Abstract
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I met John in 2013 on a volunteer conservation tour to Montague Island,
New South Wales, Australia. John, like many visitors to Montague Island
described the location as a ‘wilderness’. Working in collaboration with
National Parks of New South Wales, I was working as part of a team project
exploring the social transformations brought about by volunteer nature
tourism. Within the three years of this project, from 2010–2013, we have
had the chance to observe and talk to voluntourists, who pay around $580
each to participate in a 3-day itinerary on the island. Through open and semi-
structured interviews with participants on the island, and follow-up interviews
after their trip, we developed a richer understanding of volunteer tourism in
the flow of life. Having observed nature voluntourist practices we became
particularly interested in the role of touch in how people engage with sets of
ideas about nature and nature conservation on Montague Island. John was not
the only voluntourist who felt the need to touch in the moment of encounter
with penguins. This chapter explores touch as a mechanism to disclose the
moral compass of voluntourists in places were human touch is unwanted (see
Figure 13.1).