Dear Birding-ausers
Thankyou to the remarkable number of people who responded to my earlier
request for some reaction to some bold statements about the characteristics
of the birdwatching industry in Australia.
Given the obvious level of support, let me explain the research in just a
little more detail. The very new CRC (cooperative research centre) for
Sustainable Tourism (visit http://www.crctourism.com.au for more details)
has been established to provide the industry with sorely needed objective
and independent information on a wide variety of its activities and plans.
There are currently bits of the CRC associated with 13 universities. The
CRC is funded by Federal and State agencies, the industry and the
universities.
One of the programs of the CRC includes a major innovation in 'wildlife
tourism'. As part of this, a subsector has been established to investigate
the charactersitics of the birdwatching industry, especially as it exists
in Australia.
At this stage, our aim is to mainly to 'find out what we don't know'. A
wide variety of approaches are being used and we have obtained lots of
'official' information and data from operators, governments, agencies and
other groups. What is missing is the views and ideas of ordinary
birdwatchers - the potential or actual clients of the industry. My
birding-aus request was one of several methods for obtaining some personal
and independent input.
And it worked!
Obviously, though, this type of data does not lend itself to detailed
statistical analysis; that is not the point. A more general idea of
reactions to some dogmatic statements is actually much more useful at this
early stage.
Thanks again and if you have any further comments, I would love to hear them.
Oh, and I was wondering: what YOU give as the 5 most important birdwatching
sites in the nation?
cheers
Darryl Jones
Dr Darryl Jones
Australian School of Environmental Studies
Griffith University
Nathan Queensland 4111
Australia
Telephone: +61 7 3875 7451
Fax: +61 7 3875 7459
Email:
Homepage: www.ens.gu.edu.au/ecology/darryl/darryl.htm
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