Hailing from Lillooet, Alison Johnston is the director if ISCST and has done work on United Nations Forums concerning such issues as biodiversity, sustainability, and Indigenous Peoples. In her fist book, Is the Sacred for Sale: Tourism and Indigenous Peoples (Earthscan, London, 2006), she explores "ecotourism," discrediting the conception that it is a safer, less destructive form of tourism. Johnston elaborates on the negative affects as well as the potential positive outcomes of tourism, suggesting possibilities for supporting biodiversity conservation. This book questions the nature of tourism as an exercise in profiteering and highlights both the dangers of this practice as well as alternative methods to improve the impact of tourism.

BOOKS:

Is the Sacred for Sale: Tourism and Indigenous Peoples (Earthscan, London, 2006). 1-85383-859-4

[BCBW 2006] "First Nations" "Indianology"