Price hikes for Rwandan gorilla treks inevitable

In a column Kariza wrote for The New Times, she states: “The primary object­ive of these revised tar­iffs is to ensure the long-term sus­tain­ab­il­ity of a fra­gile spe­cies in a world that is increas­ingly chal­lenged in pro­tect­ing bio-diversity and nat­ur­al assets for future generations.”

She quotes Dr. Tara Sto­in­ski, Pres­id­ent and CEO of the Dian Fos­sey Gor­illa Fund: ““With the growth in the gor­illa pop­u­la­tion, we are see­ing much high­er rates of inter­ac­tions between gor­illa groups, which our data clearly show can be very stress­ful as well as increase rates of injury and/or death.

“Giv­en that moun­tain gor­il­las remain among the most crit­ic­ally endangered anim­als on the plan­et, it is essen­tial that we try to min­im­ise pres­sures on the pop­u­la­tion and con­tin­ue to pur­sue all meas­ures to ensure their long-term future.”

Kariza cites the “enorm­ous long-term invest­ment” required by the Gov­ern­ment of Rwanda in order to:

• Increase buf­fer zones around pro­tec­ted areas;
• Pro­tect Nyung­we Nation­al Park, “one of Africa’s largest pro­tec­ted moun­tain rain forests”;
• Restore Gish­wati-Mukura Nation­al Park, a new park (2016) made up of two frag­men­ted moun­tain forests; and
• Increase loc­al com­munit­ies’ share of tour­ism rev­en­ue from 5% to 10%.

The CTO then quotes Anna Behm Masozera, Dir­ect­or of the Inter­na­tion­al Gor­illa Con­ser­va­tion Pro­gramme: “An ini­ti­at­ive which will rein­vest a great­er amount in real cur­rency and as a per­cent­age of rev­en­ue into con­ser­va­tion through enhanced pro­tec­tion and rev­en­ue shar­ing with loc­al people — without com­prom­ising the prin­ciples and best prac­tices approaches to gor­illa tour­ism — should be celebrated.

“Should the ini­ti­at­ive also add value to the tour­ist exper­i­ence, con­tinu­ing to attract tour­ists from near and far, then bene­fits will radi­ate through all sectors.”

Kariza ends her column with: “There is great import­ance attached to bal­an­cing the pro­tec­tion of the nat­ur­al resources and devel­op­ment in Rwanda for both the present and future gen­er­a­tions to thrive.

“That is the vis­ion for sus­tain­able tour­ism and con­ser­va­tion that has been set for this country.”

Consultation, please

The key cri­ti­cism from com­ment­at­ors on the art­icle was around an alleged lack of consultation.

Freddy G wrote: “[All stake­hold­ers] need to be part of the con­ver­sa­tion before­hand. An art­icle like this one (although cred­ible from every angle) makes your insti­tu­tion look like it is on a defens­ive! You are defend­ing a policy and yet, if you had involved all of us from the onset (even by writ­ing an art­icle like this one), there would be no need to go on a defens­ive. Yes, some of us may not have liked the increase in prices, but at least we would­n’t be caught off guard by the changes.”

Yuli­an wrote: “Con­ser­va­tion is noth­ing at all if the bene­fi­ciar­ies of it are not involved in the decision mak­ing … The price is not only deny­ing loc­al Rwandans the right to enjoy their God giv­en attrac­tions but also it makes them feel like they are second cit­izens in their own home. It would have been agree­able if the price increase was only for for­eign­ers NOT indi­gen­ous Rwandans.”

Rwa­gas­abo wrote: “We do agree that it is time to re-exam­ine the “enjoy­ment equals sup­port” equa­tion and to encour­age pub­lic sup­port of resource pro­tec­tion at a high­er level of under­stand­ing. But it is hard to do this when we have been left out of con­sulta­tions; denied a chance to vis­it these treas­ures; and ques­tion the con­ser­va­tion story and interests of the lead­ers we pay with our tax money (there was no men­tion of reduc­tion in num­ber of per­mits per day).”

Bel­ise Kariza

Very reas­on­able cri­ti­cism, we sug­gest, except per­haps the price dis­crim­in­a­tion bit.

Supply and demand

Put­ting aside the rights and wrongs of pro­cess, and acknow­ledging our ignor­ance of Rwanda and its spe­cif­ic issues, this blog sup­ports Kariza’s argu­ments for tar­iff increases. They seem reas­on­able, well-writ­ten, and, cru­cially, sup­por­ted by experts.

Indeed this blog sus­pects that if we, the tour­ism industry, are to carry the prin­ciples of sus­tain­able eco­tour­ism through to their logic­al con­clu­sion, even­tu­ally only the wealth­i­est trav­el­lers will be able to exper­i­ence crit­ic­ally-endangered spe­cies such as the moun­tain gor­illa in their nat­ur­al habitat.

That’s a simple func­tion of sup­ply and demand.

The rest of us will have to make do with vir­tu­al reality.