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Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

bbc.com

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Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#121

Post by criddell »

marapuru wrote: post #61
qwsxyh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I like having visual memories too. But are my memories triggered by a self-made almost identical photo of a specific glacier or tree at a touristic attraction? In the last couple of years I've not taken photographs of things from which I was sure already tens of thousands of photos exist. In my opinion people forget the importance of the experience itself. It seems as if there must always be some form of evidence to…

I just returned from a short vacation with my kids and I took a bunch of photos. Every one has somebody from my family in it, often doing something goofy. Yesterday, while waiting at the dentist office I was flipping through them and it was wonderful.

The memory trigger wouldn't be as strong with a stock photo.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#122

Post by hef19898 »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #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.…

Icelands performance during the European soccer cup also provided a kickstart for tourism. Thing is, it is an incredibly nice country with incredibly nice people.

Back the tourists used to be nature lovers, either individual travelers or in small groups with local guides. Now you have mass tourism (at least compared to the old days). And with that you get all the problems that come with it.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#123

Post by gambiting »

whatshisface wrote: post #111
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grandparent is probably pointing to Singapore. That is a state that is infamous for being extremely clean and tidy. At the same time, it is highly consumerist, with so much of its traditional community infrastructure demolished and replaced with shopping malls.

Don't the massive government penalties for littering have something to do with it? It turns out that, yes, after all, laws and punishment do act as a deterrent.

No, time and time it has been proven that the inevitability of punishment is a deterrent, not the punishment itself. A punishment for littering could be 10 years of hard labour, but it doesn't matter a little bit if there's no one enforcing it and there's no police on the streets. Like.....you know why people are speeding? Not because anyone thinks "meh, the fine is only $200, I can afford that" but because they think "I'm not going to get caught today".

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#125

Post by jacquesm »

ixtli wrote: post #41

I hate to sound cynical but the reason it seems like everyone knows someone who's gone to Iceland in the past 5 years is because the government has been heavily subsidizing flights and hotels to this exact end. There really was no other outcome :( Also the government only needs to levy a 1000 USD fine on a few people in order to stop a lot of this because the American press will seize on it immediately.

I've been to Iceland once on a business trip and the tickets were outrageously expensive, the fun bit was that the same - now defunct - airline would have happily taken us to the USA for a small fraction that they asked for the trip to Iceland. And that USA trip would be through Iceland...

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#126

Post by PavlovsCat »

tomxor wrote: post #112
ixtli wrote: post #46

Earlier 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…

I think you're both wrong. Since the dawn of civilization there has and always will be people disrespectful of nature. Your proposed causes are merely localised perturbations. I think the _recent_ issue is in the title, and it's global, it's social networking. I can't think of any other force in the world that pushes huge numbers of people who have basically no interest or respect for nature, to go out into it, not l…

> Pictures are the a natural resource for social networking, and nature is full of them, ripe for exploitation.

> [..] it is an economic function of photography to supply the masses, by modish processing, with matter which previously eluded mass consumption.

-- Walter Benjamin, 1934

It's like people shifted from even that, to needing to have a photo with themselves front and center. Trample nature, then mess up the photo, too, and of course, burn a whole lot of kerosene.

To be less bitter about it, if people had more imagination and confidence, they wouldn't need to see everything first-hand, and wouldn't need to collect external proof that they're "someone". That seems achievable and worthwhile.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#127

Post by ajmurmann »

onion2k wrote: post #100
knd775 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went there in the winter (when things are generally a bit cheaper) a couple of years ago and it wasn't too bad. Food, however, was incredibly expensive everywhere. No where else have I spent nearly $20 USD for a meal at a fast food restaurant.

If you'd eaten the local cuisine it would have been cheaper. Importing goods to an island is expensive.

Even a bowl of Icelandic lamb soup can go up to $20 now. Wasn't like this a few years ago though.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#128

Post by cglace »

jacquesm wrote: post #120
seattle_spring wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never been to Korea or Japan, but I spent several months exploring the parks of China. I never want to go back.

You really should not extrapolate to a whole continent from such a small sample.

Do be fair, they did say "east asia" and China does make up the majority of east asia by population and land mass.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#129

Post by siphon22 »

We need to become more vocal about tourist etiquette so that it becomes part of the social consciousness I think. Back then, we were making fun of people we considered unwashed for not having passports and being untravelled, and now we are surprised that unwashed people are ruining nature in other countries.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#130

Post by mhss »

marapuru wrote: post #27

This 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')…

https://xkcd.com/1314/

I'd stay on the topic at hand. Most people are nobodies at instagram and they just want to share with their friends. I do not have instagram nor post pictures elsewhere, but I also don't feel entitled to tell others how to live their life. The real problem here is breaking the law (e.g driving off-road), influencer or not, tourist or not.

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