TOURISM, which has been experiencing a comeback after the pandemic, needs environmental management to be sustainable. Real-time, concrete monitoring of sustainability and addressing present and future problems in turn need an awareness and implementation of ecosystem accounting, which constantly measures the conditions of the various biodiverse communities in a location.
Nilo Tamoria, regional executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)-Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), pointed this out in the recent First Regional Edutourism Congress organized by the Laguna State Polytechnic University (LSPU) and the Commission on Higher Education International Affairs.
He said, 'Modern tourism cannot be promoted without considering environmental management, which is its main economic component [of tourism].' He added that 'knowing the extent of the natural resources and its value' is key to the sustainability of modern tourism.
This is where ecosystem accounting comes in. The presentation defined it as measuring ecosystem services which are the contributions of ecosystems, or the dynamic complex of plant, animal, and micro-organism communities and their interactions to 'the benefits that are used in economic and other human activity. All ecosystem services represent the final output of the ecosystem before interaction with the economy.'
Ecosystem services come in the following categories: provisioning, where goods like crops and livestock are provided by the ecosystems; cultural services which pave the way for non-material benefits like recreation and tourism; regulating services or natural processes regulated by the bio-communities like water purification; and support services such as nutrient and water cycling.
Ecosystem accounting then monitors and measures the carrying capacity of a system to support an activity like planting or tourism. When it comes to ecotourism sites, the carrying capacity measurement is vital because it 'refers to the maximum amount of individuals that can be accommodated in an ecotourism site without affecting the state of the environment, the level of satisfaction of the visitors and the sociocultural norms of the local community,' as described by one presentation source.

Measuring resources