Due to its high biodiversity and its wealth of endemics, Soqotra, known as the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean”, was declared a part of the UNESCO world natural heritage site in the summer of 2008. Soqotra, belonging to the Republic of Yemen, was so far mainly researched by natural scientists. This book is a pioneer work for the social scientific exploration of the island. As a focus, it attends to conflicts between tourism, nature protection and sustainable development.
The relevance of this work also lies in the examination of the term „eco-tourism“. The island was isolated for centuries and stayed widely unaffected in terms of economic, cultural and political development. Only during the last decades of the 20th century a development started, resulting from various impacts from outside the island. Until the year 2000 tourism was not possible there. For the local population, mainly living on fishing and livestock farming, tourism promised to open new economic perspectives.
The island’s tourist marketing is designed for eco-tourism, which employees in the tourist sector are convinced to offer. Nevertheless they are inadequately trained and usually lack awareness of the fragile eco system which is the basis for eco-tourism on Socotra. They hardly reflect the meaning of this term. The current tourist development, however, does not reveal any planning concept. On the contrary, tourism on Soqotra seems to unfold in an uncontrolled way.
The local population hardly benefits from tourist industry. The kind of tourist facilities in Soqotra’s capital Hadiboo as well as the behaviour of the main tourist group show that tourism on Soqotra is not sustainable. Tourist facilities increase at random, and yet they hardly meet the demand. Several media report that investors from the Gulf region are sought for the financing of large-scale tourist projects. These reports proved to be premature so far, but in case of a realisation such projects would seriously endanger the ecological balance of the island. Anyhow, Soqotra being ecologically unique and very fragile, the conservation of the nature and the natural resources stays of particular importance.
Observing Soqotra’s tourist development as well as the various impacts playing a role in it, is suspenseful and distressing at the same time. The study reveals under which circumstances the way could be paved for achieving a sustainable development for the island. At the same time, it is meant as a warning of foolishly jeopardizing the world’s last paradises.