from the main spill site lies the marine sector of Kolkheti National Park, distinctive for its unique biodiversity, and an inscribed site on the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2008).
Making matters worse, the Russian forces, which occupied the Black Sea coastal area during the war, did not permit environmental organizations or Georgian government representatives to assess the situation on the ground or determine the extent of oil damage to the water ecosystem. Post-war preliminary estimates place the environmental cost of the war in the range of one trillion euros.
The natural environment was not the only one to suffer. Although the active combat was short-lived, the cultural environment also received considerable damage. There were approximately 345 registered historic sites and ancient monuments in the conflict zones (Flynn, 2008). During the battles, 16 cultural monuments were seriously damaged in the Didi Liakhvi and Patara Liakhvi river gorges. The extent of some of the damage is not yet known because they are located in territories still occupied by Russian forces. Other sites were damaged by severe bombing and shelling. Intense bombing near the city of Gori close to several important heritage sites was particularly concerning, including rockets fired into the ancient cave city, Uplistsikhe, a unique settlement cut into bedrock, cliffs and caves in the 5th century bc and on the World Heritage Tentative List. Once Georgian observers were again allowed to visit Uplistsikhe, it was confirmed that many ancient frescoes and structures had been damaged by the attacks. Similar concerns emerged after reports of looting of the 11th-century Samtavisi Cathedral, which was another candidate for the UNESCO World Heritage List (Flynn, 2008).
observers and reporters. This occurred in Georgia, as business travel took up the slack in pleasure travel in the short term, temporarily during the duration of the fighting and shortly afterward.
As noted earlier, war and its aftermath may in many cases be seen as a tourist attraction. Often, former battlefields become romanticized, mystic places where descendants of soldiers visit on quasi-pilgrimage-like journeys into their own personal past. Such is the case with British tourists visiting the Western Front of the First World War in Belgium and France (Iles, 2008), Second World War veterans visiting battlefields in Southeast Asia and the Pacific (Smith, 1998; Cooper, 2006; Lunn, 2007), Korean and Vietnam War allied veterans and their children visiting those countries in the 1990s and 2000s (Agrusa et al., 2006), and Japanese and Americans visiting places such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There is some evidence to suggest that this use of war heritage also has potential in Georgia. There is latitude for tour agencies in the country to capitalize on the brief war for visitors interested in ‘dark tourism’ or other travellers who might have an interest in war heritage in general or a personal connection to Georgia and its ongoing struggles as a new sovereign nation.
Such struggles for independence and global recognition tend to be supported by diasporic groups, who, in a move toward solidarity, buoy up the homeland through tourism. It will also be interesting to see how this plays out in the context of Georgia and the Georgian diaspora.
By taking advantage of the heritage of the 2008 conflict, Georgia has an opportunity to utilize tourism as a tool for recovery and to spread the cause of global peace, the way many other countries have done even though their own conflicts have not entirely ended (Bandara, 1997; Kiambo, 2005; Webster and Timothy, 2006). Nonetheless, while many observers have argued that tourism can only exist once peace has been established (and indeed tourism is a barometer of peaceful processes and benevolent cross-border relations), tourism unquestionably has potential to play a role in the development of peace and cooperation. Several examples exist where destinations in or near zones of conflict thrive on tourism and employ tourism as a partial means of deferring conflict (Anson, 1999; Shin, 2005), even at the DMZ border of North and South Korea, where soldiers function as tour guides and where the border functions as a living museum (Timothy et al., 2004).
Such uses of a contentious past can help promote healing, reconciliation and closure. While it currently seems a long way off, it is our hope that eventually the political tensions in the Caucasus region will alleviate, and Russian tourists will return to Georgia and Georgian tourists will return to Russia. Such a relationship would be mutually beneficial from many socio- economic and political perspectives, including reconciliation and peace building. These kinds of visits, as illustrated by examples from around the world (e.g. the Koreas and Cyprus), can be instrumental in cementing a personal and collective resolve never to allow such atrocities to occur again.
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10 Volunteer Tourism in Palestine: a Normative Perspective
R
amiK. i
saacand V. P
latenKamPCentre for Cross-Cultural Understanding, NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, The Netherlands
Introduction
Pilgrimage and hospitality have been defining features of the economy and society of the Holy Land and Palestine for 2000 years. The eruption of the second Palestinian uprising (Intifada) has introduced Palestine to a reality of fluctuating political violence and counter-violence, tension and instability (Isaac, 2008). This has damaged the tourism industry in Palestine, bringing it sometimes to the verge of collapse. But it has also led to the emergence of new tourist phenomena whereby certain visitors come to Palestine, which lies at the heart of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, in order to show their solidarity and support (volunteer) for each of the violent sides residing in it (Brin, 2006;
Isaac, 2010).
Relatively little attention has been paid in the academic literature to tourism development, impediments and/or growth in Palestine. That is, tourism in the Middle East has been addressed generally (Mansfeld, 1999; Wahab, 2000;
Kliot and Collins-Kreiner, 2003; Daher, 2006) with some exceptions about Palestine such as Al-Rimmawi (2003), Clarke (2000), Isaac (2008, 2009, 2010).
The daily diet of war and conflict stories from the second uprising (Intifada) gives the impression that the tourism industry is the least likely sector to flourish. If political instability increases, tourism development becomes very difficult. However, despite political violence and counter-violence, tourism can be developed, and offer opportunities that provide people with hope.
This hope has been expressed in the book Challenging the Wall: Toward a Pedagogy of Hope (Van Teeffelen, 2007). The question addressed concerned how to create hope in a desperate situation. The Palestinian people were directly faced with horrifying consequences of the building of the Separation Wall in Bethlehem. The circumstances of Claire Anastas, a member of the Arab Educational Institute in Bethlehem, were especially dreadful, as her house was destined to be hemmed in by the Wall on three sides. It was decided to
establish a peace house to help revitalize the area and to conduct advocacy on the illegality of the Wall. Building a peace house in a dead area requires a source of inspiration, and the book was written to provide such inspiration (as a complement to that which springs from activities that are undertaken at the house). So the question here is: how can we create hope in a desperate situation? More specifically, how can volunteer tourism contribute to the principles of hope (normative and existential issues) in a desperate situation through creating concrete improvements in areas such as education, healthcare, training and youth empowerment?