Tourism and biodiversity: more significant than climate change?

2010 is the United Nations International Year of Biological Diversity. One of the goals of the international year was to gain a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss. This has not been achieved. Instead, biodiversity is continuing to decline at genetic, species and ecosystem levels while the ecological footprint of humanity exceeds the biological capacity of the Earth by a wider margin than at the time the 2010 target was agreed. Tourism is a factor in biodiversity loss and its conservation. The paper outlines some of the main themes in the relationship and stresses the importance of more research on tourism's role in extinction and habitat loss, biological invasion, climate change and biodiversity, and conservation strategies. The paper concludes that there is a need for a research effort on tourism and biodiversity similar to the rapidly developing interest in climate change.