Ecotourism Legislation, Regulation and Institutional Frameworks

1
Ecotourism Legislation, Regulation and
Institutional Frameworks

• National Forum
• Ecotourism,
• Mountains and Protected Areas
• Partners in Prosperity
• Sofia, October 2 - 5, 2002
• Oliver Hillel
• Tourism Programme Coordinator
• United Nations Environment Programme

2
Ecotourism and sustainable tourism

• Conservation of biodiversity in key ecosystems
  (coasts, mountain commons)
• Environmental education of travelers and hosts
• Participation and benefits to local communities
• Smaller groups, focus on SMEs

• Mainstream players should be included
• Large scale policy and development, not charity
  
• Also includes cultural diversity and traditional
  rural systems

3
Main conclusions of the Quebec Summit on
Ecotourism

• Ecotourism can be beneficial to local communities
  and to conservation and sustainable use of
  biodiversity
• Scale is still too small - principles and lessons
  have to be applied to tourism overall
• Concept brings political value, but has to be
  protected from misuse and greenwashing.

4
Outcomes of the IYE so far

• Issues identified by stakeholders need for
  concrete conservation benefits, SME networks,
  involvement and empowerment of IP and local
  communities.
• Guidelines for ecotourism development - Quebec
  Declaration as reference, governments established
  working groups and policies, STSC, CBD
  guidelines, CI/NGS World Legacy award.
• Demonstration projects over 250 tourism projects
  identified in GWU databank, 75 mention
  ecotourism goals as main drivers
• Network of of over 5,000 practitioners
  strengthened - regional presence. Next step is to
  increase coordination.

5
Legislation, Regulations, Institutional Frameworks

• The vision comes to earth bringing plans to
  reality, setting the rules for the ecotourism
  game, creating enabling environments for products
  to be created, managed and monitored
• A combination of regulatory and voluntary
  measures, with adaptive management (mediation and
  review process, multi-stakeholder governance
  body).

6
Institutional framework

• Clear definition of roles among agencies on
  intersecting responsibilities
• Ensuring coherence in ecotourism, tourism and
  business development policies
• Governmental commitment and coordination at top
  level
• Participation may not avoid conflict the need
  for mediation, sticking to policy objectives

7
The carrot and the stick a balancing act...

• Support development of ecotourism (investment
  promotion, capacity building, economic incentive
  tools, competitive clusters, concessions,
  recognition and awards)
• Control and monitor results, ensure compliance,
  curb unsustainable development (governance,
  enforcement, limits of acceptable change and
  visitor management, licensing, regulation,
  imposing penalties)

8
Laws and Regulation

• May extend beyond frontiers
• Defined in multi-stakeholder processes
• Set the rules for equitable sharing and
  conservation benefits and stick with them from
  the beginning later changes are much harder
• Special stakeholders local communities,
  protected area managers - need for capacity
  building

9
Voluntary initiatives

• Evolution from multi-stakeholder networks to
  benchmarks and product standards, to ecolabels,
  to certification, accreditation and (possibly)
  regulation
• Certification and ecolabels are tools for
  marketing (VISIT) and for raising performance
  standards (European Charter, the Tour Operator
  Initiative)
• Private sector should bear most of the costs, but
  SMEs need help from government, NGOs or
  mainstream players
• Risk of non-tariff barriers detrimental to SMEs
  global concept, local application

10
Monitoring and evaluation

• Stakeholders expectations expressed in
  objective, measurable terms
• Low-cost, locally monitorable indicators
• Project resources always set aside for monitoring
  systems beyond project life
• Need to include capacity building for government,
  private sector and consumers
• Need to include impacts of transportation and
  resource use (water, energy) - encourage soft
  mobility and energy-efficiency/renewable energy
  sources.