Another feted ecotourism-for-conservation project is Conservation International’s Central Ghana Project. The project received the sought-after British
Airways Tourism For Tomorrow award in 1999. Whilst other forms of industrial
development, it is argued, may damage the environment: ‘Ecotourism continues
to be a positive alternative to destroying Ghana’s rainforest. Ecotourism can help
create jobs and business opportunities for local communities while building
appreciation for a country’s natural heritage and culture’ (CI, 1999). The project
includes an interpretive exhibit, ‘Hidden Connections’, highlighting the biological and cultural connections between the rain forest and people (CI, 1999.). Yet it
is worth asking what this ‘natural heritage and culture’ actually represents.
These ‘biological and cultural connections’ are presented almost as a natural
order of things. It is an order that eschews change and involves abject poverty for
the majority.