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IIP Speaker Introduces Cameroonian Audiences to the Social, Environmental and Economic Benefits of Ecotourism
From August 19 – 22, PAS Yaounde hosted IIP Speaker Jon Kohl, a Costa Rica-based ecotourism expert, researcher and environmental educationist, for programs on “Environmental Protection and Promoting Ecotourism.” During the four-day program in Cameroon, Jon Kohl led two seminars on the theme “Creating an Ecotourism Strategy,” in Bamenda and Douala, had a working session with the staff of the Mount Cameroon Ecotourism Organization in Buea, had a meeting with 30 journalists in Buea, and granted media interviews.
During the seminars and the meetings with journalists, Jon Kohl emphasized on the environmental, social, and economical benefits of ecotourism. For the speaker, ecotourism can be defined as a “form of tourism that leaves the place visited better for all its inhabitants, both human and non-human.” Using specific examples from America, Africa and Europe, Jon Kohl outlined the steps to take to develop an effective ecotourism strategy, and the challenges to overcome in this process.
The main preoccupation in developing an ecotourism strategy, Jon Kohl told participants, should be “to transform resources in attractions” and to make sure that these attractions meet the needs of the visitors. He also told them that they should beware of the impacts of tourism and strive to reduce these impacts before they occur. “The objective of ecotourism is for communities to have more benefits than impacts,” Jon Kohl stated.
The Speaker also introduced participants to interpretation and its importance in site management. He outlined the differences between interpretation and advertisement and described the qualities of strong interpretative messages.
Jon Kohl’s programs in Cameroon reached a cross-section of students in tourism, government officials, site managers, leaders of community-based organizations, tourist guides, journalists and travel agents. In addition to a clear understanding of what ecotourism is and what it is not, they left the seminars and meetings with the idea that “tourism is a mean, not an end.”
As participants noted in their evaluation of the seminars, Jon Kohl is a “knowledgeable, resourceful, and very inspiring” speaker whose passion for ecotourism is highly communicative. They thought this program was an important contribution to the on-going efforts to attract more tourists in Cameroon while at the same time catering for community needs.