South Pacific, UNDP “green tourism” partnership

A Let­ter of Agree­ment (LOA) was signed between the two agen­cies in Suva, Fiji last week out­lining a com­mit­ment to “take respons­ible approaches through energy, water and waste reduc­tion” and to “con­trib­ute to glob­al efforts to make the plan­et a bet­ter place to travel, enjoy and respect”.

The part­ner­ship is expec­ted to con­trib­ute to the achieve­ment of Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals 8, 12, 13, and 14:

• SDG 8: Decent work and eco­nom­ic growth
• SDG 12: Respons­ible con­sump­tion and production
• SDG 13: Cli­mate action
• SDG 14: Life below water 
  

  Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals

#IY2017

As with many such announce­ments this year, SPTO and UNDP have linked their part­ner­ship with 2017, the Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment.

SPTO CEO Chris­toph­er Cock­er said: “The LOA sup­ports the ongo­ing efforts of SPTO to raise aware­ness on sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices com­ple­ment­ing the work already under­way to intro­duce a Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Mon­it­or­ing Pro­gram for the Pacific.

“Tour­ism is a sec­tor that is depend­ent on the envir­on­ment and its nat­ur­al resources. It is also an energy- and water-intens­ive sec­tor. With tech­nic­al and fund­ing sup­port from UNDP, we plan to increase our reach and cre­ate more accom­mod­a­tions in Sam­oa and Fiji, and work along­side selec­ted com­munit­ies to cre­ate stronger links between the sus­tain­able tour­ism industry and loc­al communities.”

SPTO CEO Chris Cock­er: ““Tour­ism is a sec­tor that is depend­ent on the envir­on­ment and its nat­ur­al resources.”

Accord­ing to the press release, the agree­ment will “assist SPTO to strengthen stake­hold­er engage­ment in Green Tour­ism, build the capa­city and estab­lish­ment of the Pacific Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Net­work, sup­port stake­hold­er par­ti­cip­a­tion in the Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Enter­prise Pro­gram cur­rently imple­men­ted in Sam­oa and Fiji and sup­port the devel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of com­munity eco­tour­ism pro­jects that demon­strate the value of Green Tourism”.

UNDP Pacific Office Coun­try Dir­ect­or and Head of Region­al Policy and Pro­gramme, Bak­hodir Bukhan­ov, said: “Last year there were more than one bil­lion inter­na­tion­al trav­el­ers glob­ally, while this brings eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies for the com­munit­ies and busi­nesses involved in tour­ism, now more than ever we need to take respons­ib­il­ity to safe­guard the pristine and fra­gile eco­sys­tems of the Pacific for future generations.

“The United Nations has declared 2017 the Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism. We take advant­age of this oppor­tun­ity to encour­age all busi­nesses in the Pacific to embrace green prac­tices and to use their innov­at­ive power to design solu­tions that lead to more sus­tain­able life­styles, redu­cing impacts and improv­ing well-being.”

Data & evidence

Accord­ing to the release, “both organ­isa­tions recog­nise that for busi­nesses to trans­ition to sus­tain­ab­il­ity, there needs to be con­crete data and evidence”.

Thus the Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Mon­it­or­ing Pro­gram, which is being tri­alled in Fiji and Sam­oa, provides the tools that accom­mod­a­tion prop­er­ties can use to col­lect, mon­it­or and report their performance.

Going for­ward SPTO will col­lab­or­ate with the Gov­ern­ments of Fiji and Sam­oa, the Fiji Hotel and Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation, and the Sam­oa Hotel Association.

This first SPTO-UNDP part­ner­ship is an out­come of the SPTO Donors Roundtable held in Feb­ru­ary 2017.

Source: SPTO.

Fea­tured image: Bora Bora, Tahiti by Mari­amichelle via Pixabay.