2018-04-21: Task 2 (Malaysia)
Organised tours are going to remote places and communities more and more.

Do you think this a positive or negative development for the local people and the environment?

In recent decades, travelling to rural regions have been organized at an increasing rate, causing some public controversy. Although this may bring several downsides for the locals, the returns are entirely justifiable on environmental grounds.

On the one hand, the increase of remote tourism which has been a contributing factor in the sustainable development of environmental issues should not be underestimated. In fact, there are plenty of negative activities which have dramatically degraded ecosystems and habitats, suggesting an significant causal relationship between negative activities and preserved biodiversity. For example, in order to enormously expand into the highway that is within the nation’s infrastructural investment, most regions may sacrifice trees such as logging forests, which directly correlates with the soil erosion and the intensification of global warming. Secondly, although visitors and government have derived benefits from the tour industrialization, there is growing evidence that environmental issues are being threatened by air and water pollution, especially introducing toxic discharge from tertiary industry and dumping waste from unconscious activities of visitors.

On the other hand, I support the view of those who believe that the advantages of exploring distant areas outweighs the disadvantages. Firstly, residents’ lives are much more convenient thank to reap benefits of these faraway tourism, which means that people can easily achieve a success in doing daily routine. A clear illustration of this is that commuting between their home and workplace relies on the modernised infrastructure and facilities, regarding subways and aircraft. In addition, such citizens are able to become great manpowers whether an entry-level job or a white-collar job because of the need of the improvement of services and logistics belong to travelling. This reduces an enormous amount of the unemployed locals and has resulted in driving the country’s economy.

In conclusion, despite the drawbacks of arriving at unknown destination being produced in unsustainable ways, I believe the benefits overwhelm the disadvantages and that government should heavily invest its resources and finance in the improvement of far-off lands.