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This page provides feedback from travellers hopping along The Kangaroo Trail. If they have identified a good place to see kangaroos and their kind then we have added a Google map. If the feedback identifies services that can be provided to other travellers then please contact the provider directly. Affie writes: What can we do to save the kangaroo from culls? I suggest you include something regarding that on your website. E-mails to the PM for example...
We aim to change ‘hearts and minds’ towards our iconic kangaroo fauna through education, wonderment and subtle advocacy revealed through the economic activity of appropriate and responsible wildlife tourism.
The advocates of harm to wildlife, like kangaroos, claim that the only way to persuade people and communities to conserve them and their habitats it to give them a monetary worth. They promote a simplistic model of ‘eat them and/or wear them’ reaching back into our subsistence hunter/gatherer past for justification. The outcomes of this model are low economic value ceded by the whole community to a few individuals for profit, weak animal welfare standards, and exploitation on an industrial scale without any proof of economic or ecological sustainability (especially when all the evidence is against this as in commercial whaling and fisheries). Current advocacy that kangaroos should replace methane-belching cattle and sheep for a more benign environmental impact in a future of climate change is equally simplistic. The commercial kangaroo industry exists and has done so in its current form for many decades. It operates at the regulators' sustainable level if the full quota were taken. The industry itself claims that at full capacity it could only meet about 4% of Australia's red meat demands. Thus where do all the additional kangaroos come from? The claim that removing livestock releases resources to sustain more kangaroos contradicts downward population trends in large protected areas where livestock have been removed (e.g. Sturt National Park in NSW) and the claim that there are too many kangaroos because livestock wrought landscape changes favourable to them. Would such changes be sustained if livestock were removed?
In contrast, with 760 million international arrivals to destinations worldwide,
tourism reached an all-time high in the year 2004. Thus tourism has become one
of the most important business enterprises and employers across the world with
consistently strong forecasts for the next decade
In the Australian context, the market for the Kangaroo Trail Map project is the wildlife sector of eco- or responsible tourism - a large segment of a market of some $71.3 billion dollars. Market research by the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC) has shown that 18.3% of our international tourists are attracted to Australia singularly because of its wildlife with 67.5% of all international tourists wanting to see animals. A $25.2 billion dollar expenditure by these same travellers equates to between $2.7 billion and $5.5 billion of value from tourism with wildlife, especially kangaroos as the most popular fauna. The economics of various studies such as Watchable Wildlife Inc. (USA) and the Tourism Research Australia as well as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, backed up by The Australia Institute and the STCRC, support the sustainable value of wildlife viewing. Wildlife tourists consume goods, services, guide books, binoculars, telescopes, video camera equipment and outdoor clothing. Food and accommodation alone employ over 410,589 persons. Then there is petrol, diesel for bus operators, employment to wildlife managers, guides, and general or specialist tourism operators. All are at the high end of the tourism spending pattern.
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Disclaimer: The information contained on this website has been prepared by rootourismTM, a wildlife tourism information provider. The information is general only and does not purport to be comprehensive. The currency of the information is at the time of production only. New information and the correction of inaccuracies may be placed on this web site but there is no obligation to do so. The information is not intended to provide or make any recommendation on which you should rely – if you rely on this information then you do so at your own risk. The producers of this website exclude any liability for any error or inaccuracy in, or omissions from, the pages and any loss or damage which you or any other person may suffer. The producers do not necessarily endorse any company, product, service or organisation represented on the website.Send mail to
webmaster@rootourism.com
with questions or comments about this web site.
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