Impacts and risks associated with developing,but unsupervised,stingray tourism at Hamelin Bay,Western Australia

Interacting with stingrays at Hamelin Bay, in the south‐west of Western Australia, appears to be substantially growing in popularity. Promotion of the rays is increasing through websites and brochures and larger tourism productions, such as the ‘Getaway’ television programme, have shown interest in the Hamelin Bay site. Yet there is still very little known about the impacts on rays (both behavioural and physical), risks to humans, or indeed the issues that provisioning stingrays can present. Although Shackley (1998) conducted an impact study of stingray provisioning in the Cayman Islands, provisioning activities at Hamelin Bay, and other areas in the southwest are unique because they are shore‐based. As part of developing a profile of conditions at the Hamelin Bay provisioning site we investigated stingray numbers and their distribution in the area. We also collected data on the type and amount of provisioned food, investigated stingray behaviour and observed how tourists interacted with stingrays. It was shown through site profile data that rays are attracted to the site principally by food provisioning and secondarily by boats due to learned association with food. They are most common at the provisioning site in the middle of the day, as are peak visitor numbers. Behavioural impacts on rays were found to be attraction to humans, resulting in aggression and hierarchy towards one another. Attraction to humans at the provisioning site reflected that the rays may be partially habituated. However, rays were also seen foraging naturally for food, indicating that they are not yet dependent on humans. Other potential impacts to rays include boat damage from pleasure craft, overfeeding, being fed the wrong food, damage from fishing hooks and risk of disease from foul water. Lesions on skin and permanent shoaling behaviour, as witnessed at other stingray provisioning sites, were not observed at Hamelin Bay. Management actions are recommended to reduce impacts on the rays, eliminate risks to visitors and increase visitor satisfaction. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Planning for stingray tourism at Hamelin Bay,Western Australia: the importance of stakeholder perspectives

Stingray tourism continues to be developed at various locations around the world with the concept being marketed on television travel programmes, documentaries, internet sites and travel brochures. Food provisioned stingray tourism, for example, now attracts some 100 000 visitors a year to ‘tingray city’ in the Caymen Islands. At Hamelin Bay in southwest Western Australia, up to 16 large stingrays (Dasyatis brevicaudata and Dasyatis thetidis) and numerous eaglerays (Myliobatis australis) are fed by visitors from the waters edge. This study reports on stakeholder perspectives relating to tourism development and potential management of the Hamelin Bay site. From the results of this study it is clear that there is sufficient interest in stingray tourism (by all the stakeholders surveyed) to develop Hamelin Bay as a permanent feeding site. Visitors on average gave their experience with the rays a satisfaction value of 8.9 out of 10. Twenty‐five per cent of visitors surveyed did not want commercialisation, tour groups or excessive visitor numbers. Their main concern was that the health and safety of the rays may deteriorate with an increase of visitors if the situation is not managed correctly. Visitors desire to be educated about the rays, and how to best interact with them safely. Visitors also acknowledged that the site needs management through more signs, information and a management plan. Management for the site is therefore likely to be best implemented through the application of signage, development of guidelines/codes of conduct, protection of the rays and zoning the beach according to specific recreational purposes. Management regimes should also use various indicators to monitor the impacts of stingray tourism at Hamelin Bay. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Negative Traffic Externalities and Infant Health: The Role of Income Heterogeneity and Residential Sorting

Environmental and Resource Economics - Road traffic is associated with a variety of negative externalities such as air pollution and environmental noise, with significant short- and long-run health...     

A Temporary Federal Discount Program to Stimulate Consumer Spending

In this paper, we evaluate a new proposal to stimulate recovery from the current recession: a temporary federal price discount on consumer goods. An attractive feature of the temporary federal discount program is that it gives consumers a price incentive to purchase more rather than simply giving consumers more disposable income, which they might choose to either spend or to save. According to our simulations with the Fair macro-econometric model, a temporary 20 percent federal discount on all consumer goods in a severe recession would significantly reduce the unemployment rate while causing only a small increase in federal debt as a percentage of GDP.     

The Political Power of Big Business: A Response to Bell and Hindmoor

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in debates about the power of business (Culpepper 2011 Culpepper, P. (2011). Quiet Politics and Business Power: Corporate Control in Europe and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]; Bell 2012 Bell, S. (2012). The Power of Ideas: The Ideational Mediation of the Structural Power of Business. International Studies Quarterly, 56(4), 661–73. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00743.x[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Bell and Hindmoor (2013 Bell, S., Hindmoor, A. (2013). The Structural Power of Business and the Power of Ideas: The Strange Case of the Australian Mining Tax. New Political Economy, ,forthcoming. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2013.796452 [19 (3), pp. 470–486, cross-references updated] [Google Scholar]) make an important, theoretically informed, but empirically rooted, contribution to that debate. In this response, we address both aspects of their contribution, arguing that their treatment of Lindblom is partial and, consequently, so is their explanation of the case. As such, we largely rely on their narrative of the evolution of the Australian mining tax, focusing first on critically examining Bell and Hindmoor's theoretical position, before turning to their analysis of the case.     

Assessing the Role of Ecotourism Training in Changing Participants' Pro-Environmental Knowledge,Attitude and Behaviour

Ecotourism training is usually considered to be undertaken only by tourism practitioners for professional development. However, ecotourism training has a more important role to play, as it could be adopted as a long-term strategy for environmental conservation by altering people's attitudes and behaviours towards greater environmental responsibility. In this study, the role of ecotourism training with respect to pro-environmental knowledge enhancement as well as attitude and behavioural changes is investigated. A questionnaire survey was conducted on participants of an ecotourism training programme. Participants' environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours were evaluated using a pre- and post-test method. The results indicated that participants demonstrated a significant increase in environmental knowledge after the training. Moreover, participants' demographic characteristics such as age group, occupation and salary are significantly associated with the improvement in knowledge, change in pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. Participants tend to adopt environmentally responsible attitudes and behaviours after completion of ecotourism training.     

Structure,agency and causality in post-revival Austrian economics: tensions and resolutions

Abstract

This paper aims to illustrate the benefits that accrue from critical realism's sustained, explicit reflection about ontological issues. The paper pursues this aim by examining the work of radical subjectivist Austrian economists as it has developed since the post-1974 revival in the fortunes of the Austrian school, focusing in particular on their account of the generation of socio-economic order in decentralized market economies. Ambiguities and tensions can be discerned in the radical subjectivist account of the causal forces at work in the market process. It is argued that the conceptual resources required for resolving those tensions and ambiguities are to be found in critical realism. The final section of the paper draws out some of the broader implications of the suggested resolution for radical subjectivist Austrian economics.