As tourists, we have a relationship with the places that we visit. Kristin Weis invites us to evaluate this relationship, looking specifically at coastal areas. By adjusting how we view ourselves and the places we visit, we are able to leave a more positive impact and become Smart Tourists.

Kristin Weis is a coastal management and peacebuilding researcher and strategist. Her work aims to improve how we use and conserve the natural environment. As a graduate student at the University Centre of the Westfjords in Iceland, her current research explores how tourism affects social and ecological resilience in Dominica. She is the founder of Roskanet, a "smart tourism" project, as she fondly calls it, that aims to help shape tourism models to both benefit local communities and conserve their surrounding natural world. Her Environmental Migration Workshop helps international peacebuilding professionals create resilient responses to climate change threats, including rising sea levels and coastal damage from more intense, more frequent storms. Her workshop is held at the Just Governance for Human Security forum in Switzerland. Her efforts continue to address human mobility issues (such as environmental migration and coastal tourism trends) and international instability issues related to climate change.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx