New paper on the sustainability of dolphin watching industries in Asia

The title of our new paper

Closing this 2016, my colleagues and I are very happy to announce the publication of our collaborative paper on the sustainability of dolphin watching tourism in Asia in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. The citation and abstract are below. We have also written a piece in The Conversation (lead author Gerard E. Ryan) here.


Video Abstract - A rapid assessment of wildlife tourism risk posed to cetaceans in Asia from Taylor & Francis on Vimeo.

Bapak, Ibu, rekan kerja sekalian, dengan bahagia dan lega saya sampaikan peer-reviewed publication berikut ini tentang wisata lumba-lumba di Asia yang barusan dimuat di Journal of Sustainable Tourism. Kami juga sudah menuliskan satu artikel di The Conversation (penulis utama Gerard E. Ryan) di tautan ini.

Abstract and citations are below. Abstrak dan sitiran di bawah ini.

Citation:

Mustika, P. L. K., Welters, R., Ryan, G. E., D'Lima, C., Sorongon-Yap, P., Jutapruet, S., et al. (2016). A rapid assessment of wildlife tourism risk posed to cetaceans in Asia. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 1-21. doi: 10.1080/09669582.2016.1257012

Abstract:

Dolphin-watching tourism is growing globally. In developing countries, the typically low environmental awareness of operators and poorly enforced or non-existent regulations exacerbate risks to wildlife. Ecological indicators like behavioural responses are useful to assess wildlife tourism, but obtaining such data is slow and expensive. We modified the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework to rapidly assess the risk of dolphin-watching tourism harming, displacing or causing local extinction to dolphin populations, using human dimension data to complement limited ecological data. We assessed industries at seven dolphin-watching sites in six countries in Asia: Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. All sites have reached or almost reached financial saturation except Cambodia and Malaysia. We find high risk to dolphins at the sites in India and Indonesia and intermediate risk at the site in Cambodia. Pending more ecological data, the risk at Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysian sites might be low. Our analysis also indicates site-specific conservation recommendations for Driver, Pressure and Response. We suggest that the DPSIR framework is useful to assess the risk of a wildlife watching industry, even when the impact is uncertain due to insufficient ecological data.

The article can be downloaded from here (open access until end of February 2017).