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International: International tourist arrivals worldwide totalled 689 million in 2001, compared to 697 million in 2000. The last four months of 2001 suffered a drop of 11% in arrivals worldwide and substantial decreases in every region: Africa (-3.5%); Americas (-24%); East Asia/ Pacific (?10%); Europe (-6%); Middle East (-30%); and South Asia (-24%). [WTO] "Save the Elephants", an NGO, issued a report blaming French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese and Chinese Tourists and their ivory souvenir buying habits, for the demise of Asian Elephants. [Reuters] The "Emerald Triangle" (as in Golden Triangle) is a planned golf course to be built between Cambodia, Lao PDR and Thailand. "Ecotourism" makes it for the first time into the Oxford English Dictionary ! Ecotourism is added together with new entries such as "ecofeminism" and "home-shopping". [CNN] In 2002 approximately 10 million whale-watchers will pay more than $1 billion on tours, travel, food and hotels in 87 countries and overseas territories, according to US (Mass.) based International Fund for Animal Welfare, "up from about 4 million people spending about $317 million in 1991" [AP] Africa & M.East Botswana: Tsodilo Hills have acquired the status of a World Heritage Site, the first one in Botswana. [Wildnetafrica.com] Kenya: will serve as host to the UN designated East African Regional Preparatory Conference for the International Year of Ecotourism (IYE). The African Conservation Centre, Eco-resorts, The International Ecotourism Society and the Ecotourism Society of Kenya are sponsoring the conference that takes place in Nairobi, Kenya from Wednesday March 20 to Friday March 22, 2002. Intended as an objective review of East Africa's ecotourism, the conference will allow 150 ecotourism stakeholders from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, including 60 community members, to discuss the key issues facing East African ecotourism today. Niger: A peculiar dinosaur with 1,000 teeth (but vegetarian) has been unearthed by scientists in a Niger desert. [wildnetafrica.com] Uganda: A French company has been advertising on the Internet hunting expeditions to Uganda to hunt various species of animals despite a Uganda nationwide ban on hunting since 1985. [Allafrica.com] Egypt: BBC reports that the cruel practice of shark-finning
in which the fins are sliced Asia & Pacific Pakistan: Ecotourism Society Pakistan report that they have managed to include the study of Sustainable Tourism/Integrated Tourism into the curriculum of Tourism Management courses offered by Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management (ITHEM) of Government of province of Punjab for the first time, in connection with IYM and IYE 2002. For this purpose ESP would be obliged to receive any material which can help the students as reference. Hard copies would be added to the ITEHM Library. India: Tall pines enveloping the mountains, is the image most commonly conjured up when one talks of the Himalayas. However many of these are in fact forced entries and largely responsible for the fragile state of the mountains. With large-scale pine plantations desert-like conditions have now arisen in many parts of the Himalayan region [cseindia.org] Afghanistan: Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai reassured his country and the international community that his administration remained "fully united" despite last week's assassination of Abdul Rahman, interim aviation and tourism minister. China: Preparation for a site housing Hong Kong's future Disney theme park could seriously threaten ecological systems nearby, according to an independent environmental study. [Reuters] Russia: The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned that Russia's far eastern forests, one of the world's biggest areas of forest wilderness, risked destruction within five years because of illegal logging. Thailand: Turtles start disappearing from Phuket Island as tourism expands. [Agence Press] / Thailand, the world's top rice exporter, appears to be on the verge of its worst drought in several years, which could force thirsty farmers to cut rice production, officials said on Thursday. This year at least 36 of Thailand's 73 provinces have already been touched by drought triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon [ENN] Nepal: The drinking water supply for Kathmandu Valley's one million inhabitants has been secured by the designation of a new national park near Nepal's capital city of Kathmandu. The Shivapuri National Park, 13 kilometers (eight miles) north of Kathmandu [ens-news.com] Malaysia: More than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of land have been scorched by fires in the past few weeks, prompting the government to ban open burning. [Reuters] New Zealand: Efforts to save one of world's rarest and strangest birds, New Zealand's flightless kakapo parrot, with only 62 individuals remaining, have been boosted by a record 7 hatching eggs [kakaporecovery.org.nz] Bahamas: The Caribbean Media
Exchange on Sustainable Tourism (CMEx) announced fellowships for Caribbean and international journalists interested in
participating in the second edition of this innovative meeting which enlists media specialists in the design of sustainable
tourism. Slated for Nassau, Bahamas May 16-20, CMEx will focus on the EU: The European Parliament voted by a huge majority of 540 to 4 (!) to support European Union ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, as proposed by the European Commission late in 2001. Later on, the EU launches Envisat, "the first satellite to contribute to the monitoring of compliance of the Kyoto Protocols".[ITV] Norway: which resumed commercial whaling in 1993, raised its whaling quota to 674 minke whales, compared with 549 last year and has announced that it is ready to export to Japan. Japan has announced it will hunt 50 sei whales as part of its scientific research whaling programme this year. Sei whales are listed by IUCN, the World Conservation Union, as endangered. (iisd.org) Ukraine: A United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report, proposes that Chernobyl, infamous site of the best known nuclear accident, should become an "ecotourism destination". "It sounds odd (...), but the restricted areas have actually developed over the last 16 years or so into an extraordinary environmental opportunity," said Kalman Mizsei, an UNDP official [Reuters] UK: Scottish Parliament voted to ban fox hunting with dogs. The decision may influence the long campaign to ban fox hunting with dogs in England and Wales. Mexico: A severe winter storm that swept across the Mexican state of Michoacan in January has killed as many as 250 million Monarch butterflies on their wintering grounds. The disaster was exacebated by deforestation according to the World Wildlife Fund Mexico. / WWF launched the vaquita Conservation Strategy designed to reduce the threats to the 567 vaquitas that are thought to remain in the wild. The vaquita, the shortest porpoise in the world with a maximum length of 1.49 meters, is listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Critically Endangered Belize: Belizean environmental and business groups, including the Belize Ecotourism Association have filed a lawsuit to block the controversial, Canadian backed Chalillo Hydroelectric Dam project. The Chalillo project is expected to flood 1,100 hectares (2,718 acres) of pristine forest, engulfing the valleys of the Macal and Raspaculo rivers. Opponents of the project say the dam would flood one of the last intact rainforests in Central America, destroying habitat for rare and endangered species including the jaguar, scarlet macaw and Belize's national animal, the tapir. Robert Kennedy Jr., an attorney with the U.S. based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), has also strongly criticized the project. Related video Bolivia: There is concern that a violent storm in the capital La Paz, which left 48 people dead, and other storms in neighboring Peru could herald another El Nino year. Brazil: Carnaval time, but an outbreak of dengue fever centered in the state of Rio de Janeiro, has reportedly infected at least 430,000, and the army mobilised to assist in fighting the epidemic. Chile: Forest fires ravaged 20,000 acres of prized native forests and nature reserves in what the government said was one of the worst disasters to hit a popular tourism zone, 500 miles south of Santiago. [Reuters] United States: The oldest living single organism on the planet could lose its title to a newly discovered kid on the block. Biologist Jim Cornett of the Palm Springs Desert Museum says that a scraggly-looking Mojave Desert creosote bush may have an 11,000-year-old death grip on life. [ENN] / President Bush approved on Friday a plan to bury the nation's radioactive waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, provoking an immediate lawsuit by the state's governor, a republican. Canada: Following decades of opposition, the Cree nation vote to sign agreement for the construction of hydroelectric power plants with the Quebec government. |