西藏的“地理旅遊 ”Tibetan Lessons in 'Geotourism'
新概念中的“地理旅遊” Geotourism –
2008年5月9日-雖然旅遊業可能帶來急需的收入，許多地方在發展中世界，還可以傷害-哄抬價格的主食，強調當地環境和破壞傳統的生活方式，已經開發了數百個，甚至數以千計年。
新
藏族作
學院學員之間的時間分
這些項目，傑爾瑪諾解釋，傳播旅遊收入約一個社區，讓社會各界代表對旅客本身，
“西藏的“地理旅遊”門戶網站”將是一個新的網站的一部分，藏族創造的大部分內容。該門戶網站將提出一個數字空間模型的西藏高原，將逐漸變得更加豐富詳盡。最終，訪問者可以搜索或瀏覽地圖尋找種種里程碑（山巒，湖泊，城鎮，寺院等），然後訪問其他信息的位置，主要由藏族。
為了鼓勵廣泛參與的門戶網站，傑爾瑪諾已與一個組織的西藏，培訓村民使用數字視頻和照片的技術和映射到文件本身他們神聖的歷史上，當地的山，其歷史當地村里的學校，或“不管他們想談論，說：”傑爾瑪諾。西藏將代表自己與其他藏人，中文或國際旅客，展現他們的文化是如何在一起的地方，他們住，說傑爾瑪諾。
該門戶網站還將使西藏的網絡相互整個幅員遼闊，地廣人稀，西藏高原。例如，一個年輕姑娘在一個村莊可能從來沒有遇見一個受過大學
傑爾瑪諾的領導，使弗吉尼亞大學是唯一的非亞洲的大學，有一個夥伴關係，在拉薩西藏大學，大學的總理在西藏自治區，解
這種夥伴關係使所有的傑爾瑪諾的西藏喜馬拉雅數字圖書館網上可視西藏，那裡的中國中央政府正進行著廣泛的互聯網阻攔。互聯網只是開始緩慢地去西藏的村莊，但每一個縣城西藏在線。
“特別是現在與當前的政治局勢厄運，在極度的方案為西藏的未來我們將輝煌，熱鬧非凡的思想，有這麼多的積極的，建設性的，細緻的工作要做，說：”洛桑Ragbey。 “相反，這些全面的政治爭論，讓我們到的細節看看什麼是真正的人的需要，我們可以怎樣的服務，以及我們如何一起工作。我認為這是非暴力的前進方向，是一個U.Va.真正的中心了。
該研究所在華盛頓會見了參加，一組網絡和促進“社會企業家”人誰具有企業家精神創造性地思考切實可行的解決辦法，但與動機造福於社會而不是簡單地積累個人利益，解釋傑爾瑪諾。支持社會企業家指抽空參觀當地的社區，建立關係，並計算出，因為傑爾瑪諾所說的那樣，“誰是領袖？誰是創新精神？誰是誰是未來的與新的切實可行的解決辦法，誰也那種人才，激勵人？“該研究所的所有參加者的社會企業家，選定傑爾瑪諾和Rabgey姐妹經過多年的建設的關係，西藏。
此外，參加了
另一位與會者，丹增
旅遊業的增長在西藏威脅負擔過重最受歡迎的網站，說Drolkar。上升訪問著名的布達拉宮，拉薩每天約2,300在2007年已促使當局開放宮殿一周7天，限制遊客到一小時的旅行和引導，讓沒有解釋，在旅行，以加快流動的遊客。土生西藏人誰想要訪問聖地不再具有獨占訪問每天早晨，因為他們過去。
資本主義的勢力往往以促進大眾旅遊，使地質旅遊面臨著一場艱苦的戰鬥，傑爾瑪諾說。但他樂觀地表示，網絡人的力量可以溫和的資本主義，這種技術能夠促進這種網絡。 “如果我們不希望有一個更美好的未來，我們永遠不會得到一個更美好的未來。”
May 9, 2008 — While tourism may bring much-needed revenue to many places in the developing world, it can also do harm – driving up the prices of staple foods, stressing the local environment and disrupting traditional ways of life that have developed over hundreds, or even thousands, of years. The new concept of “geotourism” encourages a more holistic approach to tourism that considers the many facets of tourism’s impact on a place. The National Geographic Society coined the term in 2007, using the prefix ‘geo’ — meaning ‘place’ — to express the concept of “tourism that cares about the place, in the holistic sense,” said David Germano, a U.Va. associate professor of Tibetan and Buddhist studies. Tibetans have existed as a distinct culture in a distinct area for at least 14 centuries, said Germano. Just as an invasive species can harm an ecosystem, a mass influx of tourists could knock Tibetan culture out of balance, and once that happens it can be very difficult to repair, he said. Promoting geotourism may help preserve the balance of Tibetan culture.To that end, the University of Virginia partnered with Machik, a Washington-based nonprofit that works to “strengthen communities on the Tibetan plateau,” to bring 13 Tibetan community leaders to the United States in late April for a Tibetan Geotourism Institute. The institute ran for 10 days, and various events were put on with help from a number of other organizations, including the National Geographic Society.Institute participants divided their time between Washington, the University of Virginia and New Mexico. In New Mexico and Washington, they met with American Indian leaders, who also have struggled with questions of how to protect their culture as a minority ethnic group within a much larger nation, said Germano, a leader of the institute. Indians in New Mexico shared how they had established community-driven museums and done community mapping projects to catalogue unique cultural, historic and scenic assets.Such projects, explained Germano, spread tourism revenue around a community and allow the community to represent itself to tourists, which strengthens community identity and can make tourists more sensitive to the unique qualities of a place.Germano hopes to help Tibetans represent themselves through several new branches of the Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library, a huge virtual library project that Germano started in 2000. The “Tibetan Geotourism Portal” will be a new part of the site, with Tibetans creating much of its content. The portal will present a digital spatial model of the Tibetan plateau that will gradually become more richly detailed. Ultimately, a visitor will be able to search or browse the map to find various landmarks (mountains, lakes, towns, monasteries, etc.), then access additional information about the location provided primarily by Tibetans.To encourage wide participation in the portal, Germano has teamed with an organization in Tibet that is training villagers to use digital video and photo technology and mapping to document themselves — their sacred history of a local mountain, the history of their local village school, or “whatever they want to talk about,” said Germano. Tibetans will be representing themselves to other Tibetans, Chinese or international visitors, demonstrating how their culture is bound up with the place that they live, said Germano. The portal will also enable Tibetans to network with each other across the vast and sparsely populated Tibetan plateau. For instance, a young girl in one village may never have met anyone with a college education, but she might view a video of a Tibetan woman on the portal reporting how she earned a Ph.D., and that might inspire the girl to believe that she, too, can earn a Ph.D., Germano said. Germano’s leadership has enabled the University of Virginia to be the only non-Asian university that has a partnership with Tibet University in Lhasa, the premier university in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, explained Losang Rabgey, director of Machik and a visiting scholar at U.Va. who helped lead the institute along with her sister, Tashi Rabgey, the director of U.Va.‘s new Contemporary Tibetan Studies Initiative.This partnership makes all of Germano’s Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library viewable online in Tibet, where the Chinese central government engages in extensive Internet blocking. Internet access is just starting to trickle out to Tibetan villages, but every county seat in Tibet is online. “Especially now with the current political situation — doom-and-gloom scenarios for Tibet’s future — we’re abuzz with the idea that there is so much positive, constructive, detailed work to do,” said Losang Ragbey. “Instead of these overall political arguments, let’s get down to the details — really look at what people need, how we can be of service and how we can work together. I think that’s the nonviolent way forward, and U.Va. is a real center for that.” In Washington the institute participants also met with Ashoka, a group that networks and promotes “social entrepreneurs” — people who possess an entrepreneurial spirit of thinking creatively about practical solutions, but with the motivation of benefiting society rather than simply accumulating personal profit, explained Germano. Supporting social entrepreneurs means taking the time to visit local communities, build relationships and figure out, as Germano put it, “Who are the leaders? Who are the creative spirits? Who are the ones who are coming up with new practical solutions, who have that kind of talent to galvanize people?” All of the institute participants were social entrepreneurs, chosen by Germano and the Rabgey sisters after years of building relationships in Tibet.Among the participants was Gonopo Tashi, a professor of agriculture at Tibet University in Lhasa and one of Tibet‘s leading conservationists, who helped lead an international conference with representatives from 17 countries that have snow leopard habitat. He hopes to set up a compensation fund to discourage Tibetan farmers and herders from killing the leopards that occasionally attack their livestock, he said. Another participant, Tenzin Drolkar, chairman of the Tourism Department at Tibet University, plans to create a new college curriculum that will teach the considerations of geotourism through local tourism case studies from across Tibet. The entire curriculum will be put online through the Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library. The growth of tourism in Tibet – last year about 4 million tourists visited (primarily from the U.S., Canada and Japan) – threatens to overburden the most popular sites, said Drolkar. Rising visits to the famous Potala Palace in Lhasa – about 2,300 per day in 2007 – have spurred the authorities to open the palace seven days a week, limit visitors to one-hour tours and allow no guide explanations during the tours in order to speed the flow of visitors. Native Tibetans who want to visit the holy site no longer have exclusive access to it every morning, as they used to.Drolkar noted that Westerners often suggest how developing countries should reduce environmental impact and energy consumption — while themselves using far more energy per person. “I personally think that the tourist himself needs to be more responsible” about the many impacts of his visit beyond just economic spending, she said.The forces of capitalism tend to promote mass tourism, so geotourism faces an uphill battle, Germano said. But he expressed optimism that networks of people can moderate the forces of capitalism, and that technology can facilitate such networks. "If we don’t hope for a better future, we’re never going to get a better future."
— By Brevy Cannon
The University of Virginia and Machik are co-organizing a two week workshop on Geotourism in Tibet for a visiting delegation of Tibetan and Chinese tourism officials and educators. This is part of their long term initiative for promoting alternative forms of tourism centered first and foremost on local communities on the Tibetan plateau, and how to facility their involvement and benefit. The deputy director of the Tibet Autonomous Region Tourism Administration, directors of Chamdo and Kongpo prefectural Tourism Administrations, and the Dean of the Tibet University tourism school will be participating. The workshop will include stops in New York, Washington DC, Arizona, and San Francisco, while the main discussions will be held at UVa. The workshop is led by UVa faculty Tashi Rabgey and David Germano, along with Machik Executive Director Losang Rabgey, with management by Machik’s Brad Aaron.
http://www.uvatibetcenter.org/?cat=7
Tibetans Visit U.Va. for Lessons in ‘Geotourism’
May 9, 2008 — While tourism may bring much-needed revenue to many places in the developing world, it can also do harm – driving up the prices of staple foods, stressing the local environment and disrupting traditional ways of life that have developed over hundreds, or even thousands, of years. The new concept of “geotourism” encourages a more holistic approach to tourism that considers the many facets of tourism’s impact on a place. The National Geographic Society coined the term in 2007, using the prefix ‘geo’ — meaning ‘place’ — to express the concept of “tourism that cares about the place, in the holistic sense,” said David Germano, a U.Va. associate professor of Tibetan and Buddhist studies. Tibetans have existed as a distinct culture in a distinct area for at least 14 centuries, said Germano. Just as an invasive species can harm an ecosystem, a mass influx of tourists could knock Tibetan culture out of balance, and once that happens it can be very difficult to repair, he said. Promoting geotourism may help preserve the balance of Tibetan culture.To that end, the University of Virginia partnered with Machik, a Washington-based nonprofit that works to “strengthen communities on the Tibetan plateau,” to bring 13 Tibetan community leaders to the United States in late April for a Tibetan Geotourism Institute. The institute ran for 10 days, and various events were put on with help from a number of other organizations, including the National Geographic Society.Institute participants divided their time between Washington, the University of Virginia and New Mexico. In New Mexico and Washington, they met with American Indian leaders, who also have struggled with questions of how to protect their culture as a minority ethnic group within a much larger nation, said Germano, a leader of the institute. Indians in New Mexico shared how they had established community-driven museums and done community mapping projects to catalogue unique cultural, historic and scenic assets.Such projects, explained Germano, spread tourism revenue around a community and allow the community to represent itself to tourists, which strengthens community identity and can make tourists more sensitive to the unique qualities of a place.Germano hopes to help Tibetans represent themselves through several new branches of the Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library, a huge virtual library project that Germano started in 2000. The “Tibetan Geotourism Portal” will be a new part of the site, with Tibetans creating much of its content. The portal will present a digital spatial model of the Tibetan plateau that will gradually become more richly detailed. Ultimately, a visitor will be able to search or browse the map to find various landmarks (mountains, lakes, towns, monasteries, etc.), then access additional information about the location provided primarily by Tibetans.To encourage wide participation in the portal, Germano has teamed with an organization in Tibet that is training villagers to use digital video and photo technology and mapping to document themselves — their sacred history of a local mountain, the history of their local village school, or “whatever they want to talk about,” said Germano. Tibetans will be representing themselves to other Tibetans, Chinese or international visitors, demonstrating how their culture is bound up with the place that they live, said Germano. The portal will also enable Tibetans to network with each other across the vast and sparsely populated Tibetan plateau. For instance, a young girl in one village may never have met anyone with a college education, but she might view a video of a Tibetan woman on the portal reporting how she earned a Ph.D., and that might inspire the girl to believe that she, too, can earn a Ph.D., Germano said. Germano’s leadership has enabled the University of Virginia to be the only non-Asian university that has a partnership with Tibet University in Lhasa, the premier university in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, explained Losang Rabgey, director of Machik and a visiting scholar at U.Va. who helped lead the institute along with her sister, Tashi Rabgey, the director of U.Va.‘s new Contemporary Tibetan Studies Initiative.This partnership makes all of Germano’s Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library viewable online in Tibet, where the Chinese central government engages in extensive Internet blocking. Internet access is just starting to trickle out to Tibetan villages, but every county seat in Tibet is online. “Especially now with the current political situation — doom-and-gloom scenarios for Tibet’s future — we’re abuzz with the idea that there is so much positive, constructive, detailed work to do,” said Losang Ragbey. “Instead of these overall political arguments, let’s get down to the details — really look at what people need, how we can be of service and how we can work together. I think that’s the nonviolent way forward, and U.Va. is a real center for that.” In Washington the institute participants also met with Ashoka, a group that networks and promotes “social entrepreneurs” — people who possess an entrepreneurial spirit of thinking creatively about practical solutions, but with the motivation of benefiting society rather than simply accumulating personal profit, explained Germano. Supporting social entrepreneurs means taking the time to visit local communities, build relationships and figure out, as Germano put it, “Who are the leaders? Who are the creative spirits? Who are the ones who are coming up with new practical solutions, who have that kind of talent to galvanize people?” All of the institute participants were social entrepreneurs, chosen by Germano and the Rabgey sisters after years of building relationships in Tibet.Among the participants was Gonopo Tashi, a professor of agriculture at Tibet University in Lhasa and one of Tibet‘s leading conservationists, who helped lead an international conference with representatives from 17 countries that have snow leopard habitat. He hopes to set up a compensation fund to discourage Tibetan farmers and herders from killing the leopards that occasionally attack their livestock, he said. Another participant, Tenzin Drolkar, chairman of the Tourism Department at Tibet University, plans to create a new college curriculum that will teach the considerations of geotourism through local tourism case studies from across Tibet. The entire curriculum will be put online through the Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library. The growth of tourism in Tibet – last year about 4 million tourists visited (primarily from the U.S., Canada and Japan) – threatens to overburden the most popular sites, said Drolkar. Rising visits to the famous Potala Palace in Lhasa – about 2,300 per day in 2007 – have spurred the authorities to open the palace seven days a week, limit visitors to one-hour tours and allow no guide explanations during the tours in order to speed the flow of visitors. Native Tibetans who want to visit the holy site no longer have exclusive access to it every morning, as they used to.Drolkar noted that Westerners often suggest how developing countries should reduce environmental impact and energy consumption — while themselves using far more energy per person. “I personally think that the tourist himself needs to be more responsible” about the many impacts of his visit beyond just economic spending, she said.The forces of capitalism tend to promote mass tourism, so geotourism faces an uphill battle, Germano said. But he expressed optimism that networks of people can moderate the forces of capitalism, and that technology can facilitate such networks. "If we don’t hope for a better future, we’re never going to get a better future."
— By Brevy Cannon
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