Rhino poaching will impact on tourism

[Toko]

Rhino poaching will impact on tourism

May 12 2014 12:16AM


CANAAN MDLETSHE

The word emerging from the Tourism Indaba presently underway in Durban is that rhino poaching has the potential to damage the country’s lucrative tourist economy.

Africa’s premier tourism event, which started last Friday, has attracted more than 10000 delegates.

KZN Ezemvelo Wildlife chief executive Bandile Mkhize said they wanted to work with other African countries to push for tourism on the continent.

“Having a relationship with African countries will help us deal with the thorny issue of rhino poaching as it is not only South Africa’s problem, other African countries are facing a similar situation,” Mkhize said.

He said 35 rhinos had been killed in KwaZulu-Natal since the beginning of the year. Ten of the rhinos were poached on private game reserves.

“This demonstrates that poachers are now targeting private game reserves as they realise that we have intensified our fight against this scourge,” he said.

“But what this really means is that private game reserves will be forced to close shop due to the decline of animals, and this will seriously affect tourism as less and less tourists will visit.”

Last year, the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) warned of the impact rhino poaching could have on tourism countrywide.

Wessa said according to a number of reports this was already happening in Tanzania, where tourism is the second most valuable sector to the economy.

The Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute reported that there may be as many as 30 elephants being poached every day.

This is believed to have contributed to a declining tourism economy over the last few years.

Also, Kenya was experiencing an upsurge in poaching, with the country reporting 19 rhinos poached this year, which is the highest figure the country has recorded so far.

Similarly, tourism in Mozambique is extremely important as it has shown a 13% year-on-year increase since 2006 and is estimated to account for 14% of the GDP this year.

Co-ordinator of Wessa’s Rhino Initiative, Chris Galliers, cautioned that the uncontrolled nature of poaching had resulted in a culture of unsustainable resource consumption preventing the growth and development of safari tourism in Mozambique.

Mkhize said: “We do not only want tourists to visit our game reserves but we want them to leave behind some financial benefits for locals. So if tourists no longer visit our game reserves, the local economy will suffer.”

Tourism and economic development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu revealed that plans were in the pipeline for the Africa Investment conference to be held on the sidelines of Indaba Tourism next year.

“Our research shows that tourist numbers to KwaZulu-Natal from African countries have grown year-on-year from 500000 in 2010 to over 600000 tourists in 2012,” he said.

[Richprins]

Mkhize said: “We do not only want tourists to visit our game reserves but we want them to leave behind some financial benefits for locals. So if tourists no longer visit our game reserves, the local economy will suffer.”




That message must get around faster and more specifically to neighbouring communities! By far the most effective long-term countermeasure!