In beautiful countries close to the tropics, often governments do not respect human rights, and tourism can cause a lot of damage:

• Expropriation of farmers and entire villages razed in order to construct tourist complexes that are of no important economic consequence for the local population;

• Expulsion of fishermen's villages, sometimes stretching to kilometres on the coast;

• Layout of infrastructure for hotels and other tourism related activities (airports, road network, hotel complexes, golf courses, water sports, cycling tracks 4X4 etc.);

• High consumption of water by hotels, their swimming pools and lush green spaces. On an average, near the tropics, a tourist consumes 7 to 10 times more than a farmer does, to water his fields and feed his family. Often water to the farmers is rationed so that luxury hotels function according to western standards;

• Destabilization followed by urbanization brought about by tourism. Break-up of traditional and family structures;

• Impoverishment, begging;

• De-structuralization of culture for the benefit of 'folklorized' sub-culture. Often the impact on traditional autochthonous minorities is irreversible;

• ...and the worst, is prostitution of children, who are often very young.

The tourist who has the best intentions and who is well informed on the situation of the planet cannot suspect all this because very often there remains nothing around his hotel, club or cultural activity that he has chosen from a catalogue, of what existed a few years back. Publicity on tourism aims to give the tourist a good conscience.

Message from Transverses Association

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