Pacific Island case study : Impact of tourism on small island marine ecosystems: Insights from two Pacific archipelagos

Many Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are characterised by unique marine ecosystems which attract millions of international visitors every year, creating a profitable business for tourist operators. On the downside, the rising tourist numbers are associated with changes in these ecosystems. We performed a literature search and reviewed 43 studies with a geographic scope covering the central Pacific, of which 16 focused on direct impacts of tourism on the marine environment. All but one study found negative or neutral effects of tourism on the marine environment. Only five studies present results from 2014 until present, which is insufficient, given the rapid increase in tourism numbers. Moreover, the majority of the studies focused on popular tourism destinations, indicating a spatial bias of the current knowledge about tourism impacts in the Pacific. In addition to the review, we highlight direct and indirect effects of tourism on marine ecosystems in the area by discussing two case studies. One case study relates to the feeding of reef fish in the Cook Islands by tourists, and the other to the introduction of invasive species in Galapagos. In both cases, species compositions at tourist sites differed from non-visited sites. Based on our review and discussion, we conclude that tourism can be responsible, and tourists may be willing to engage in conservation. We formulate four recommendations that suggest increased: (1) monitoring of the marine environment, (2) citizen science projects to include stakeholder observations for monitoring environmental change, (3) reciprocal knowledge exchanges among tourists, scientists and residents and (4) spatially balanced research on the effect of tourism on marine ecosystems with methods applicable to many PICTs.