What Is An Eco Resort – Hawaii Eco Resort Guide
What is an eco resort?
That is a good question and depending on who you talk to the answer will vary in terms of qualification.
As with anything in life opinions vary on every topic and before we can begin to talk about what an eco resort is we need to come to an understanding of how my thoughts and feelings present themselves and are reflected throughout this website (or you can scroll down to the heading My Definition Of An Eco Resort).
I, personally, have been wrestling with “what does it mean to be sustainable or eco friendly” for over 2 decades now. Trying to assess what is sustainable while having a deep desire to live harmoniously can be a source of stress and turmoil for those who feel deeply connected to the impact of their life choices.
I include myself in that category of deeply impacted and finding a place of harmony, of hope, has taken plenty of contemplation, forgiveness, softening, acceptance, and trust in the life process.
As we discussed in our “what is ecotourism” and in the “about Hawaii Eco Living” the range of expression in the eco arena can be vast. If you are entering this eco tribe those would be a couple of good pages to catch up on.
In a nutshell the only truly sustainable lifestyle, in my opinion, is one where humans reproduce in accordance to the carrying capacity of the land base they inhabit and use resources to the degree that they don't diminish the ability of that land base to continue to flourish for purpituity.
This type of lifestyle represents a continuously sustainable model when the point of measurement for sustainability is purely the action of the human population on its' environment. There would be no waste, what was created would only be from what was available and in amounts that wouldn't hinder the environment as a whole thus allowing for a sustainable future outside of other natural events.
Is this realistic or the way things should be, who knows? I personally don't believe life was meant to be rainbows and butterflies all the time. That is a whole other conversation on accepting & finding truth in life, trusting the process.
I try to trust the life process and find truth in the developments that are occurring around us on a daily basis. I believe human culture is more like young child lost in the ways of life than some old sage sitting on a mountain top. We are figuring out how to harness our crafty ingenuity in ways that synergistically feed all life and along the way we will be doing some damage.
When you exercise you have to damage the body in order to improve it. I guess that is the realistic optimist in me speaking. I believe the technology that is
Where I am going with this little rant is that Hawaii Eco Living isn't going to “green wash” anything in order to build up a false sense of eco righteousness and we will not slam or degrade anyone's attempt at making progress.
Our goal at Hawaii Eco Living is to present things for what they are, to appreciate people, businesses, and organizations for the attempts they are making as we all move forward in this journey together.
My Definition Of An Eco Resort
In the simplest of terms an eco resort is host that offers accommodations to travelers with an underlying foundation for operation based upon being ecologically & culturally responsible & respectful with an element of education. Examples of what an eco resort will be considering in regards to the environment:
- Their overall carbon footprint
- Travel to & from resort
- Energy for operation
- Waste materials generated & disposal / recycling
- Food composting
- Food production
- Water collection & recycling
- Upcycling materials
- Sourcing local products
- Eliminating unnecessary chemical compounds
- Educating guests on how to engage with the local environment
- Running environmental projects and/or volunteering in local projects
Examples of what an eco resort will be considering in regards to the local culture:
- Attempting to not disrupt local tradition with outside influence
- respect religion
- local customs
- Educating & building awareness of guests in regards to religion, customs, traditions
- Channel & create economic wealth opportunities from the ecotourism service to local population
Ecotourism Organizations For Further Research
