White Water Rafting Issues
Like all wilderness sports, whitewater rafting has to balance the conflict between nature protection and nature use. Because of frequent problems with whitewater rafters in the past some rivers now have whitewater rafting regulations restricting or specifying the annual and daily whitewater rafting operating times.
Conflicts with whitewater rafting have also arisen with environmentalists, when whitewater rafting operators, often in co-operation with municipalities and tourism associations, alter the riverbed by dredging and/or blasting in order to eliminate safety risks or create more interesting whitewater features in the river. Incongruously these measures usually are only temporary, since a riverbed is subject to permanent changes.
On the other hand, whitewater rafting contributes to the economy of many alpine regions which in turn may contribute to the protection of rivers from hydro-electric power generation and other development.
You should go whitewater rafting - it is alot of fun!