Margaret river is a region , three hours south of Perth in Western Australia. It is located at a point which is almost equidistant from Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin. It is famous for its Helicopter tours, wineries, Whale watching tours, Cape to Cape treks, Surfing etc…It is a very beautiful place and full of natural wonders. The locals have divided the year into 6 separate seasons but do not have any official days for separating them.
They distinguish different seasons by watching the behaviour of different plants and animals. I found this way of distinguishing the seasons very unique and unusual. The environment there was very pristine and peaceful. I also noticed that a small action of ours impacts the environment in a big way as we had cleared some bottle caps from our campsites on one of the days and the site began looking prettier ever since.
On one of the days in our expedition, we had an aboriginal session with a native of the area. It was great and we learnt a lot of things about the culture of the aboriginal people of western Australia, especially this region. He showed us how they lit a fire with just two sticks and some fruit, a coat made of kangaroo skin, some weapons and boomerangs, and their music.
He also told us about the day to day lives of the locals there and how many of them had not really progressed with our fast paced world. We also got to know a lot about how they used to use caves in that region. Overall, this session was very informative and we got to learn loads of new things. This made me feel that maybe tourism is impacting the lives of locals there in a positive way. They can now educate the tourists about their culture and the tourists can in turn know, why the things are, the way they are… So it is an advantageous situation for everyone.
This could also help add to their income and they would not have to rely on just one source now ( Farming is their primary occupation ). Alongside, some locals are also beginning to come forward and take an interest in these kinds of occupation as this could be beneficial for them from the financial as well as cultural perspective. This is one of the ways that we could say that they are impacted.
During my expedition, i also did many abseils and rock climbs. The people who were conducting these were also locals. I would say that tourism has opened for them, new occupations in the line of adventure sports. This is a positive impact for them, because they would now have more careers to choose from. Also, it would be relatively easier for them to do their jobs near their homes rather than going somewhere else.
These are some ways in which they are positively impacted. I think that they are sometimes, negatively impacted too. As we know, a lot of tourists are habituated to littering their campsites/stay areas after they leave, this causes their environment to be contaminated. If the frequency of this situation decreases, then tourism would be impacting their lives in a largely positive manner.
Thank you