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Howe Sound biosphere designation success depends on how it is marketed: Poll

The Squamish Chief polled 223 readers and asked the question: Do you think Howe Sound being declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve will positively influence tourism in Squamish?
The chief staff
Biosphere stockstudioX:Getty Images
A woman and her daughter look out over Howe Sound, now the 19th Canadian biosphere region. stockstudioX:Getty Images

After five years of working toward the goal by the Howe Sound Biosphere Region Initiative, on Sept. 15, the Howe Sound area, (Átl’ka7tsem), was given worldwide recognition as an area of importance by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

This means that the international organization has deemed this place a zone of global ecological significance.

The Squamish Chief recently polled 223 readers and asked the question: Do you think Howe Sound being declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve will positively influence tourism in Squamish?

The poll ran from 9/16/2021 to 9/21/2021. Of the 223 votes, we can determine that 88 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:

Yes, it will bring environmentally conscious tourists! 29.55 % local, 30.04 % total    
No, it will bring more people to our area when we are already overrun. 25.00 % local, 21.52 % total    
It will make no difference. 13.64 % local, 15.70 % total    
It depends on how it is marketed, supported locally. 31.82 % local, 32.74 % total    
  Local   Total

This result provides for a 95% confidence level +/- % margin of error in the local community.

The Squamish Chief uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.

 

~With files from Steven Chua

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