Nature is a nice place to save but I wouldn't want to live there: environmental education and the ecotourist gaze

This article explores the role of ecotourism in the neoliberalisation of environmental education. The practice of ecotourism is informed by a particular 'ecotourist gaze' in terms of which the 'education' that providers characteristically offer is implicitly framed, embodying a culturally specific perspective in which western society is depicted as alienating and constraining and immersion in 'wilderness' is understood as a therapeutic escape from the reputed ills of industrial civilisation. While in the past, these educational aspects of ecotourism delivery have often contradicted the activity's promotion as a quintessential neoliberal conservation mechanism, increasingly this education has become neoliberalised as well in its growing emphasis on the environment's role as an instrumental provider of 'ecosystem services' for human benefit. In conclusion, this analysis calls for transcendence of these limitations in pursuit of a more inclusive environmental education encompassing diverse ethnic and socioeconomic dimensions of the human community.