TOURISM AND GROWTH
In this section:
Tourism Fuels Growth, Protects Greenery
Jamaica’s Hotels Learn to Save Water and
Protect Natural Beauty
Namibians Value Wildlife; Tourism Rewards Conservation
Tourism Fuels Growth, Protects Greenery
Ten years ago, Bulgarians chopped down trees in their parks
to heat their homes. But that stopped when ecotourists began
pouring in to visit green areas.
A 10-year promotion of ecotourism preserved the rich and
varied countryside, which was being destroyed in the chaotic
economic setbacks following the end of communism. (see Frontlines,
December 2004).
The Bulgarian green evolution is one of many such examples.
Well-run national parks, clean beaches, thriving coral reefs,
and abundant wildlife draw tourists from around the world.
The chief question asked by foreign aid experts and domestic
managers is whether people can make a living from tourism,
especially poor people in environmentally sensitive areas.
“Tourism is the world’s largest industry, and
is driving economic growth in many USAID countries,”
said David Hess, director of the Natural Resource Management
(NRM) office within the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture,
and Trade.
“If done with the sustainable use of the environment
in mind, tourism can enhance people’s wellbeing and conserve
animals, plants, and their habitats,” he said.
Communities that earn a living from tourism and understand
the connection between their livelihood and conservation are
motivated to protect their environment, said Roberta Hilbruner
of NRM and chair of the tourism working group.
Community involvement in all aspects of tourism projects
is essential to their success, she added.
Tourism projects were initially designed to support environmental
conservation, but since 2000, USAID has funded 98 projects
in 72 countries that also addressed poverty, gender, education,
governance, and economic growth.
“More and more, we are taking a holistic approach to
tourism development,” said Hilbruner, who organized USAID’s
involvement in the first global meeting of the newly created
U.N. World Tourism Organization (WTO).
The WTO serves as a global forum for tourism policy issues.
Its goal is to be a source of practical, tourism know-how.
First launched as the International Congress of Official Tourist
Traffic Associations in 1925, the WTO became a specialized
agency of the United Nations in 2003.
An Agency working group on tourism is gathering information
on the wide array of tourism projects funded by USAID over
the past decade.
Work in Namibia, Jamaica, and other countries shows how
projects have worked with people at the grassroots to help
them earn a living, govern their community or manage their
business more efficiently, and protect the environment.
The accounts are being sifted for lessons learned and will
be distilled into project design guidelines, training, and
other resources.
Kathryn Stratos contributed to these articles.
Jamaica’s Hotels Learn to Save Water and Protect Natural
Beauty
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Keeping pools, showers, and toilets in good working
condition so they do not leak water is one of the environmental
management principles followed by hotel staff at the
Tryall Golf and Tennis Resort in Jamaica.
Chris Howell/PA Government Services |
KINGSTON, Jamaica—In order to keep Jamaica’s
aquamarine Caribbean waters clean, healthy, and attractive
to tourists, dozens of hotels—from small mom-and-pop
operations to the largest hotel chain, Sandals—have learned
to reduce waste, conserve water, and protect the environment.
Hotels regularly check their operations to ensure environmentally
sound practices. Many—including the Sandals hotel chain—are
now “Green Globe” certified: in addition to environmental
protection on their properties, they work on community projects.
Environmental awareness in Jamaica’s tourism industry
has been supported by USAID since 1997, when the mission persuaded
some of the island’s smaller hotels to conduct environmental
audits.
“The major challenge was with management,” said
Hugh Cresser, chief of party of the Environmental Audits for
Sustainable Tourism project. “It was a hard sell.”
Managers thought the process would be costly, but project
leaders “focused on the bottom line” and stressed
waste reduction, said project officer Karen McDonald-Gayle.
“Hotels were able to report savings within a few months
of starting the program.”
In each hotel, “green teams” of managers and staff
came up with a strategy. These typically small hotels spent
$700 to $1,500 on improvements, which usually paid for themselves
in less than a year.
Changes often were simple. They included fixing leaking
toilets and pools; watering gardens in the morning or evening
instead of during the day; replacing 10-gallon toilets and
other equipment with water-saving ones; and using ecologically
safer products like vinegar instead of bleach when cleaning.
“I heard that many cleaning ladies were actually amazed
how well vinegar worked,” said McDonald-Gayle.
Managers appointed employees to “green teams.”
Seeing the change they were creating motivated the staff,
said McDonald-Gayle.
To ensure changes endure, the current USAID sustainable
tourism project in Jamaica is working with the tourism ministry
to include environmental management practices as hotel certification
requirements.
The project also has convinced hospitality training programs
to add environmental protection to their curricula.
Namibians Value Wildlife; Tourism Rewards Conservation
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A leopard blends in with the scenery of the Omboroko
Mountains in the Waterberg Plateau. Wildlife populations
have recovered in Namibia’s community-run conservancies.
Jonathan Simon, Chemonics |
WINDHOEK, Namibia—Big drops in the numbers of
lions, elephants, zebras, rhinos, and antelopes began to concern
the Namibia Ministry of Environment and Tourism and NGOs in
the early 1990s, who spoke to rural communities about the
problem.
Wildlife figures largely in the mythology of Namibian tribes.
Traditional and religious feasts often center around wildlife.
Many people carry totem names of animals.
Rural people said they were killing or not protecting local
wildlife from poaching because they were competing with it
to survive. They wanted the same rights as white farmers on
“freehold” land, who earned money from trophy hunting
and tourism and had the right to manage wildlife on their
land.
“Communal area residents said they wanted to keep wildlife
and wanted to benefit the same way as white farmers from it,”
said Brian Jones, a conservation specialist with USAID in
Namibia.
That desire led to new legislation in 1996 creating conservancies—geographically
bounded areas with a membership, elected leadership, and a
charter—that channel income earned from hunting, photographic
safaris, and travel lodge concessions back into local communities
(see FrontLines, April–May 2004).
To help the conservancies, USAID’s Namibia mission
funded the World Wildlife Fund and local organizations to
advise conservancy board members how to negotiate contracts
with the private sector or to set up joint ventures to run
lodges, safaris, and other concessions.
The aid projects taught residents how to set up camp sites
and traditional villages for tourists and also taught wildlife
guards how to discourage poaching and observe and monitor
wildlife.
As of October 2004, 31 communal conservancies covered more
than 70,000 square kilometers, 10 more were nearing registration,
and 40 more were being formed.
Benefits surpassed $1.8 million, and community-based enterprises
were employing more than 500 people fulltime and nearly 3,000
others parttime.
Conservation benefits include maintenance of wildlife habitat,
successful reintroduction of game animals, fewer losses to
poaching, and recovery of wildlife populations.
In the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, a San or bushman community
in the Northeast, springbok, blue wildebeests, red hartebeest,
oryx, eland, and kudu—all different types of antelope—were
reintroduced. With better water management, less poaching,
and 2,100 animals brought in from elsewhere, the number of
these animals in Nyae Nyae jumped from fewer than 1,200 in
1995 to about 6,300 in 2004.
The challenge was “legal structures and training to
conserve the wildlife—not persuasion. It was almost literally
a question of being able to afford wildlife,” said Jones
of the USAID’s decade-long experience of promoting sustainable
tourism in Namibia.
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