I made my second visit to Petra last week.  It’s one of the world’s unique places, a monument of incomparable beauty and grandeur. Like many popular historical sites, it attracts every year a huge number of tourists who contribute much-needed money to the fragile local economy. But mass tourism isn’t an entirely innocent or trouble-free phenomenon, an uncomplicated boon for visitors and locals alike.  Government agencies are becoming more and more aware of the environmental damage tourists do in places such as the Galapagos Islands, Iceland, and the Great Barrier Reef, and are taking steps to do something that would have been inconceivable a few years ago: discourage tourism.

The pernicious effects of tourism go beyond the environmental impact on fragile places.  In Petra last week, there were scores of children skipping school to sell worthless trinkets to visitors.  I saw a man kicking, viciously and repeatedly, one of the horses that take tourists around the monument.  These weren’t isolated incidents.  Signs around the site indicate the Jordanian government’s awareness of such abuses.

What’s the proper response to such things?  Stay at home, denying oneself the experience and the local economy the money it needs?  Complain to local authorities?  Refuse to use abusive services and find less harmful ways to contribute to local development?  None of this is easy.  A starting point is to be thoughtful and to recognize that each of us is part of a growing problem: the ugly underbelly of tourism.