Reading 5 - Passage 1

The Impact of Wilderness Tourism

A
The market for tourism in remote areas is booming as never before. Countries all across the
world are actively promoting their ‘wilderness’ regions - such as mountains, Arctic lands,
deserts, small islands and wetlands - to high-spending tourists. The attraction of these areas
is obvious: by definition, wilderness tourism requires little or no initial investment. But that
does not mean that there is no cost. As the 1992 United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development recognized, these regions are fragile (i.e. highly vulnerable
to abnormal pressures) not just in terms of their ecology, but also in terms of the culture of
their inhabitants. The three most significant types of fragile environment in these respects,
and also in terms of the proportion of the Earth's surface they cover, are deserts, mountains
and Arctic areas. An important characteristic is their marked seasonality, with harsh
conditions prevailing for many months each year. Consequently, most human activities,
including tourism, are limited to quite clearly defined parts of the year.

Tourists are drawn to these regions by their natural landscape beauty and the unique
cultures of their indigenous people. And poor governments in these isolated areas have
welcomed the new breed of ‘adventure tourist’, grateful for the hard currency they bring.
For several years now, tourism has been the prime source of foreign exchange in Nepal and
Bhutan. Tourism is also a key element in the economies of Arctic zones such as Lapland
and Alaska and in desert areas such as Ayers Rock in Australia and Arizona's Monument
Valley.
B
Once a location is established as a main tourist destination, the effects on the local
community are profound. When hill-farmers, for example, can make more money in a few
weeks working as porters for foreign trekkers than they can in a year working in their
fields, it is not surprising that many of them give up their farm-work, which is thus left to
other members of the family. In some hill-regions, this has led to a serious decline in farm
output and a change in the local diet, because there is insufficient labour to maintain
terraces and irrigation systems and tend to crops. The result has been that many people in
these regions have turned to outside supplies of rice and other foods.

In Arctic and desert societies, year-round survival has traditionally depended on hunting
animals and fish and collecting fruit over a relatively short season. However, as some
inhabitants become involved in tourism, they no longer have time to collect wild food; this
has led to increasing dependence on bought food and stores. Tourism is not always the
culprit behind such changes. All kinds of wage labour, or government handouts, tend to
undermine traditional survival systems. Whatever the cause, the dilemma is always the
same: what happens if these new, external sources of income dry up?

The physical impact of visitors is another serious problem associated with the growth in
adventure tourism. Much attention has focused on erosion along major trails, but perhaps
more important are the deforestation and impacts on water supplies arising from the need to
provide tourists with cooked food and hot showers. In both mountains and deserts, slow-
growing trees are often the main sources of fuel and water supplies may be limited or
vulnerable to degradation through heavy use.
C
Stories about the problems of tourism have become legion in the last few years. Yet it does
not have to be a problem. Although tourism inevitably affects the region in which it takes
place, the costs to these fragile environments and their local cultures can be minimized.
Indeed, it can even be a vehicle for reinvigorating local cultures, as has happened with the
Sherpas of Nepal's Khumbu Valley and in some Alpine villages. And a growing number of
adventure tourism operators are trying to ensure that their activities benefit the local
population and environment over the long term.

In the Swiss Alps, communities have decided that their future depends on integrating
tourism more effectively with the local economy. Local concern about the rising number of
second home developments in the Swiss Pays d'Enhaut resulted in limits being imposed on
their growth. There has also been a renaissance in communal cheese production in the area,
providing the locals with a reliable source of income that does not depend on outside
visitors.
Many of the Arctic tourist destinations have been exploited by outside companies, who
employ transient workers and repatriate most of the profits to their home base. But some
Arctic communities are now operating tour businesses themselves, thereby ensuring that the
benefits accrue locally. For instance, a native corporation in Alaska, employing local
people, is running an air tour from Anchorage to Kotzebue, where tourists eat Arctic food,
walk on the tundra and watch local musicians and dancers.

Native people in the desert regions of the American Southwest have followed similar
strategies, encouraging tourists to visit their pueblos and reservations to purchase high-
quality handicrafts and artwork. The Acoma and San Ildefonso pueblos have established
highly profitable pottery businesses, while the Navajo and Hopi groups have been similarly
successful with jewellery.

Too many people living in fragile environments have lost control over their economies,
their culture and their environment when tourism has penetrated their homelands. Merely
restricting tourism cannot be the solution to the imbalance, because people's desire to see
new places will not just disappear. Instead, communities in fragile environments must
achieve greater control over tourism ventures in their regions; in order to balance their
needs and aspirations with the demands of tourism. A growing number of communities are
demonstrating that, with firm communal decision-making, this is possible. The critical
question now is whether this can become the norm, rather than the exception.

Questions 1-3
The Reading Passage has three paragraphs A-C.

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
iThe expansion of international tourism in recent years
iiHow local communities can balance their own needs with the demands of wilderness
tourism
iiiFragile regions and the reasons for the expansion of tourism there
ivTraditional methods of food-supply in fragile regions
vSome of the disruptive effects of wilderness tourism
viThe economic benefits of mass tourism
1Section A ..........
2Section B ..........
3Section C ..........

Reading Tip
To help you determine if something is NOT GIVEN, look for synonyms and
paraphrases. If none appear, the answer will probably be NOT GIVEN. But even if you
do find paraphrases, be careful: it may be that the topic is mentioned but not in relation
to the statement.
Questions 4-9
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?

In boxes 4-9 on your answer sheet, write

YESif the statement agrees with the writer's claims

NOif the statement contradicts the writer's claims
NOT GIVENif there is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
4The low financial cost of setting up wilderness tourism makes it attractive to many
countries.  ..........
5Deserts, mountains and Arctic regions are examples of environments that are both
ecologically and culturally fragile.  ..........
6Wilderness tourism operates throughout the year in fragile areas.  ..........
7The spread of tourism in certain hill-regions has resulted in a fall in the amount of
food produced locally.  ..........
8Traditional food-gathering in desert societies was distributed evenly over the
year.  ..........
9Government handouts do more damage than tourism does to traditional patterns of
food-gathering.  ..........
Questions 10-13
Complete the table below.
Choose ONE WORD from Reading Passage 1 for each answer.
The positive ways in which some local communities have responded to tourism
People/Location Activity
Swiss Pays d'Enhaut Revived production of …………..
Arctic communities Operate…………..  businesses
Acoma and San Ildefonso Produce and sell …………….
Navajo and Hopi Activity Produce and sell ………………

Reading 5 - Passage 3
The effects of light on plant and animal species
Light is important to organisms for two different reasons. Firstly it is used as a cue for the
timing of daily and seasonal rhythms in both plant and animals, and secondly it is used to
assist growth in plants.

Breeding in most organisms occurs during a part of the year only, and so a reliable cue is
needed to trigger breeding behaviour. Day length is an excellent cue, because it provides a
perfectly predictable pattern of change within the year. In the temperate zone in spring,
temperatures fluctuate greatly from day to day, but day length increases steadily by a
predictable amount. The seasonal impact of day length on physiological responses is
called photoperiodism, and the amount of experimental evidence for this phenomenon is
considerable. For example, some species of birds' breeding can be induced even in
midwinter simply by increasing day length artificially (Wolfson 1964). Other examples of
photoperiodism occur in plants. A short-day plant flowers when the day is less than a
certain critical length. A long-day plant flowers after a certain critical day length is
exceeded. In both cases the critical day length differs from species to species. Plant which
flower after a period of vegetative growth, regardless of photoperiod, are known as day-
neutral plants.

Breeding seasons in animals such as birds have evolved to occupy the part of the year in
which offspring have the greatest chances of survival. Before the breeding season begins,
food reserves must be built up to support the energy cost of reproduction, and to provide for
young birds both when they are in the nest and after fledging. Thus many temperate-zone
birds use the increasing day lengths in spring as a cue to begin the nesting cycle, because
this is a point when adequate food resources will be assured.

The adaptive significance of photoperiodism in plant is also clear. Short-day plant that
flower in spring in the temperate zone are adapted to maximising seedling growth during
the growing season. Long-day plants are adapted for situations that require fertilization by
insects, or a long period of seed ripening. Short-day plant that flower in the autumn in the
temperate zone are able to build up food reserves over the growing season and over winter
as seeds. Day-neutral plant have an evolutionary advantage when the connection between
the favourable period for reproduction and day length is much less certain. For example,
desert annuals germinate, flower and seed whenever suitable rainfall occurs, regardless of
the day length.

The breeding season of some plants can be delayed to extraordinary lengths. Bamboos are
perennial grasses that remain in a vegetative state for many years and then suddenly flower,
fruit and die (Evans 1976). Every bamboo of the species Chusquea abietifolio on the island
of Jamaica flowered, set seed and died during 1884. The next generation of bamboo
flowered and died between 1916 and 1918, which suggests a vegetative cycle of about 31
years. The climatic trigger for this flowering cycle is not-yet known, but the adaptive
significance is clear. The simultaneous production of masses of bamboo seeds (in some
cases lying 12 to 15 centimetres deep on the ground) is more than all the seed-eating
animals can cope with at the time, so that some seeds escape being eaten and grow up to
form the next generation (Evans 1976).

The second reason light is important to organisms is that it is essential for photosynthesis.
This is the process by which plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon from soil or
water into organic material for growth. The rate of photosynthesis in a plant can be
measured by calculating the rate of its uptake of carbon. There is a wide range of
photosynthetic responses of plants to variations in light intensity. Some plants reach
maximal photosynthesis at one-quarter full sunlight, and others, like sugarcane, never reach
a maximum, but continue to increase photosynthesis rate as light intensity rises.

Plants in general can be divided into two groups: shade-tolerant species and shade-
intolerant species. This classification is commonly used in forestry and horticulture. Shade-
tolerant plant have lower photosynthetic rates and hence have lower growth rates than those
of shade-intolerant species. Plant species become adapted to living in a certain kind of
habitat, and in the process evolve a series of characteristics that prevent them from
occupying other habitats. Grime (1966) suggests that light may be one of the major
components directing these adaptations. For example, eastern hemlock seedlings are shade-
tolerant. They can survive in the forest understorey under very low light levels because they
have a low photosynthetic rate.

Questions 27-33
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?

In boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet write

TRUEif the statement agrees with the information

FALSEif the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVENif there is no information on this
27There is plenty of scientific evidence to support photoperiodism. ..........
28Some types of bird can be encouraged to breed out of season. ..........
29Photoperiodism is restricted to certain geographic areas. ..........
30Desert annuals are examples of long-day plants. ..........
31Bamboos flower several times during their life cycle. ..........
32Scientists have yet to determine the cue for Chusquea abietifolia's seasonal
rhythm. ..........
33Eastern hemlock is a fast-growing plant. ..........
Questions 34-40
Complete the sentences below.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

34Day length is a useful cue for breeding in areas where……………..  are
unpredictable.
35Plants which do not respond to light levels are referred to as…………… .
36Birds in temperate climates associate longer days with nesting and the availability
of………………. .
37Plants that Bower when days are long often depend on……………  to help them
reproduce.
38Desert annuals respond to…………….  as a signal for reproduction.
39There is no limit to the photosynthetic rate in plants such as……………… .
40Tolerance to shade is one criterion for the ………………. of plants in forestry and
horticulture.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Overpopulation is the world's most serious environmental problem.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own
knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.