Paradise Lost?
17th June 2022
As part of the Year 8 Geography course, students investigate the impact of tourism around the world. So not only was our trip to Zanzibar lots of fun, we also were able to consider the impacts that tourists have on the island.
Our tour of Stone Town taught us the history of the town and as we walked the narrow lanes we saw the bright array of shops selling lots of tourist souvenirs. We also added to the local economy by making a few purchases ourselves.
The visit to Prison Island saw the many tourist boats carrying the visitors the short distance across the sea to the island that is supporting the conservation of some of the oldest tortoises on the planet.
The following day we visited a butterfly farm, the Jozani Forest, the mangrove forest and Kuza caves, where yet again we saw how tourism is helping conserve the natural environment of the island and support many different species.
Tourism supports Zanzibar economically but as we saw it can also harm the environment. We did a beach clean-up where we found a huge amount of rubbish including lots of plastics that had been left behind by visitors using the beach.
Back in class students are now writing their own code of conduct for tourists visiting the island, to encourage them to enjoy all aspects without harming the paradise that Zanzibar is.
