Protecting Endangered Cultures from Harms of Globalization: A New Product Certification Approach Using Business Incentives
A recent article by this author borrowed a strategy used by environmentalists to promote rights of species— that of the "Red Book," used to protect biodiversity—and outlined how applied anthropologists could combine with rights advocates to promote systematic monitoring and legal protections for endangered cultures, to highlight the endangerment of and to protect cultural diversity (Lempert 2010). That was one of a series of potential approaches to cultural protections suggested by this author (Lempert 1997; 2008; 2009; 2012; Lempert and Nguyen 2008) and by others to try to use governance, law, and "rights" as a means of enforcing existing international and domestic laws and obligations. Most such strategies, however, are major initiatives requiring investment of resources and risk-taking by individual anthropologists and our profession. Accountability and law enforcement are also confrontational.
How Ecotourism Affects Human Communities
This chapter examines the contribution of ecotourism to the improvement of communities’ livelihoods by providing the theoretical background and some experiences from around the world. First, we explore the role of ecotourism in empowering local people and improving resource stewardship and the role of ecotourism in influencing policy and decision-making toward biodiversity conservation. Second, we discuss the direct and indirect economic benefits of ecotourism to local communities and the role of ecotourism in educating and raising awareness toward conservation of natural resources. Finally, we discuss these issues considering the North-South debate, attempting to understand how different roles of ecotourism differ from community to community, from country to country, and from region to region. We demonstrate that there are different perspectives of ecotourism and what is meant by ecotourism in the South differs from the Northern perspective, with direct implications to how management is applied and biological impacts minimized.
The great turning : from empire to Earth community
Sweeping survey of world history offering a new understanding of the key challenge of our time Offers a positive message of hope for a sustainable and just future and a practical strategy for getting there In The Great Turning, David Korten argues that "Empire," the organization of society through hierarchy and violence has always resulted in misery for the many and fortune for the few, but now it threatens the very future of humanity as Empire has become unsustainable and destructive. Korten traces the roots of Empire and charts the evolution of its instruments of control, from absolute monarchies to the multinational institutions of the global economy. He describes efforts to develop democratic alternatives to Empire, such as the founding of the United States and shows how elitists with an imperial agenda have undermined the "American experiment." Empire is not inevitable, and we can turn away from it. Korten draws on evidence from evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, and religious teachings to show that a life-centered, egalitarian, sustainable, democratic "Earth Community" is possible.