SUSTAINABLE TOURISM FOR THE TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER
You’ve heard the saying “lead by example”, well as travel photographers we are promoting travel destinations and I see it as our duty to promote safe and sustainable tourism.
In this post I will provide some tips on why it is important that we use sustainable principles when travelling.
So what is sustainable tourism? Tourism is the worlds biggest industry and a major income generator for most countries and many regional and local communities. However, some visitor destinations suffer from over development and irresponsible travellers. These may be places we have come to love photographing because of their rich culture, beautiful landscapes and stunning beaches, but can be at risk of losing what we loved about them in the first place. Sustainable Tourism is not just about protecting the environment, although this is super important, by reducing waste, protecting the wildlife, marine life, coral reefs, reducing mosquito borne illnesses, but also respecting local culture and the lives of those in tourism driven destinations.
It is about taking more responsibility on how we travel.
As travel photographers, how we tell our story to our audience matters. Our audience looks to us for guidance on how to behave as tourists. So, I’ve compiled a list of tips on how you can become a responsible travel photographer.
1 - Educate yourself before you travel to a destination. What is the culture and how can I respect this. It may mean covering up in religious areas or even in certain public places. Local youth can often look up to tourists and copy their behaviours. This can mean the culture that you have travelled to experience and photograph is slowly dwindling away. So be respectful and photograph to appropriately promote the culture.
2 - If you plan on traveling to less wealthy countries, when you book accommodation, ask if they hire locals and are any of the locals in management roles. You may not think this is important, but a lot of places don’t hire locals, which means the money you spend may not be kept in the local economy. Training locals into managerial roles can mean higher wages to circulate around the local economy increasing the overall standard of living for those areas. Also staying in local run small accommodation, you may discover and expose great environmental practices and more of the culture, which will make for fantastic photos to tell more of a story about the place you visit.
3 - Reduce single use plastics. You can do this by not using single use plastic bags and carrying your own. In some parts of Australia, we have to carry our own bags to the supermarket as single use plastic bags are no longer available. Why should it be any different elsewhere? We often respect and advocate for our own clean environments but then this all goes out the door when we travel. Single use plastic does not break down quickly. Imagine this stockpiling up and up, eventually ending up on our beaches and in our oceans, killing off marine life and damaging our coral reefs (amongst other things that are damaging our coral reefs). Also disposed plastics become breeding grounds for mosquitoes as rainwater will pool in the plastic and then mosquitoes breed in this water.
4 - Reduce your food waste. We as travel photographers love to take photos of food. It’s part of telling the story of where we are. This also means we can sometimes over order, then this food just then goes into waste. So be mindful of what you are ordering and maybe instead think of only ordering what you plan to eat. You can always return for your next meal and photograph this also instead of photographing everything in one sitting and wasting more and more food.
5 - Ask before taking photos of people. Photographing someone in certain cultures can be perceived as bad luck, so ask permission. If they say no, that’s ok, respect their decision, say thank you and move on. Others may ask for money. That’s also ok, usually it is because they are poor and need money. So, if you want the photo and it is not too much money to you, then pay it and feel good that you may have just fed someone’s family. In some instances, you can’t ask for permission, the person might be a blip on the screen or just another face in a huge crowd. Usually people are ok with this kind of photography, unless someone notices you’ve taken their photo and comes and tells you to delete the photo. Then just respect their decision.
6 - Support local businesses. Eat at local cafes, hire local guides, shop at the local owned and operated retail businesses. Support the local farmers. Ask the cafes where their produce is coming from. A lot of places import their produce from overseas, even here in Australia we can grow the best produce, but we tend to import a lot, because we always want produce even if out of season in our location. So, ask yourself, if it is not in season in this country then it must be imported. If it can be grown and not imported, then try to support this and eat locally grown and farmed produce. It’s not just better for the local farmers, but better for the environment by eliminating the need for transportation. Think about photographing the fresh produce markets, because they can tell a great story of the location and it’s people.
7 - Reduce water usage. Take less or shorter showers, reuse towels. Do you really need a new towel every time you laze on one beside the pool or on the beach? We wouldn’t do this at home, think of all that washing,.Yuck! So don’t do it while travelling.
8 - Reduce carbon emissions. Can you walk or cycle, do you need to take a car? You can stop more places to take photos and see more things when walking somewhere. Some of the favourite photos I’ve taken are from walking on the back streets of a destination. You can really capture the heart of a place and tell a true story.
10 - Empower women. This can be about photographing and telling the story of women. There is still so much inequality. We as travel photographers still feel unsafe in some parts of the world, so let’s help support women in business and help them succeed. A quote by Michelle Obama rings true in my ears “There is no limit to what we as women can accomplish”
11 - Unplug. We as photographers use a lot of energy, charging our camera’s, computers etc. so think about only charging what you need. When you’ve finished charging, switch it off and unplug it. Turn your air conditioner and lights off when you’re not in your room. I know I’ve done it myself, when in a hot and steamy location, you leave the room air conditioner on so when you return its nice and cool. Imagine how much energy is being used and wasted in doing this. Switch it off, it will only take a few minutes to get the room cool again when you return.
12 - Leave no trace. Don’t litter and always respect the environment. Don’t tramp across native plants damaging them. Safety should be your number 1 priority with every photoshoot. What’s the point in taking a great photo if you’re not around to develop it? If a barrier has been put in place, then there is a good reason for it, whether that be safety of public or protecting the natural habitat. Just remember, people may look at your photos and try to replicate them, imagine every person wandering off the paths or jumping over barriers to get the same photo. The natural habitat would be so worn down and damaged, it’s not going to look good for very long. Also, when photographing coral reefs, remember they are quite brittle and can be damaged very easily.
13 - Take authentic photos. Think about what the visitor will actually see and experience not the unreachable location or unavailable or unsafe activity. Keep your photography real.
So, you see, it’s not all about climate change. While that is a big factor, there are so many more ways you can be a better travel photographer and promote/educate others on better ways to travel. So, what sort of travel photographer do you want to be?
Now more than ever it is the time to act. We have been all closed off from travelling due to Covid-19, the global economy has suffered, especially those areas reliant on tourism. The earth seems to have taken a well-earned rest from the carbon emissions generated by air travel. So, let’s all commit to becoming better tourists , and promote it the way we do best, through our photos.
If you want more information on Sustainable Tourism, or want to know how you can do more, jump on the UN website. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
First published 2020