Hi Colin,
I'm most happy for you that your "partner - who happens to be female - Sue has
repeatedly joined me on walks in search of birds and waited patiently while I
oohed and aaahed ect." At various times in my travels, I have had similar
company and these have been the nicest trips. It is up to you but I don't like
sleeping in a car (although when I had the Landcruiser with the roof rack, many
times, I slept above the roof).
You don't need to defend yourself. I was simply doing, as many writers on this
list do, use a passing comment made by someone, as a springboard to raise
another idea for comment. The idea was not about you, Colin, but about whether
us birdos (IN GENERAL) should legitimately claim to be supporting ecotourism,
when I think most of us (such as myself) try to travel cheaply. In contrast,
things like big sports events generate much income. For example there is a push
to have power boats on Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. We can say that
disturbing the birds on the lake that people come to see, would reduce economic
benefits of tourism. Sure, but sadly the tourism potential of boat races is
vastly greater. How do we as conservationists get around this problem?
As for Carl's comment, of course it is each person's choice. I also use a
camper-trailer and can live independently for nearly 3 weeks when I go birding.
And I have done so for the last 23 years. Sometimes I use a tent and sometimes
family and sometimes hire a cabin. When going to Tasmania (1996 & 2003) we
hired a caravan. The point is that generally I try to be frugal in my
expenditure and I think most of us do. Also being unemployed, I can't afford to
travel much, as I need to be applying for jobs and never know when and what is
coming up and don't have a lot of funds. I WAS INCLUDING MYSELF IN THE issue.
Philip
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