Home

Move to reopen intra-provincial nature-based tourism lauded

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The move to reopen intra-provincial nature-based tourism as announced by the Minister of Tourism has been lauded as a step in the right direction in revitalising the country’s ailing economy.

According to the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the extended lockdown has not only led to significant job losses but has weakened efforts to protect the country’s biodiversity and protected areas.

The Trust’s Chief Executive Officer Yolan Friedmann says nature-based tourism is easily adaptable to the demands of a ‘no-touch’ economy.

She says its reopening will mitigate both environmental and financial strain.

“We know that this sector has a huge knock-on effect. It is the largest employer of unskilled women for example. And we know that in the deep rural communities, for every one woman that is employed, there are at least five or ten other beneficiaries in her household that she supporting.

“So, first of all, it is a significantly important employer and up-keeper of people’s livelihoods and conditions in SA. Secondly, it supports people in our most deep rural environments. And if you leave those people with no other livelihood options, they then become indirectly part of the erosion of our environment,” Friedmann explains.

Loss of jobs

Friedmann says there is both a direct and indirect link between the loss of jobs in the sector and conservation.

“We have seen an enormous uptick in poaching for example in a number of our parks. We have seen people who are literally poverty-stricken and poverty-driven towards poisoning and snaring of wildlife – relying for example on plants for medicinals because it is the only form of medical health care they can get. So the knock-on effects for our environment have also been significant. And we also know that this coming at a time when parks for example don’t have the resources to be increasing anti-poaching patrols, fixing fences, etc. So the long term damage to our wildlife capital to SA is also going to be significant in our belief.”

Crowd-funding initiative

Meanwhile, the manager of the AviTourism Project at BirdLife South Africa, Andrew de Blocq, says many popular birding hotspots and conservation initiatives were forced to shut down as a result of the national lockdown.

He says BirdLife SA started a crowd-funding initiative to assist some of their freelance bird-guides from disadvantaged communities, who have had no income at this time. They were able to raise R700 000, which is being paid to the guides in monthly instalments. He says the reopening of the sector is promising.

“It has been promising that the dept has taken a consultative approach. And it’s good that the NGOs and those working in the tourism space has been given a voice. Often we say that government doesn’t want to listen, but in this case, they have started to hear us and the wheels do turn a little bit slower than we would like but I don’t think anyone of us envies the position that government is in making these decisions that pitch lives and livelihoods against each other. But we do believe that this latest initiative to open interprovincial tourism is definitely a step in the right direction as applaud them for it,” de Blocq further added.

-Reporting by Genevieve Lanka

Author

MOST READ