Nature-based tourism in a changing climate: costs and benefits for endangered species

气候变化是人类面临的最大挑战之一，对自然界和人类福祉产生多重、相互作用的影响。据估计，旅游业占全球碳排放量的8%，旅游量继续快速增长。然而，旅游业是一些生物多样性高但财富低的国家的经济支柱，以自然为基础的旅游业可以为保护个别物种、景观和海景提供重要的激励。这不可避免地在自然旅游业对生物多样性和人类福祉的积极影响和消极影响之间造成紧张关系。这种紧张局势难以解决，迄今为止很少受到关注。 这个博士项目将量化自然旅游业对气候相关的社会生态的积极和消极影响，使用特定的濒危物种非洲野狗作为模型系统。最近的研究表明，气候变化对野狗种群产生了重大影响，显然是因为环境温度高限制了野狗的狩猎行为，导致食物摄入量低，因此死亡率高。这种相对简单的机制可以在碳排放和野狗灭绝风险之间建立直接联系。与此同时，野狗种群的生存依赖于野生动物友好的栖息地，大部分栖息地被保护起来，以支持以自然为基础的旅游业。反过来，以自然为基础的旅游业支持地方经济和社会文化系统，因此，这些经济和社会文化系统也面临着气候变化影响的风险，因为野狗和野生动物友好型栖息地的丧失。具有讽刺意味的是，这些社会文化系统严重依赖持续的旅游业，因此，前往和访问该地区的游客的碳排放量持续并可能增加。这个项目试图探索这两个显然不可调和的权衡。 该项目的具体目标是：（1）将国际旅游业（特别是航空业）碳足迹的现有数据与将碳排放与非洲野狗种群动态联系起来的现有模型相结合（3），量化旅游业对整个非洲特定地点野狗灭绝风险的贡献。(2)通过半结构化的访谈和焦点小组与当地社区在肯尼亚和南非的既定实地考察点，调查和评估的贡献，以自然为基础的旅游当地人民的容忍与野狗共存。(3)通过与非洲决策者和保护专业人士的关键线人访谈，探索以自然为基础的旅游业在保护支持野狗种群的景观中发挥的作用。(4)结合联合收割机证据，说明野生犬种群基于自然的旅游业的成本（在碳排放方面）和效益（在生境保护、当地容忍度和对人类福祉的贡献方面），为围绕在不断减少的碳预算范围内促进旅游业的政策辩论提供信息。

Climate change represents one of the greatest challenges facing humanity, with multiple, interacting impacts on the natural world and on human well-being. Tourism has been estimated to account for 8% of global carbon emissions, with tourism volumes continuing to grow rapidly. Nevertheless, tourism is an economic mainstay for some countries with high biodiversity but low wealth, and nature-based tourism can provide important incentives to conserve individual species, landscapes, and seascapes. This inevitably sets up tensions between the positive and negative impacts of nature-based tourism on both biodiversity and human well-being. Such tensions are difficult to resolve and have, to-date, received little attention. This PhD project will quantify the positive and negative climate-related socioecological impacts of nature-based tourism, using as a model system a specific endangered species, the African wild dog. Recent research has suggested major impacts of climate change on wild dog populations, apparently because high ambient temperatures constrain wild dog hunting behaviour, leading to low food intake and hence high mortality. This relatively simple mechanism allows direct links to be drawn between carbon emissions and wild dog extinction risk. At the same time, wild dog populations rely on wildlife-friendly habitat for their persistence, and much of this habitat is conserved to support nature-based tourism. In turn, nature-based tourism supports local economies and socio-cultural systems, which are therefore also at risk from climate change impacts, in terms of loss of wild dogs and wildlife-friendly habitat. Ironically, these socio-cultural systems rely heavily on continued tourism and thus, continued and potentially increasing carbon emissions from tourists travelling to and visiting the region. This project seeks to explore these two apparently, irreconcilable trade-offs. The project's specific aims are:(1)Combining available data on the carbon footprint of international tourism (especially aviation) with an existing model linking carbon emissions to African wild dog population dynamics(3), quantify the contribution of tourism to wild dog extinction risk at specific sites throughout Africa. (2) Through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with local communities at established field sites in Kenya and South Africa, investigate and evaluate the contribution of nature-based tourism to local people's tolerance for coexisting with wild dogs. (3) Through key informant interviews with African policymakers and conservation professionals, explore the role that nature-based tourism plays in conserving landscapes which support wild dog populations. (4) Combine evidence on the costs (in terms of carbon emissions) and benefits (in terms of habitat conservation, local tolerance and contributions to human wellbeing) of nature-based tourism for wild dog populations, to inform policy debates around the promotion of tourism within shrinking carbon budgets.