| This article outlines the efforts of a small NGO, the Mareeba Wetland Foundation, to conserve nature and conduct tourism at its Mareeba Tropical Savanna Wetland Reserve in northern Queensland. It provides background about the establishment of the reserve and its nature and draws on the results from a survey of visitors to this reserve. It provides a socio-economic profile of visitors, their frequency of visits to it and their knowledge of it prior to visiting. This knowledge is found, on the whole, to be poor. The way in which visitors decided to visit the reserve is also considered as are indicators of the economic surplus obtained from visits. Because for most visitors their visit was an experiential good, doubts are raised about the traditional method... |
