As Locog winds up, what is the London 2012 legacy?
Around ten months after they opened, the London 2012 Olympic Games are becoming a distant memory, but as another summer begins the efforts to ensure lasting legacies continue. An unexpected surplus in the final accounts of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) means a minor windfall for legacy projects, while yesterday…
The value of National Parks
National Parks all around the world attract many millions of visitors, help to protect habitats and wildlife, and provide areas where urban dwellers can go for a break from their normal lives. The world's first national park is generally held to be Yellowstone National Park, established in 1872 in the USA. But while parks and…
Pandemic influenza: lessons learned from 2009-10
Pandemics appear to have occurred throughout history, the first being recognized in 1580. Reviewing previous pandemics can give an indication of what might be expected, however nothing is certain - it is impossible to predict the next pandemic virus or its impact, as demonstrated by the 2009 A(H1N1) pandemic.
International Day of Persons with Disabilities – much still to be done in travel and leisure industries
Today, Monday 3 December, has been designated International Day of Persons with Disabilities by the UN, with the theme of "removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all". While the Paralympic Games in London this summer showed just what many people with disabilities are capable of achieving, and acted as a driver…
The many challenges of wildlife tourism
Earlier this week I got to visit the World Travel Market in London: primarily a trade show in travel and tourism, there are also many seminars, presentations and panel discussions which were my reason for attending. Having recently come back from Namibia where the main tourism draw is wildlife, I was interested to attend a…
Handpicked Typepad blog cookies
Cookie Information At CABI we are committed to protecting your privacy. This statement discloses how CABI’s blogs use cookies. What is a cookie? A cookie is a small piece of information that is sent by a website to your web browser, where it becomes stored for later retrieval; usually it is a text file which…
Tiger tourism: to ban or not to ban?
Both as a wildlife enthusiast and a writer on tourism, I've been following with interest over the last month or so the ongoing debate in India over whether tourism should be banned from core areas of the country's tiger reserves. On Tuesday 24 July, India's Supreme Court temporarily banned any form of tourism in the…
Mythbusting sports and exercise products
The Olympics are now only a week away, and watching the world's top athletes in action may inspire less elite sports participants to look for ways in which they can boost their own performance. There is a large industry offering all kinds of products claiming to do just that: sports drinks and supplements, shoes and…
Tourism and water: are local communities losing out?
As my colleague Vera Barbosa said in her blog last week, here at CABI HQ in the UK we have been experiencing our wettest spring and early summer on record. Not surprisingly therefore, when going on holiday many of those who are able like to jet off to parts of the world where we can…
Towards an ecology of belief: The limits of science for preserving public parks
The following guest article was written by Will La Page, author of the new book "Rethinking Park Protection: Treading the Uncommon Ground of Environmental Beliefs", which has just been published by CABI. It describes the inspiration for the book and for the thinking behind it. A small group of park scientists friends were sitting around…