Pacific ecotourism hampered by economic realities?

Accord­ing to a South Pacific Tour­ism Organ­isa­tion (SPTO) press release, this is what del­eg­ates at the Pacific Update Con­fer­ence in Suva, Fiji heard last week.

When eco­nom­ic imper­at­ives are ignored an eco­tour­ism pro­ject can­not pos­sibly claim to also be a “sus­tain­able tour­ism” pro­ject. Fur­ther­more, there are social, cul­tur­al, capa­city, and geo­graph­ic­al issues that can­not simply be wished away.

In his present­a­tion at a “par­al­lel ses­sion” on sus­tain­able eco­tour­ism, SPTO CEO Chris Cock­er recog­nised that “a few” Pacific Island coun­tries (PICs) had brought sus­tain­able tour­ism policies into the main­stream of their nation­al plan­ning strategies. And donor and devel­op­ment part­ners have begun to assist in the imple­ment­a­tion of sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment projects.

“How­ever, in terms of chal­lenges, sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices can be expens­ive, there are weak gov­ernance and policy frame­works and enforce­ment pro­cesses in place, [and there is a] lack of adequate tech­nic­al expert­ise in this area,” the SPTO chief said.

“There are also vary­ing levels of appre­ci­ation and com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able eco-tour­ism and a lack of appro­pri­ate sys­tems in meas­ur­ing and mon­it­or­ing sustainability.”

On sus­tain­able eco­tour­ism in the Pacific, SPTO CEO Chris Cock­er said it was “expens­ive, there are weak gov­ernance and policy frame­works and enforce­ment pro­cesses in place, [and there is a] lack of adequate tech­nic­al expertise.”

Trav­el­lers are seek­ing a com­pel­ling story to tell and are look­ing for the wow factor in a des­tin­a­tion. All of these present oppor­tun­it­ies for sus­tain­able eco­tour­ism in the Pacific, PATA reckons.

The Pacific Update Con­fer­ence was co-sponsored by the Asi­an Devel­op­ment Bank (ADB), the Devel­op­ment Policy Centre at the Aus­trali­an Nation­al Uni­ver­sity (ANU), and the Uni­ver­sity of the South Pacific (USP).

The par­al­lel ses­sion on sus­tain­able eco­tour­ism saw the par­ti­cip­a­tion of SPTO (Mr Cock­er), Cook Islands Tour­ism and the Min­istry of Tour­ism Solomon Islands.

Accord­ing to SPTO, Solomon Islands has main­streamed eco­tour­ism into its tour­ism devel­op­ment frame­works with an emphas­is on niche products and com­munity involvement.

Cook Islands launched its Nation­al Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Plan 2016 – 2020 last year, reflect­ing the government’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment which includes sus­tain­able tour­ism. (Down­load here (PDF 6 MB))

ADB to splash out US$200 mil­lion on a “Pacific Renew­able Energy Invest­ment Facility”

ADB to create Pacific renewable energy fund

In oth­er news, the ADB has giv­en its approv­al for the cre­ation of a new Pacific Renew­able Energy Invest­ment Facil­ity. In addi­tion to provid­ing cumu­lat­ive fin­an­cing of up to $200 mil­lion for the facil­ity, ADB will seek cofinancing.

The facil­ity will provide fin­an­cial sup­port to a series of renew­able energy pro­jects and sec­tor reforms in the Cook Islands, the Fed­er­ated States of Microne­sia, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, the Repub­lic of Mar­shall Islands, Sam­oa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The facil­ity will help these coun­tries in their trans­form­a­tion from dies­el-based power sys­tems to renew­able energy sources.

Accord­ing to a SPTO news item, these coun­tries face devel­op­ment­al issues such as small pop­u­la­tions, lim­ited resources, remote­ness and vul­ner­ab­il­ity to nat­ur­al disasters.

Fea­tured image: Beach­comber Island, Fiji by p‑a-t-r-i-c‑k (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr.

Download

Cook Islands’ Nation­al Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Plan 2016 – 2020 (PDF 6 MB)

Down­load Cook Islands’ ‘Nation­al Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Plan 2016 – 2020’ (PDF 6MB)