Editorial: YEAR-ROUND PADDLING

October-November 2003

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Alan Wilson

Paddling is becoming a year-round and a planet-wide activity, as you’ll see in this issue. The coastlines and rivers of our watery globe are being ‘re-explored’ by modern paddlers everywhere in an intimate and personal way.

For the sun-seeking paddler, the availability of folding or inflatable kayaks in backpacks makes the range of destination options virtually unlimited. Alternatively, kayaks can be rented on arrival and guide services obtained in many southern locales. To help you identify your dream destination, we offer a range of stories, starting far away in the Marshall Islands, Thailand and Australia, then heading back towards North America, visiting Costa Rica and the Bahamas on the way, before reaching the sunny Baja and Florida peninsulas.

We end up right here at home, in the Pacific Northwest, with a look at mothership paddling in the off-season and at prime winter kayak surfing on the west coast. Even in our relative ‘north’ (Georgia Strait), you can easily find days in any month of the year when it’s pure bliss to be on the water in a kayak. You just have to go when the weather is good.

So you don’t have to hang up your paddle and grab your skis when summer ends, unless you want to. Those of us who thrive on the spiritual and physical sustenance paddling provides can pursue it year-round, here or abroad.

A recent report by the UN and the nonprofit group Conservation International, shows that nature-based adventure travel is one of the fastest-growing segments within the global tourism industry, one of the largest industries on the planet. Tourism to the world’s biodiversity hotspots—many located in the world’s poorest countries—increased by more than 100% between 1990 and 2000.

Tourism is a principal export of the world’s forty-nine least-developed countries and number one for thirty-seven of them. Most of these countries are located in the mid to southern latitudes, exactly where northerners like to take winter vacations. Ecotourism can play a crucial role in conserving biodiversity, the report says, if it’s done right. Helping poorer counteries link tourism development with environmental conservation can save species and habitats. Characterized by environmental sustainability, protection of nature, and supporting the well-being of local peoples, ecotourism can have a positive impact on biodiversity and provide important economic alternatives for local communities.