Addressing the Biodiversity Challenge
TOURISM & BIODIVERSITY:
“How to Achieve Common Goals Towards Sustainability”

Mr. Ary Suhandi took part as one of the panelists in UNWTO’s side event of the 10th  Conference of The Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP 10) held at Nagoya, 27 October 2010 on “Tourism and Biodiversity: How to achieve common goals towards sustainability”. As an effort to take a further step of the UNWTO ongoing work on tourism and biodiversity, this event included an interactive panel with the participation of tourism an biodiversity representatives from the public and the private sector. The panel was lead by Ms. Sofia Gutiérrez (Program Officer, Sustainable Development of Tourism Programme of UNWTO).

Among the panelist: Mr. Michael Meyer (Project Manager of UNWTO Consulting Unit on Tourism and Biodiversity), Mr. Peter Prokosch (UNEP/FRID-Arendal), and Mr. Mohammed Rafiq (Senior Vice-President of Programs Rainforest Alliance), Mr. Ary Suhandi share the best practice of tourism development in supporting the biodiversity conservation in Pangandaran to the audience.

Opened by introductory remarks by Mr. Oliver Hillel (SCBD representative, Programme Officer, Sustainable Use, Tourism and Island Biodiversity), Mrs. Getrud Sahler (Representative of German Delegation Secretary General for Nature Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources), this side event highlighted the inter-linkages between biodiversity and tourism, the contribution of the public and private tourism sector to biodiversity, as well as the many activities developed within the framework of the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) and the World Tourism Day (WTD) which this year was held under the theme Tourism and Biodiversity. Various initiatives undertaken with the CBD, UNEP and with the UN system on tourism and biodiversity were also presented.

As a result, it was agreed to take tourism to the next level as an essential part of biodiversity conservation efforts and become one of the agenda of the COP-11 which will be held in India.

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Posted by : Gesuri, Date :11-03-2010, Photo :Courtesy of www.iisd.ca