While some ecotourism projects, including some found in the United States, can support such claims, many projects have failed to address some of the fundamental issues that nations face in the first place. Consequently, ecotourism may not generate the very benefits it is intended to provide to these regions and their people, and in some cases leaving economies in a state worse than before.The following case studies illustrate the rising complexity of ecotourism and its impacts, both positive and negative, on the environment and economies of various regions in the world. Ecotourism in Costa Rica
Ecotourism in Jordan
Ecotourism in South Africa
Ecotourism in the United States

See also
References
Further reading
Burger, Joanna (2000). "Landscapes, tourism, and conservation". Science of the Total Environment. 249 (1–3): 39–49. Bibcode:2000ScTEn.249...39B. doi:10.1016/s0048-9697(99)00509-4. PMID 10813445. Ceballos-Lascurain, H. 1996. Tourism, Ecotourism, and Protected Areas. Larkin, T. and K. N. Kähler. 2011. "Ecotourism." Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues. Rev. ed. Pasadena: Salem Press. Vol. 2, pp. 421–424. ISBN 978-1-58765-737-5
IUCN. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature. 301 pp. Ceballos-Lascurain, H. 1998. Ecoturismo. Naturaleza y Desarrollo Sostenible. Duffy, Rosaleen (2000). "Shadow players: Ecotourism development, corruption and state politics in Belize". Third World Quarterly. 21 (3): 549–565. doi:10.1080/713701038. S2CID 153634543. Gutzwiller, Kevin J.; Anderson, Stanley H. (1999). "Spatial Extent of Human-Intrusion Effects on Subalpine Bird Distributions". The Condor. 101 (2): 378–389. doi:10.2307/1370001. JSTOR 1370001. Orams, Mark B.; Nowaczek, Agnes M.K. (2010). "Ecotourism: Principles and Practices". Annals of Tourism Research. 37: 270–271. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2009.10.007. Orams, Mark B. (2000). "Tourists getting close to whales, is it what whale-watching is all about?". Tourism Management.
In a study done from 1995 to 1997 off the Northwestern coast of Australia, scientists found that whale sharks tolerance for divers and swimmers decreased. The whale sharks showed an increase in behaviors over the course of the study, such as diving, porpoising, banking, and eye rolling that are associated with distress and attempt to avoid the diver. The average time the whale sharks spent with the divers in 1995 was 19.3 minutes, but in 1997 the average time the whale sharks spent with the divers was 9.5 minutes. There was also an increase in recorded behaviors from 56% of the sharks showing any sort of diving, porpoising, eye rolling or banking in 1995 to 70.7% in 1997. Some whale sharks were also observed to have scars that were consistent with being stuck by a boat. Environmental hazards
The industrialization, urbanization and agricultural practices of human society are having a serious impact on the environment. Ecotourism is now also considered to be playing a role in environmental depletion including deforestation, disruption of ecological life systems and various forms of pollution, all of which contribute to environmental degradation. For example, the number of motor vehicles crossing a park increases as tour drivers search for rare species. The number of roads disrupts the grass cover, which has serious consequences on plant and animal species. These areas also have a higher rate of disturbances and invasive species due to increasing traffic off of the beaten path into new, undiscovered areas.