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To
the Editor: The following article is the
continuation of my award winning Cultural
Highway Concept to now includes EcoTourism
and Global Warming for an ATA Magazine
December article. I am pleased to
participate in your publication. Thank you
for the interest in building a United
World and a Sustainable Peace. Please
confirm receipt and any comments via this
email.. Best Regards. RJMeigs
The
'Cultural Highway', for a 'Change.
...Are
You Ready to Build it? However,
Global Warming offers more and is not only
about the environment that envelopes us,
it is about people and a self awakening
process that takes place from within. It
is a learning process for all cultures to
coexist through social and cultural
interaction relevant to a Sustainable
Peace. The
vehicle that will drive this phenomena and
link a united world with Global Warming is
the 'Cultural Highway'. It is a 'highway'
with a vision for 'change', creating an
environment in which people of all
cultures learn to live with no boundaries,
while at the same time helping to bring
the ends of the earth closer
together. The
'Cultural Highway' is to be ongoing in its
'metaphoric' construction, built by people
(its infrastructure) and will be largely
comprised of cultural resources indigenous
to our heritage. And therefore, building
bridges of communication and cross
cultural exchange, will encourage peaceful
coexistence where we live. The 'highway'
becomes a catalyst to link the peoples of
the world together through their
similarities and as well as their
diversities. In
that culture is only acquired through a
learning process, building the Cultural
Highway not only means investing in
ourselves, but in our communities as well.
This exercise will help to bring the
'changes' needed as we embark on our
journey from self discovery to world
peace. Building
the 'Cultural Highway' is one way to
celebrate our diversity while fostering
social equity the world over.
Educationally 'driven', the highway's
resources will be comprised of the Arts,
Humanities, History, and Heritage, and
will serve as the common denominator for
all cultures. In that sharing a common
sense of purpose while identifying
cultural differences, education becomes
the key to opening doors and developing
social relationships in divided regions of
the world. With
these 'changes', it is our hope that
warring factions will reconcile and the
'principles' behind the 'Cultural Highway'
Concept will become an axium by which we
can start to realize a renewed freedom, a
democracy for the Ages. Walls will start
to break down and tourism begin to
flourish as the 'Cultural Highway' takes
shape. As
an incentive for tourism, the 'Cultural
Highway' will encourage international
trade, and economic and social
stabilization, all of which will attract
political stability, foreign investments,
social integrity, cultural biodiversity
and religious harmony, vital components
for a Sustainable Peace. Whether
you are from a country war torn from a
political upheaval or a rich
sociodemocratic country, this sharing of a
common sense of purpose will help to ease
cultural and religious differences in
various parts of the world. It's only by
sharing our similarities, that we can
begin to heal our differences, with all
cultures participating in the Peace
process. In
addition to Global Warming's social and
cultural aspects and The "Cultural
Highway's" Journey of Self Discovery, we
must turn our attention to travel again
naturally. EcoTourism, a 21st Century
phenomena, is about both natural and
cultural resources, not only of our flora
and fauna, but of our cultural Heritage as
well. It is the showcase for environmental
disciplines in the 21st
century. Prior
to the advent of The 'Cultural Highway',
EcoTourism and Global Warming evolved the
term Cultural Tourism, which found its
roots on the Island of Bermuda. It is
there that the employ of the Department of
Tourism, I saw the need to increase
off-season tourism. The result was that I
utilized the Arts, Humanities, History ,
and indigenous Heritage to link Bermuda's
nine parishes via a common bond, while
packaging the Island as a single entity.
It worked, and Bermuda perhaps became the
prototype for The 'Cultural Highway' and
its principles. Cultural Tourism
had caught on and was here to stay, and to
this day, destinations throughout the
world use the 'principles' to advance a
better quality of life. The Arts,
adversaries of the Tourism industry for
decades, now had become an important
attraction for the Tourism industry and
are here to stay. It
was inevitable that EcoTourism would
follow Cultural Tourism, that in the same
way, The 'Cultural Highway' Concept would
stimulate renewed awareness in people's
cross-cultural awareness. EcoTourism would
promote their natural resources. Whereas
in the past, EcoTourism was used to
describe native based travel to relatively
undisturbed areas of the world while
protecting natural
resources. Today,
people have become part of the process in
all three stimulants &emdash; 'Cultural
Highway' (Cultural Tourism), EcoTourism
(environmental awareness), and finally
Global Warming (People to People for
Peace). Whether
it becomes Peace through Tourism or
Tourism through Peace, these three
proponents stand to play an important role
in your part of the world. Make it part of
you where you live. Now
is an opportunity for each of us to take
the lead in our communities by investing
in the Arts as a cultural resource to
partner with our natural resources. Not
only will the Arts help to improvequality
of life, but they will humanize our
neighborhoods as well. Let's make the
'Cultural Highway' the cornerstone between
Global Warming and EcoTourism. Not only is
it economically correct, but it invites a
new greening of the planet earth. Global
Warming can also become a cultural and
environmental 'change'. Perhaps Africa,
its membership and its member nations of
The Africa Travel Association will become
a case study for developing EcoTourism in
the years that lie ahead. Start
today to celebrate the 'Cultural Highway'
Concept, its cultural resources, and
EcoTourism, its natural resources,
marketing Peace as a natural resource. You
can make a difference while helping to
warm the globe all over. Are You ready to
build it? People first - for a 'change', a
Culture ofPeace! If not the greening of
the earth's planet the seeking of a
culture indigenous to World
Peace. END |
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In
a recent press release from the Natural
Resources Defense Council, among the
topics addressed were coastal flooding due
to an Arctic meltdown, a Clean Energy
Police for the 21st Century, environmental
changes through new legislation, green
living and greenhouse gases emulsion and
Global Warming through the production of
air pollution.