Elephant options in Africa May 2, 2008
Posted by Ralph Pina in : Animals, Conservation, Safari, Tourism, ecotourism , 1 comment so far
No doubt you have heard by now that South Africa has decided that culling will once again be an optional intervention in the management of elephant populations, albeit an intervention of last resort, to address what is known as “the elephant problem”. Elephant conservation has been enormously successful in southern Africa (58% of the population), to the extent that some conservationists now argue that there are “too many” elephants. Personally, I think that the problem could be restated as “too little elephant habitat”. (more…)
Lesotho and Tutu: What do they have in common? April 8, 2008
Posted by Clarissa Hughes in : African Peoples, Tourism , add a comment
Apart from the cute rhyme there are a number of traits that are common to the Archbishop emeritus and the small southern Africa Kingdom.
Contained in the fortress of the Drakensberg and Maluti mountains Lesotho lies 1000m above sea level - close to God.
Like Desmond Tutu, the Basotho people under their founder, King Moshoeshoe, fought hard for independence and self-governance. And, after conquering his foes, King Moshoeshoe remained generous and gracious in his exalted position.
Is it only about “the Big 5″? February 17, 2008
Posted by Ralph Pina in : Conservation, Tourism, ecotourism , 1 comment so far
Every once in a while I trawl through the research output of academia, specifically in the fields of ecotourism, sustainable tourism and ecotourism certification. The other day I came across the following article in the Journal of Ecotourism (vol 6, no. 1, 2007) entitled “Wildlife viewing preferences of visitors to protected areas in South Africa: Implications for the role of ecotourism in conservation“.
The article’s conclusions are particularly interesting, given the prevailing wisdom in the tourism industry that tourists to Africa are only interested in seeing the “Big 5″ - leopard, lion, elephant, rhino and buffalo. Just recently we have been debating this issue in ecoAfrica, so the research is timeous and topical for us. I for one have always been loathe to accept that only the Big 5 holds any attraction to travellers to our continent. (more…)
Powerdown and travel January 24, 2008
Posted by Ralph Pina in : Climate Change, Conservation, News, Sustainability, Tourism , 1 comment so far
The CEO of the Southern African Tourism Services Association (SATSA), Michael Tatalias, attracted the ire of both Eskom, South Africa’s power utility, and FIFA, world football’s governing body, when he stated that Eskom’s rolling blackouts are threats to both tourism and the 2010 World Cup.
Predictably, the local media latched on to these statements, which I agree are rather sensationalist, and trumpeted them loudly, but failed to even mention the other half of his statement which asks what we as citizens and businesses are doing to curtail our consumption of energy. (Also see my post on this subject recently)
The Iniquitous Practice of Two Tier Pricing November 20, 2007
Posted by Clarissa Hughes in : Tourism , 4comments
There are not that many things in life that get my hackles up. But two tier pricing in the tourism industry, for African and non-African residents, is one of them.
I think the practice arose back in the 1980’s when South Africa was the world’s pariah and the sub-continent’s tourism industry was tarred with the same brush (foreigners had to fly via South Africa to get to any of its neighbouring countries). In those days the industry was largely dependent on the South African market and any foreign revenue was seen as the cream-on-top. I imagine the thinking went something along the lines of: “Well if they’ve taken the trouble and risk of being ostracized to come, they really must want to and therefore they’ll pay.” It was common practice well into the 1990’s in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe to have a price for South African residents and another, higher price, for non-South African residents. (more…)
