Ecotourism, natural resource conservation proposed as allies to protect natural landscapes

(University of Georgia) If environmentalists want to protect fragile ecosytems from landing in the hands of developers -- in the US and around the globe -- they should team up with ecotourists, according to a University of Georgia study published in the Journal of Ecotourism.Environmentalists often fear that tourists will trample all over sensitive natural resource areas, but tourism may bring the needed and only economic incentives to help drive conservation, said study co-author Bynum Boley.