Walking on moss and sitting on glaciers. Whatever is Iceland going to do about such anti-social and destructive behavior?
Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
101–110 of 252 posts
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find that the root issue is individualism. There are immaculately clean cities in east asia whos parent societies would definitely qualify as highly "consumerist." It's not consumption that's the problem but the parameters within which that consumption is allowed to proceed. As well, in individualist societies we seem far more comfortable to discard our trash wherever and just forget about it. A more collectivist a…
8 of the 10 most polluted rivers in the world are in East Asia. Of the top polluted cities in the world 8 of 10 are in Asia. Your analysis falls apart with even a cursory search.
There is a difference between individual pollution and state level pollution though.
Germany may pollute the air/rivers less than China but come to Berlin; in some neighbourhoods you might think you teleported to a third world country where trash are simply threw in the streets to rot for weeks if not months before the public services finally do something.
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#103This quote from the article baffles me: > The good instagrammers try to show different ways of enjoying nature. We don't tag places that are off the beaten path that we want to protect as long as possible. Some places have become "insta-famous" without ever mentioning where they are but eventually they become known to everyone. Wait, what? So you take a picture. Put it on instagram (because you are an 'instagrammer')…
> Let's hope the future learns people that most of these instagram shots are basically digital waste. That's very condescending of you. Lots of people like having real visual memories of places they've been.
Which is irrelevant, as they can have them without posting them, as it's something for others to marvel to.
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#104[Warning ascerbic and anecdotal story below]
Iceland was the goto choice for my colleagues at a startup in London. A few days before they typically went and forked out top dollar for premium outdoor gear (Rab / Fjallraven) and discussed their plans to mount Kirkjufell.
Iceland is the mecca for many hipsters at least for the UK.
I put it down to Sigur Ros, Game of Thrones and that its still not a very touristy place.
Like most hipsters, they know the price of everything but not the value. They check into their AirBnB place and use their phone as their main method of interacting in the area, rather than interact with the locals and build an appreciation of customs and the lay of the land.
Anyways back to the story, one of these well kitted out souls managed to sprain their ankles going for a leasurely walk in the boggy areas of Iceland, only 5 minutes after leaving their hotel.
I just worry now that the Scottish government are trying to market the highlands and outer islands as the "Iceland of the UK".
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#105Same is happening in the Faroe Islands at the moment. We're at the early stages, though.
Last summer was absolutely terrible, with tourists not getting informed.
Don't get me wrong, I do not blame the tourists at all. The tourism board has put out a whole lotta campaigns, social media marketing and shit. But they didn't do anything to prepare and inform this huge influx of people.
"Unspoiled and authentic" is the message. People go trekking across the mountains, and into the private property of farmers. One farmer has threatened to shoot tourists, with messages of "Tourists fuck off to your own country".
At least one person has died. A drunk festival attendee, I believe. It can get foggy extremely quickly. They fell to their death off a mountain, because they couldn't see where they were walking.
This could have been prevented by guided tours, but that would ruin the "authentic, unspoiled, whoa nature" image that the tourism board is going for. Alternatively, educating tourists on do's and don't's. A pamphlet at the airport and the dock.
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#106“The relatively new trouble with mass society is perhaps even more serious, but not because of the masses themselves, but because this society is essentially a consumers’ society where leisure time is used no longer for self-perfection or acquisition of more social status, but for more and more consumption and more and more entertainment… To believe that such a society will become more “cultured” as time goes on and…
I find that the root issue is individualism. There are immaculately clean cities in east asia whos parent societies would definitely qualify as highly "consumerist." It's not consumption that's the problem but the parameters within which that consumption is allowed to proceed. As well, in individualist societies we seem far more comfortable to discard our trash wherever and just forget about it. A more collectivist a…
> A more collectivist attitude appears, from my experience, to get people to be more thoughtful.
Doing something good today, just because of peer pressure, means a person might take part in a progrom tomorrow, for the same motivation. I'd rather say collectivism and thought are directly opposed.
> The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.
-- Hannah Arendt, "On Evil"
And when it comes to large scale pollution, plastic flowing into the ocean, Asian nations at the very least don't seem any better than western industrialized ones, do they?
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#107I was just there a couple weeks ago. The only incident I saw of this was a recently married couple taking photo's on a cliff, they went out over the ropes, a misstep probably would have killed them. Also when you rent a car there, they inform you that going off road is prohibited. I guess some people choose not to listen.
Yeah, people die taking selfies pretty much every year on one of our local hikes here in Washington. It's the easiest trail with a spectacular view(~1200ft of gain) in the entire metro area, so people flock to it in droves. It's a hike out to a cliff that looks down on a valley floor. Every single "outdoorsy" girl on Tinder has a picture of themselves there, standing in front of the precipice. There's also the easies…
Rattlesnake ledge?
Hiking in Washington is... frustrating to say the least.
I've even seen whole families with small children show up to snowy trailheads in tennis shoes expecting to do the full hike while I'm walking out with an ice axe dangling from my bag. They don't check trail conditions ever. I'm surprised more people don't die or get injured around here especially in the winter.
Now I try to find hikes that require some route finding as the people you come across on those hikes are generally people who are actually into hiking and not ig likes.
/Pretentious rant
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain why this seems so to you? Totally not my experience with visiting national parks in Korea and Japan. For one thing, much of Japans un-developed nature is such because its largely as impassable now as it was in the 1600s when Basho wrote Ooku no hosomichi. I dunno why you'd bother paving anything. EDIT: It's also certainly not just westerners, but again, my experience has shown me that there are societ…
Never been to Korea or Japan, but I spent several months exploring the parks of China. I never want to go back.
So your experience of "East Asian national parks" is just China?
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#109I call this the 'Disney World' effect of nature tourism. Self-involved, entitled people who treat national parks and the wilderness like an amusement park that has been set aside for their entertainment. They expect the natural world to cater to their whims the same way a Disney world employee does, and they just do not understand that's not how the world works.
It's worse than this - their entire life needs to be Instagram worthy. Everything they do is in the name of getting the next perfect shot, so they can influence others in the name of social advertising to make a quick buck. They either become proficient photographers, videographers and writers or they team up with those who are, capitalizing on the latest trends in photography to consolidate their brand.
The problem is we as a culture are both enabling and encouraging this by following these influencers, in effect paying them to do this. And not just a couple of hundred bucks here and there, these social media influencers have gone from nobodies to multi-millionaires almost overnight.
So it's not all about self involved. This is one of the negative consequences of the age of social media.
My kids follow these social media influencers who may as well be today's answer to Gucci, Donna Karan, Versace, Armani. There's make up influencers for the big beauty conglomerates. There's clothing influencers for the the fashion industry. There's tourism influencers for the tourism industry, all making millions of dollars a year trying to win the hearts and minds, or rather money, of the social media generation.
Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
8 of the 10 most polluted rivers in the world are in East Asia. Of the top polluted cities in the world 8 of 10 are in Asia. Your analysis falls apart with even a cursory search.
There is a difference between individual pollution and state level pollution though. Germany may pollute the air/rivers less than China but come to Berlin; in some neighbourhoods you might think you teleported to a third world country where trash are simply threw in the streets to rot for weeks if not months before the public services finally do something.
Come to Munich and you will find no such thing. I don't think single examples can prove a point here.