Peace Through Tourism
Aside from the crazy and hateful “Freepers” who stand on the corner of Rt. 108 and Georgia yelling at the peaceful, old Quaker ladies holding signs like “Peace Lives” and “Honk for Peace,” who doesn’t like the idea of peace? We especially love the saying, “There is no way to peace; peace is the way.” Deep, right? Love it!
There are many ways that peace can be linked to tourism. Craig Zelizer did some background work and has listed and described several organizations and projects that are doing just that. Check out his article here and don’t ignore the comments section where many other organizations have chimed in to tell us about their tourism and peace projects as well.
Peace, Paz, Salam, Shalom, Ashtee, Barish, and finally in Esperanto no less, Paco!
There is another sense of the phrase “Peace Through Tourism.” Peace doesn’t always have to be human to human peace, it can also be human to wildlife peace. Many eco-tourism companies throughout Africa are working hard to implement conservation systems and classes that enable humans and widlife to coexist peacefully.
Many times, human expansion patterns move in on wildlife territory and when this happens, habitats are destroyed and animals move into residential areas looking for food. The result? They are killed by locals when they eat crops or destroy property.
These eco-tourism companies are a peace catalyst between humans and wildlife.
Sandy - I love this point of view - thanks for your insightful comment!
And thank you for the great post