Tourism in Africa without the ‚Big 5`?

26 Feb 2014
Organised by
Tourism in Africa
without the ‚Big 5‘?
How the Public and Private Sector are
Combating Global Poaching
ITB Berlin 2014
Thursday, 6 March, 10.30 – 12.00 h
Stage in hall 4.1
Especially in Africa poaching has reached record
levels, having caused the deaths of tens of
thousands of elephants and rhinos over the past
years. In 2013 more than 1 000 rhinos have been
poached in South Africa. A recently elephant census
in the Selous Mikumi area in Tanzania shows that
there are only 13 000 elephants left in an area
where in the 1970’s 100 000 have been roaming.
Asia is the main market for rhino horn, elephant
ivory or bones of big cats. Parts of the growing
upper class in East and South East Asia believe in
rhino-horn and lion-bones having healing properties
and are used as status symbol.
The ‚Big 5’ are significantly important to the tourism
industry in terms of product development as well as
marketing. For the local population photo-safari and
controlled trophy hunting tourism can be an
economic alternative to poaching. The German
Ministry for Economic Cooperation and
Development (BMZ) supports conservation of
protected areas in Africa and livelihood
improvements for the local population. In addition
it increasingly supports measures along the entire
illegal trade chain to reduce demand for ivory and
rhino-horn and better control the trafficking of
wildlife products.
How can the tourism industry contribute to this
goal? And how can politics enhance the situation in
the safari park surroundings?
Welcome: Hon. Moses Kalongashawa, Minister of
Tourism and Culture of Malawi and Chairperson of
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Ministers responsible for Tourism
Keynote: Les Carlisle, Group Conservation
Manager, &Beyond
Panel guests:
» Sem Shikongo, Director Tourism and Gaming,
Ministry of Environment and Tourism of Namibia
and Board Chairperson of Regional Tourism
Organization of Southern Africa (RETOSA)
» Klemens Riha, Project Coordinator Combating
Poaching and the Illegal Trade in Ivory/ Rhinohorn, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
» Dr. Dirk Glaesser, Director Sustainable
Development of Tourism, World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO)
» Les Carlisle, Group Conservation Manager,
&Beyond
» Roland Melisch, Senior Director Africa and
Europe, TRAFFIC International – The Wildlife
Trade Monitoring Network
» Joep Stevens, General Manager Strategic
Tourism Services, South African National Parks
Moderated by: Jennifer Seif, Executive Director,
Fair Trade Tourism
Language: English and German
Twitter: #tourism_vs_poaching
Organised by
Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Sector Project „Sustainable Development through Tourism“
Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5
65760 Eschborn/Germany
T +49 61 96 79-0
F +49 61 96 79-1115
[email protected]
www.giz.de/tourism
On behalf of
Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and
Development (BMZ)