Snacking on green ants is not everyone's idea of the most delicious holiday indulgence. But on a recent walk through the Daintree rain forest in Far North Queensland, Australia, Aboriginal guide Keely Naden assured a group of uncertain guests that the traditional food source of her Kuku Yalanji tribe was worth a try.
"Lemon, tangy and full of vitamin C," she promised, picking a squirming insect from the trunk of a tree fern. She might have been right—but luckily for the native ants and the tourists, drops of rain came streaming down through the canopy, sending the tangy fare scurrying for cover.
Getting that close to nature isn't a compulsory part of a stay at an environmentally friendly resort. But at the Daintree Eco Lodge & Spa, where tree-house villas are set on stilts above the compound's waterfall-fed creek, it's hard to avoid a bit of communing. Located 90 minutes by car northwest of Cairns on 30 acres of rain forest next to the Daintree River, the Eco Lodge offers visitors a front-row seat at one of nature's greatest shows: the world's oldest continuously surviving rain forest. Dusk on any of Daintree's screened-in balconies is a noisy delight as an invisible chorus of birds, frogs and insects serenades nightfall from the giant vine-draped ylang-ylang trees.
Although ecotourism is increasing in popularity, recording heady growth worldwide in the past decade, it still defies easy definition. For some travelers, ecotourism means eavesdropping on nature from the comfort of a plush bed with a magnificent view. For others, it's about eschewing hot showers and trekking the tundra. Most industry watchers say the category's basic tenet is minimal environmental impact combined with some contribution to education and conservation.
The Queensland-based International Centre for Ecotourism Research this year calculated that outdoor tourism—which includes both eco- and adventure tourism—accounts for about one-quarter of Australia's tourism industry and generates about $14 billion in annual revenue. Since ecotourism became a buzzword in the early 1990s, the market for it has stabilized, says center director Ralf Buckley. "Tourists are coming to expect that tourism providers will have good environmental management practices," he says. "They want luxury, but they expect that tourism operators will be doing whatever they can to minimize impact."
Part eco-experience, part spa indulgence, Daintree Eco Lodge, certified by Australia's National Ecotourism Accreditation Program, falls somewhere in between. There are the requisite Jacuzzis and air-conditioning for those who can't live without such creature comforts. But there are green accents. The bio-cycle sanitary system, for example, recycles effluent and wastewater for irrigation, and the lodge has won plaudits from the Australian government for its energy-conservation efforts.
Owned and run by the Maloney family since 1995, Daintree has won a slew of tourism awards for its spa facilities, including being voted among the Top 10 Spa Retreats of the World in the 2005 Condé Nast Traveler Readers' Choice Awards. Just don't arrive expecting gold faucets and air-conditioned walkways, says Cathy Maloney. "We don't want people to have preconceptions," she says. "We want them to leave with a feeling of well-being, of feeling more enriched for having come here."