Ecotourism Along New York's Eastern Lake Ontario Coast

	Speaker:
	Diane Kuehn Assistant Professor NY Sea Grant/SUNY CESF
	Description: The Eastern Lake Ontario Dune and Wetland Area, a seventeen-mile stretch of dunes and wetlands in upstate New York, is home to the only freshwater dune ecosystem in New York State. Extensive sand erosion in the area has been caused by the loss of dune stabilizing vegetation resulting from visitors walking in the dunes. In order to restore and protect this fragile ecosystem, NY Sea Grant and other state and county agencies and local organizations worked together over the past two decades to develop an ecotourism program for the area based on careful visitor management and education. This presentation will examine (through a Power Point presentation) the ecotourism efforts of this partnership, and discuss a recent visitor management tool implemented in 2003 -- a visitor monitoring protocol for the collection and evaluation of visitor use data. The main objective of the presentation is to provide a forum for discussion about ecotourism visitor management! strategies, by presenting a successful case study. Audience members will be asked for input concerning the ecotourism efforts in their area that have worked.