The Ahousaht Wild Side Heritage Trail on Flores Island, built by 20 youth in 1996, is
one of the finest rainforest and wild beach trails In the world. Call:
Ahousaht Band Office: 250-670-9531
Walk the Wild Side: 1-888-670-9586
Atleo Air: 250-725-2205
Crystal Spirit: 250-670-9637
Vera Little Guest House: 250-670-9511
Photo credit: Joe Foy.
Tourism and ecotourism can create more jobs in Clayoquot than logging
- The Joint Venture forestry company between the Nuu-chah-nulth and MacMillan Bloedel announced in April of 1997 forecasts that it will provide about 20 logging jobs, up to half of them First Nations.
- In a letter to the 77 Kennedy Lake employees it laid off in January of 1997, MB projects that a joint venture operation in all of its TFL within Clayoquot Sound would employ between 20 and 40 workers.
- Ecotourism consultant James MacGregor, in a report published by WCWC in August of 1996 and submitted to Ahousaht First Nations on the management options for the Ahousaht Wild Side Heritage Trail, a 16 kilometre trail built by WCWC and Ahousaht along the west side of Flores Island, estimates that by the year 2000 the Wild Side trail can be developed to directly support 5 year-round and 38 seasonal full-time jobs.
- The B.C. government estimates that tourism can generate 25,000 new jobs in B.C.--many of them in local, family-owned businesses--over the next five years.
- A January, 1997 article in the Toronto Globe and Mail, "Clayoquot Sound turns to tourism", noted that the tourist season in Clayoquot had grown to 8 months out of the year (from March to October), and the revenues generated supported major investments such as the $8.5 million Wickaninnish Inn. In 1995, Pacific Rim Nation Park Reserve counted over one million visitors to the park.
- A study of the Economic Benefits of British Columbia Parks, released by the B.C. Government in April of 1995, shows that B.C. parks are an annual source of employment for about 9,300 people. For every $1 that the province spends on parks, park visitors spend $9.
- According to a June 1, 1997 Province news article, although B.C. has all the attributes to lure ecotourists, the estimated 1,000 ecotourism operators in B.C. have barely scratched the surface of this market. What's needed is coordination of effort, good marketing and protection of the wilderness resource base this kind of tourism must have to grow and survive. The article quotes Julie Paul, a tourism consultant who conducted the only real marketing survey of nature-culture tourism in B.C. "Nature-culture tourism is growing at 15 to 20 percent a year and it's going to have a large impact in B.C. But the concern is that we haven't got a vision or a plan on how to deal with it."
