Gaps in the Relationship between the Tourism Sector and Conservation

 

 

GAPS IDENTIFICATION
 

 

Present interaction of NBSAP and the tourism sector in Yemen

 

 

The current version of the National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan (NBSAP) has not given the tourism sector sufficient attention in its application to the activities of the tourism sector. On part, this may be attributed to weak coordination and collaboration during the process of consultation between the NBSAP Project and the tourism authorities. However, it may be fair and important to summarize that in Yemen, the interaction consists mainly of biodiversity considerations being integrated into planning in many sectors (including tourism), rather than that tourism is being integrated into national biodiversity planning.

 

Gaps in the Relationship between the Tourism Sector and Conservation

 

Analysis of the Vision and Goals: The political and economic stability of Yemen has been an essential advantage to tourism development as it is related to a democratic social environment and provides a favorable investment climate and comparatively no corruption. Safety and security are important factors for tourism development as well, especially in view of the situation in neighboring countries. Bureaucratic procedures, however, do negatively affect the planning and implementation of projects; for instance, it could be difficult to obtain adequate land or to successfully apply for financial support.

 

The Government has recognized that the concentration of tourism development in coastal areas has resulted inter alia in demands on water supplies, problems of beach erosion, damage to coral reefs, pollution of coastal waters and destruction of mangrove resources. However, the perception prevalent is that a major and to an extent the most important weakness to conservation programs is the lack of political commitment and compromise.

 

From the above-mentioned point, two factors that can be attributed directly or indirectly to the prevalent "attitude" displayed by politicians:

Perhaps the lack of knowledge and their direct and indirect effect on the stakeholders, for example investors in tourism which translate into carrying capacities issues, land tenure, habitats, pollution and erosion of the environment and to culture which is less obvious in the short term; perhaps the lack of guidance by the technocrats who become "Yes Sir" employees rather than give sound advice and guidance.

 

Education and Public Awareness: Awareness of environmental issues haamong communities living around the protected areas, particularly Aden wetlands and Jabal Bura National Park (JBNP), with some evidence of changed behaviours towards the environment. Although awareness around the protected areas appears to have increased, there is still little appreciation of the range of benefits and services that ecosystem provide in Yemen, other than their simple financial value e.g. supply of food for humans and livestock,

ecotourism, etc. or themselves the value and benefits of protected areas for local community. In addition, education and awareness raising activities aimed at visitors is low currently, and there is only a small amount of literature available to the public to enhance their awareness of the protected areas and its environment.

 

Inter-sectorial Coordination: tourism is a multi-faceted sector that has linked with asociety which means that the industry can affect them and they in turn can have impacts on tourism. However, formal sectors such as the Environment, fisheries and Agriculture sectors and Tour operators have poor linkages with the informal sectors providing facilities, tourism opportunities or guided tours.

There is no effective integration of the different sectors for sustainable management of biodiversity. There is greater appropriation of the topic in civil society than within the governmental institutions. Links across to other sectors, such as environment, appear quite limited in terms of policy and action. In addition, there is a sense of mistrust amongst the industry stakeholders and people keep information and activities to themselves, afraid it might assist the competition. However, Ministry of Tourism needs to have strong linkages with the Environment Protection Authority, with respect to environmental impact assessment and pollution control, etc.,and with sectors responsible for natu1ral resources, fisheries and archaeology who manage parks and protected areas and heritage sites.

 

Information: information on the country’s biodiversity, its state, its characteristics, are not to be fousystematized nor in formats adequate to the needs of different social groups. Neither have channels for

establishing links between producers of information and users, nor for integrating these to the production process.

 

Impact Assessment: Insufficient institutional capacity in environmental impact assessment of the protected areas and application of prevailing norms. There is a lack of information on the environmental impact of the

different productive activities on biodiversity and of mechanisms to evaluate this impact. There are no intensive studies about the impacts generated by ecotourism development and activities. More concrete

information could lead to better provision of technical support for this kind of development. There is a need therefore to form interdisciplinary groups among the MoT, EPA, research institutes, the local communities and

experts in order to carry out environmental impact assessment of proposed projects that may be developed by MoT or by other actors (eg. private sector). Due to the absence of environmental conservation, most

development in the cultural and natural areas has not had to adhere to any environment guidelines and this has led to substantial damage to the environment and particular to the areas.

 

Institutional capacity development: It is widely recognized that tourism in Yemen natural and cultural resources that are present, and that protection of these resources is crucial to the industry’s future.

Stakeholders agree that the following weaknesses exist in this area:

 

 While there are many sound laws and regulations in place with respect to environmental management, enforcement is a weakness due to a lack of financial resources;

 Institutional capacity is not sufficient to carry out the needed land use planning, park management activities, environmental inventories and impact assessments, etc.

 The financial contribution from the state to the protected area system is very low and this has not changed significantly. Sufficient funding should be secured to ensure continued financing of protected areas’ basic operating and maintenance costs. The SNRMP provided funding to EPA largely for equipment and training. Operating costs were to come from the EPA budget. However, this has clearly been insufficient.

 There is no comprehensive conservation policy for Yemen and specific field of protected areas, despite the considerable efforts being expended in the field.

Conservation is, by its very nature, a cross-sect oral activity but is governed in Yemen by a variety of policy statements developed by individual governmental and non-governmental agencies to address

their particular statutory duties or fulfill their constitutions.

 

Decision Making: The MoT, MoW and EPA have the powers and dynamism to tackle the technand social challenges that are inevitable when setting out guidelines for the management of ecotourism in the  protected areas.

The MoWE and EPA have much of the legal responsibility for the conservation of biodiversity in Yemen in cooperation with other government agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture. However, those public sectors organizations involved directly with tourism and biodiversity lack the financial, personnel or in some cases, the  legal and policy instruments to actively manage biodiversity. Consequently, those governmental bodies cannot  achieve their objectives effectively, due to a number of factors, including:

- Limited dialogue with government

- No or limited resource allocation

- Weak coordination between institutions

- Weak, ad-hoc and selective communication between institutions based on personal relationships rather than mandate, control and planning.

- Lack of job descriptions and work plans

- Weakness in mandate and resources of essential institutions; Environmental authority and the General Organisation for preservation of historic towns.

- The lack of adaptability of these institutions to changing environmental, social and economic circumstances.

Human resources: Currently the policies of the capacity-building for ecotourism are insufficient; there is no continuous capacity-building programme for the staff with responsibility for tourism in the protected area. In part this relates to a lack of awareness at national, regional and local levels of the urgency for improving capacity on these issues.

 

For example, Local people both men and women groups living in or around the three PAs, namely JBNP, AWPA lack skills and experience for running ecotourism activities. Some challenges to address include: poor

quality materials; limited support for identifying and accessing markets; lack of small business experience and skills among the target groups and products not suited to certain markets in terms of style and potential use.

In addition, there has been insufficient training in visitor management and guiding.

 

EPA through the SNRMP is in need to develop practical approaches for the development of alternative livelihood activities, especially ecotourism, reassess its targets and definition of success with regard to income

generation, and build more strongly on existing patterns of resource use, especially at Hawf at Bura’a, rather than creating new ones. There is at present limited awareness about the opportunities of tourism and a

general lack of entrepreneurism in Yemen. The local population is as such not much involved in the activities of this sector. The local people therefore need to be given opportunities for training and advancement for them to realise the benefits of tourism and hence support biological conservation.