Small sight—Big might: Economic impact of bird tourism shows opportunities for rural communities and biodiversity conservation

RESEARCH ARTICLE Small sight—Big might: Economic impact of bird tourism shows opportunities for rural communities and biodiversity conservation Tobias SchwoererID1*, Natalie G. Dawson2,3,4 1 International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, United States of America, 2 National Audubon Society, Anchorage, Alaska, United States of America, 3 Department of Environmental Science, Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska, United States of America, 4 Caurina Consulting LLC, Haines, Alaska, United States of America * tschwoerer@alaska.edu Abstract Birdwatching is considered one of the fastest growing nature-based tourism sectors in the world. Tourists who identify as birdwatchers tend to be well-educated and wealthy travellers with a specific interest in the places they visit. Birdwatchers can bring economic resources to remote communities diversifying their economies and contribute to biodiversity conserva- tion in areas of bird habitat with global significance. Alaska plays a critical role in understand- ing the link between bird conservation and bird tourism as it supports the world’s largest concentration of shorebirds and is a global breeding hotspot for hundreds of migratory spe- cies, including many species of conservation concern for their decline across their ranges. Alaska is also a global destination for birders due to the large congregations of birds that occur during the spring, summer and fall seasons. Despite its global importance, relatively

little information exists on the significance of bird tourism in Alaska or on opportunities for community development that align with conservation. This study used ebird data to look at trends in Alaska birdwatching and applied existing information from the Alaska Visitor Statis- tics Program to estimate visitor expenditures and the impact of that spending on Alaska’s regional economies. In 2016, nearly 300,000 birdwatchers visited Alaska and spent $378 million, supporting approximately 4,000 jobs. The study describes bird tourism’s contribu- tions to local jobs and income in remote rural and urban economies and discusses opportu- nities for developing and expanding the nature-based tourism sector. The study points toward the importance of partnering with rural communities and landowners to advance both economic opportunities and biodiversity conservation actions. The need for new data collection addressing niche market development and economic diversification is also discussed. Introduction Participation in U.S. nature-based outdoor recreation has increased over the past decade, con- tinuing a long-term, upward trend [1]. Wildlife-related activities, especially wildlife viewing PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268594 July 6, 2022 1 / 18 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Schwoerer T, Dawson NG (2022) Small sight—Big might: Economic impact of bird tourism shows opportunities for rural communities and biodiversity conservation. PLoS ONE 17(7): e0268594. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0268594

Editor: Ricardo Bomfim Machado, University of Brasilia, BRAZIL Received: December 28, 2021 Accepted: May 3, 2022 Published: July 6, 2022 Copyright: © 2022 Schwoerer, Dawson. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: The authors received funding for the study through the Edgerton Foundation. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.