state’s alarming forestry situation, to put into practice more sustainable initiatives in Sarawak. Tied into that discussion were BLD’s plans to expand its operations.
“We were inspired to hear you say that, ‘We should all look at forests as a naturalist would, not just a source of dollars,” the NGOs wrote in a letter to Adenan after the meeting. “Of course, as you said, what counts is not the commitment, but the implementation.”
However, in the case of BLD, it seems that if a tree falls in Sarawak and somebody is around to hear it, the government will still not make a sound.
“It appears that the Sarawak government will neither take any action nor even reply our to emails,” said Upreshpal Singh, Friends of the Orangutans Director.
Sarawak’s tacit approval of BLD’s continued clearance of this valuable forestland — an area listed in a 1982 report by Sarawak’s Agriculture Department as nonetheless unsuitable for agriculture — will likely have drastic ecological and social consequences down the road, Singh said.
“This concession sits on very deep peat so that deforestation results in massive CO2 emission, and increase the severity and frequency of flooding,” he said in an email. “In addition to that, local communities are being threatened and kicked out from their ancestral lands by BLD.”
Malaysia’s natural resource-driven industries have consistently devastated its invaluable forests and peatlands. Last year, according to data from the forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch, Malaysia experienced deforestation and plantation activity on more than 493,000 hectares of its land area, with 171,743 hectares affected in Sarawak alone.
Furthermore, nearly all of the timber being felled in Sarawak in recent years is believed to derive from natural forests rather than plantations, potentially destroying habitats for threatened species such as hornbills, orangutans and Borneo pygmy elephants.
It’s not just wildlife that is crucially affected by Malaysia’s often-unrestrained deforestation. Land cleared for palm oil and timber is often inhabited by human communities, and the powers that be have used their positions to force out people who have been dependent on the forest for generations.
Activist Nicholas Mujah, of SADIA, said two indigenous communities, the Iban and the Melenau, are currently embroiled in land disputes with BLD, and members are being arbitrarily arrested for attempting to protect their crops and prevent further encroachment.
“It’s a hard battle down here because land investment companies are supported by the government and elected representatives politicians at the policy level, while at the ground level, they are protected by gangsters and, in many cases, by police,” he said in an email.
BLD did not respond to multiple requests for comment
A major issue, Mujah said, is that customary lands are usually not legally demarcated.
Since he started compiling court cases in the year 2000, Mujah said indigenous peoples have filed more than 400 lawsuits against companies due to land grievances. And while he said customary communities have come out on top in about 85 per cent of the cases he’s seen, the legal process remains a huge hurdle, with some cases taking up to eight years to be resolved.
“Only international pressure can stifle the arrogant actions of our regime and save the environment,” Mujah said, adding that consumers have a special ability to publicly shame such companies into operating more ethically.
Still, Malaysia’s forestry and agriculture industries remain incredibly lucrative. The forestry sector, fuelled by Malaysia’s extensive tropical tree cover, contributed $5.7 billion to its economy in 2011 and employed 210,000 people.
And then there’s palm oil. Malaysia produces 39 percent of the planet’s palm oil, and 44 per cent of its palm oil exports — numbers made even more impressive given palm oil is a $44 billion dollar industry that is continuously growing.
BLD, for its part, netted a profit of just over $7.6 million in 2014.
These economic realties offer a possible glimpse as to why Adenan, a self-described “amateur naturalist” who openly discusses undertakings such as orangutan conservation, has thus far failed to stem the tide of plantation development in his state, especially by firms like BLD.
“I think the Sarawak government has taken some actions to curb illegal logging, but it’s unclear what the scope of those are, and how much of a long term thing it will create,” said Glenn Hurowtiz, a senior fellow at CIP who also participated in the meeting with the Chief Minister. “I think there were other indications that it was business as usual.“
Though Adenan gave indications that he’s ready to move in a more ecologically sensitive direction, Hurowitz explained such a shift is crucial both in environmental and fiscal terms: More and more major palm oil companies, such Cargill andBunde, have committed to sustainability pledges and are refusing to buy crude palm oil from growers who destroy forests and peatlands.
“I think Sarawak as a state is at risk of losing its market share,” he said.
But given the current state of affairs, with companies like BLD running amok in Malaysia’s forests and public officials showing signs of sitting back at letting it happen, Hurowitz expressed doubt over Adenan’s ability to rein in Sarawak’s bad actors.
“If the Chief Minister won’t even stop a company that’s engaged in as egregious behavior as BLD, it sort of puts into question his ability to fulfill his promises,” he said. “It’s disappointing.”
The company is continuing to develop a large plantation in a Sarawak peat forest despite a government commitment to conservation.
Local and international environmental activists have alleged that BLD Plantation Bhd, a Malaysian palm oil company with a less than stellar sustainability record, is relentlessly deforesting a peat-rich land concession it holds in the country’s vulnerable and oft-exploited Sarawak State.
Satellite images recently from Friends of the Orangutans (FOTO Malaysia), to Mongabay appear to show that the firm is significantly revving up its destructive operations on the Lassa Land District concession, located in Sibu, Sarawak.
BLD is thought to have felled some 10,600 hectares of the 20,466-hectare plot since it obtained the lease in 2000, and new data and images suggest the company has continued clearing about 11 hectares per day between June 30 and September 18 of this year, or over 900 hectares in roughly two and a half months.
BLD’s rampant deforestation was among the topics brought up in an October meeting between Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan and a coalition of activists and specialists from NGOs including FOTO Malaysia, the Center for International Policy (CIP), Borneo Resources Institute (Brimas) and Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SATIA), among others.
The group sought to encourage Adenan, who has drawn praise for his willingness to address and acknowledge the state’s alarming forestry situation, to put into practice more sustainable initiatives in Sarawak. Tied into that discussion were BLD’s plans to expand its operations.
“We were inspired to hear you say that, ‘We should all look at forests as a naturalist would, not just a source of dollars,” the NGOs wrote in a letter to Adenan after the meeting. “Of course, as you said, what counts is not the commitment, but the implementation.”
However, in the case of BLD, it seems that if a tree falls in Sarawak and somebody is around to hear it, the government will still not make a sound.
“It appears that the Sarawak government will neither take any action nor even reply our to emails,” said Upreshpal Singh, Friends of the Orangutans Director.
Sarawak’s tacit approval of BLD’s continued clearance of this valuable forestland — an area listed in a 1982 report by Sarawak’s Agriculture Department as nonetheless unsuitable for agriculture — will likely have drastic ecological and social consequences down the road, Singh said.
“This concession sits on very deep peat so that deforestation results in massive CO2 emission, and increase the severity and frequency of flooding,” he said in an email. “In addition to that, local communities are being threatened and kicked out from their ancestral lands by BLD.”
Malaysia’s natural resource-driven industries have consistently devastated its invaluable forests and peatlands. Last year, according to data from the forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch, Malaysia experienced deforestation and plantation activity on more than 493,000 hectares of its land area, with 171,743 hectares affected in Sarawak alone.
Furthermore, nearly all of the timber being felled in Sarawak in recent years is believed to derive from natural forests rather than plantations, potentially destroying habitats for threatened species such as hornbills, orangutans and Borneo pygmy elephants.
It’s not just wildlife that is crucially affected by Malaysia’s often-unrestrained deforestation. Land cleared for palm oil and timber is often inhabited by human communities, and the powers that be have used their positions to force out people who have been dependent on the forest for generations.
Activist Nicholas Mujah, of SADIA, said two indigenous communities, the Iban and the Melenau, are currently embroiled in land disputes with BLD, and members are being arbitrarily arrested for attempting to protect their crops and prevent further encroachment.
“It’s a hard battle down here because land investment companies are supported by the government and elected representatives politicians at the policy level, while at the ground level, they are protected by gangsters and, in many cases, by police,” he said in an email.
BLD did not respond to multiple requests for comment
A major issue, Mujah said, is that customary lands are usually not legally demarcated.
Since he started compiling court cases in the year 2000, Mujah said indigenous peoples have filed more than 400 lawsuits against companies due to land grievances. And while he said customary communities have come out on top in about 85 per cent of the cases he’s seen, the legal process remains a huge hurdle, with some cases taking up to eight years to be resolved.
“Only international pressure can stifle the arrogant actions of our regime and save the environment,” Mujah said, adding that consumers have a special ability to publicly shame such companies into operating more ethically.
Still, Malaysia’s forestry and agriculture industries remain incredibly lucrative. The forestry sector, fuelled by Malaysia’s extensive tropical tree cover, contributed $5.7 billion to its economy in 2011 and employed 210,000 people.
And then there’s palm oil. Malaysia produces 39 percent of the planet’s palm oil, and 44 per cent of its palm oil exports — numbers made even more impressive given palm oil is a $44 billion dollar industry that is continuously growing.
BLD, for its part, netted a profit of just over $7.6 million in 2014.
These economic realties offer a possible glimpse as to why Adenan, a self-described “amateur naturalist” who openly discusses undertakings such as orangutan conservation, has thus far failed to stem the tide of plantation development in his state, especially by firms like BLD.
“I think the Sarawak government has taken some actions to curb illegal logging, but it’s unclear what the scope of those are, and how much of a long term thing it will create,” said Glenn Hurowtiz, a senior fellow at CIP who also participated in the meeting with the Chief Minister. “I think there were other indications that it was business as usual.“
Though Adenan gave indications that he’s ready to move in a more ecologically sensitive direction, Hurowitz explained such a shift is crucial both in environmental and fiscal terms: More and more major palm oil companies, such Cargill andBunde, have committed to sustainability pledges and are refusing to buy crude palm oil from growers who destroy forests and peatlands.
“I think Sarawak as a state is at risk of losing its market share,” he said.
But given the current state of affairs, with companies like BLD running amok in Malaysia’s forests and public officials showing signs of sitting back at letting it happen, Hurowitz expressed doubt over Adenan’s ability to rein in Sarawak’s bad actors.
“If the Chief Minister won’t even stop a company that’s engaged in as egregious behavior as BLD, it sort of puts into question his ability to fulfill his promises,” he said. “It’s disappointing.”
Monday, 21 September 2015
INDONESIA: Smoke Choking Indonesians
Smoke caused by forest fires and peatland destruction, is covering about 80% of Sumatra, Indonesia. And it seems like no matter how far you try to escape, the smoke follows.
For the past fortnight, most of Sumatra has been blanketed by smoke, triggered by forest fires in South Sumatra and the central east and eastern provinces of Riau and Jambi. It’s currently the dry season and major companies are accused of intentionally and illegally burning to clear land for palm oil plantation; and individual farmers are using “slash and burn” techniques to make way for new crops, resulting in a thick haze that has also enveloped Singapore and Malaysia, and forced the closure of schools and airports. Needless to say, the pollution is stifling.
A friend in Pekanbaru who was unable to move his family away from Riau, has no choice but to try and live with the dangerous pollutants. Another friend, who recently had a baby, was recommended by the doctor to take his daughter outside as much as possible so she can bathe in sunlight, which is crucial to avoid jaundice. Unfortunately, the sun never shines as smog has shrouded the Pekanbaru sky.
In the last several years, the Indonesian government has spent millions of dollars fighting forest fires via water bombing and cloud seeding efforts; and our President Joko Widodo has shown compassion and concern for the raging situation. Last November he visited Sungai Tohor in Riau, one of the provinces most affected by peatland fires, and personally blocked one of the many canals dug to drain peatlands for plantations. Just this month Jokowi visited “ground zero” in South Sumatra, stressing that the situation was “urgent”.
"I've ordered the police chief to get very tough on companies that do not comply with the law... and instructed the Forestry Minister to revoke (their) licences once they are found guilty on criminal charges," said Jokowi.
But it seems like Jokowi’s promises are about as hazy as the air around us.
Last week Indonesia revealed its draft Intended Nationally-Determined Contribution (INDC) submission – a public document that outlines what post-2020 climate actions they intend on taking in the lead up to the COP21 climate summit. Whilst this document should have set out solutions to the ongoing deforestation crisis, it unfortunately fails to provide any commitment to zero deforestation, or peatland protection and restoration. With Indonesia being among the top emitters of greenhouse gases, and overtaking Brazil in terms of deforestation, this seems like a glaring and obvious omission.
Just how long the government intends on waiting before taking serious action on the situation is a worrying question. Just a few days ago my wife showed me the air quality data in Pekanbaru – DANGEROUS! This means that our living space is no longer fit for humans to inhabit, and for the second time we’ve been forced to cancel our plan to move back to Pekanbaru.
With the smog blanketing so much of Sumatra, there is practically nowhere to escape. But now I am no longer waiting for the mercy of the government, nor the conscience of those who are selfishly burning and destroying the forests just to expand their monoculture plantations. Instead, my will to fight back has strengthened after looking into the eyes of my three-year old daughter, my wife and especially the future of the baby still inside her womb. They have to breathe the fresh air – even if it only means for a distant tomorrow.
A friend in Pekanbaru who was unable to move his family away from Riau, has no choice but to try and live with the dangerous pollutants. Another friend, who recently had a baby, was recommended by the doctor to take his daughter outside as much as possible so she can bathe in sunlight, which is crucial to avoid jaundice. Unfortunately, the sun never shines as smog has shrouded the Pekanbaru sky.
"I've ordered the police chief to get very tough on companies that do not comply with the law... and instructed the Forestry Minister to revoke (their) licences once they are found guilty on criminal charges," said Jokowi.
But it seems like Jokowi’s promises are about as hazy as the air around us.
Last week Indonesia revealed its draft Intended Nationally-Determined Contribution (INDC) submission – a public document that outlines what post-2020 climate actions they intend on taking in the lead up to the COP21 climate summit. Whilst this document should have set out solutions to the ongoing deforestation crisis, it unfortunately fails to provide any commitment to zero deforestation, or peatland protection and restoration. With Indonesia being among the top emitters of greenhouse gases, and overtaking Brazil in terms of deforestation, this seems like a glaring and obvious omission.
Just how long the government intends on waiting before taking serious action on the situation is a worrying question. Just a few days ago my wife showed me the air quality data in Pekanbaru – DANGEROUS! This means that our living space is no longer fit for humans to inhabit, and for the second time we’ve been forced to cancel our plan to move back to Pekanbaru.
With the smog blanketing so much of Sumatra, there is practically nowhere to escape. But now I am no longer waiting for the mercy of the government, nor the conscience of those who are selfishly burning and destroying the forests just to expand their monoculture plantations. Instead, my will to fight back has strengthened after looking into the eyes of my three-year old daughter, my wife and especially the future of the baby still inside her womb. They have to breathe the fresh air – even if it only means for a distant tomorrow.
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