WILMINGTON, Del. — This week, the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary unveiled ecoDelaware.com, a new website promoting ecotourism events and destinations throughout the State of Delaware. This launch comes 10 days prior to the 2008 Governor’s Tourism Summit, an event where ecotourism is featured prominently on the agenda.
The mission of ecoDelaware.com is to increase awareness, appreciation and, ultimately, environmental stewardship for Delaware’s creeks, rivers, and estuaries. This website not only equips users to experience these destinations, but it also features outdoor events and preplanned “ecotours,” the latter of which helps to cut down on exhaustive research that can often hinder an excursion.
“Nature enthusiasts consider Delaware’s estuaries to be a premier destination on the East Coast,” said Jennifer Adkins, executive director of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary. “The migrating shorebirds, spawning horseshoe crabs, and many other species that call our waters home are a huge draw, both locally and nationally, and this provides us with opportunities for conservation, education, and more.”
Another ecotourism website is currently under development in Southern New Jersey, and related sites promoting Southeastern Pennsylvania and the Delmarva Peninsula are already available to the public. Therefore, ecoDelaware.com will help to fill a critical niche in the Delaware Estuary region while, at the same time, giving a boost to both environmental education and the state’s slowing economy. Ecotourism, after all, contributes $730 billion to the United States economy every year; this, according to a 2007 study by the Outdoor Industry Association of Boulder, Colorado.
EcoDelaware.com has been made possible thanks to a $10,000 grant provided by the Delaware Economic Development Office in June of 2007. Additional support for the project comes from the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary. And many of the website’s photographs have been donated by outdoor enthusiasts throughout the First State.
For more information and to submit a destination, event or photograph, please contact Shaun Bailey of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary at (800) 445-4935, extension 113, or SBailey@DelawareEstuary.org.
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