Context

Since the Conference of Parties established the Convention on Biodiversity in June 1992 at the Rio “Earth Summit,” people around the world have been mobilizing in different ways to transform how we use and maintain the world’s natural resources. In 2010, the tenth meeting of the COP was held in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, and a set of biodiversity targets for the period 2011-2020 were established.

Travel and tourism in particular, if properly regulated, can be important drivers behind many of the United Nations’ biodiversity goals, such as Aich targets # 11 on protected areas and 20 on resource mobilization:

Aichi Target 11 states:

By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance

for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.

Aichi Target 20 states:

By 2020, at the latest, the mobilization of financial resources for effectively implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 from all sources, and in accordance with the consolidated and agreed process in the Strategy for Resource Mobilization, should increase substantially from the current levels. This target will be subject to changes contingent to resource needs assessments to be developed and reported by Parties.

Tourism, one of the world’s leading economic sectors, represents a major source of GDP, employment, exports and taxes.  In 2011 tourism contributed an estimated $6trillion to the global economy, 9% of global GDP, and supported 260 million jobs worldwide. (WTTC, Travel and Tourism 2011) Given that so many tourism products involve the exploration and appreciation of the world’s natural wonders, it is also a sector that depends heavily on intact natural resources.  There are many efforts underway around the world to identify ways to better manage and conserve these natural resources.  From Namibia to Colombia, Canada to India, conservation and tourism stakeholders around the world are investigating ways in which they can support Aichi Targets 11 and 20.

As tourism continues to build in developed and developing countries two contradictory pressures arise: increasing demand for nature resources which can support visitation; and at the same time, pressure for the establishment of new protected areas to help counter real estate speculation or the “privatization” of the nature.

In addition, particularly in development countries, lacking resources and management tools, natural protected areas, sucha as national parks, are sometimes viewed as obstacles to progress, instead of as a motor for national development. The next 50 years will see even greater challenges: the world population will boom, people will demand more meat-based protein, the global commodities market will expand. All these factors will pressure those countries to plow, to cut, to dig. Our landscape may be irretrievably transformed.

One mechanism through which conservation and tourism stakeholders are organizing themselves to balance competing demands and be more effective in accomplishing conservation, green economic development, local culture empowerment and business goals, has been to create “Public Private Partnerships” (PPPs).  In this blog, the term “Public Private Partnership” describes a type of cooperative agreement between government and private business for the execution of a particular project.

Due to lack of funding to manage protected areas system and the increasing challenges to create new protected areas, public private partnerships (PPPs) are being tested around the world. They may also offer an effective means of attaining AICHI targets 11 and 20.   Tourism PPPs are thought to add value for conservation, and the revenue generated can provide a direct way to cover part of the costs for conservation.