Nathalie Maisonneuve in Gangan, Guinea
“Tourism can quickly become a source of conflict within a community. And there are many more cases demonstrating this than the other way around, unfortunately! It is essential to prepare the population well in advance and to work alongside them to prepare them for the reception of foreign visitors as well as for intercultural exchanges.”
Nathalie Maisonneuve is an expert international consultant in Ecotourism specializing in Natural Resources Management and Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas. Passionate about nature and adventure from an early age, she embarked on her ecotourism career in 2002 (the International Year of Ecotourism) working for a local NGO in the Peruvian Andes. With studies in Geography, Ecology and Natural Resources Management, she has worked on international (EU, UNDP, GIZ, SPREP, U.S. Forest Service, and others) national and local sustainable tourism projects throughout Africa, Latin America, the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Greenland. A long time Ecoclub.com Professional Member, Ms Maisonneuve passionately believes in ecotourism as a tool for conservation of natural resources and development that benefits local communities. Read on for an insider’s perspective on ecotourism consulting, helpful tips for aspiring professionals, and more!
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: What first attracted you to this career and what keeps you going?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: A taste for travel, adventure, discovery... then, the desire to preserve these beauties, to be able to continue to be amazed and therefore, quite naturally, to contribute to preserving this nature. Ecotourism can be a real tool for conservation and development. There are plenty of examples in the world of smartly run ecotourism programs that work. This is what gives me hope and the desire to persevere.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Of all the projects you have been involved with, which is your favourite and why?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: It's hard to choose! But I will mainly talk about 2 projects: my first one in Peru, in the Andes Mountains, in the Province of Cotahuasi because it was my first job. I had to develop ecotourism, and I had ‘carte blanche’. We would explore the caves and discover relics from the time of the Quechua people; we only moved on foot or on horseback…. I learned everything there. And Guinea, where I discovered a population of chimpanzees and forged very strong links with the communities thanks to the trust I gained from them by working alongside them, by valuing them, by listening to them.
Gangan, Guinea: crossing the river to get to a Peul community.Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Your advice to young people interested in an ecotourism career: what is the key skill set of an ecotourism consultant and how should one go about acquiring it?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: First, I would say that you shouldn't be afraid to move, perhaps sometimes to remote places, to be uncomfortable. Then, do not hesitate to make your first experiences with local NGOs, certainly with little means, or by looking for them yourself (many existing scholarships). Learning foreign languages, multiplying field experiences in different environments. You certainly shouldn't be too demanding in the first few years. Then, time and experience allow us to select the projects on which we really want to invest.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: What are the key problems of freelance consultancy work in ecotourism?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: The main problems are those related to the consultancy itself: the uncertainty of contracts... never really being able to plan the workload in advance. You can go months without a contract and then, suddenly, be overloaded. Then you have to be ready to go, sometimes far, far away, from your family. You have to be able to adapt your life to these hazards. You also have to learn to cope with poverty because you don't always see the outcome of your work. It can be very frustrating. You may be required to produce a diagnostic report without concrete funding for local communities. It is more and more impossible for me to go to a place, to collect information, to take time from these people without guaranteeing them anything in return. Moreover, communities are becoming reluctant to interviews, by dint of seeing projects paraded without it bringing them any profit. If possible, I get involved in missions where we go all the way to the implementation phase of a project for the villagers.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: And yet freelance consulting is still in demand, along with large consultancy companies. Does this indicate that independent consultants have some advantages over the latter, especially in the case of Ecotourism?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: As uncertain as it may be to be self-employed, I will not change my status for anything in the world for the following reasons: to keep my freedom and flexibility of working hours, for
the choice of contracts: you have the possibility to commit to missions that you like and carry you, plus you usually work with passionate people like you and learn a lot from them!
Restitution of the draft national ecotourism strategy for the national parks and reserves in Congo-Brazzaville
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Is Overtourism a systemic problem (the end outcome of a global socioeconomic system fixated on growth) requiring radical system changes? Can it be tackled with policy reform, or is it simply a case of local management failure at the site/destination level?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: Overtourism is not a problem for the destinations in which I work, for example: African destinations that are unknown or that only attract adventurous people, Guinea because of political instability and the lack of infrastructure and tourist services; the same issues are seen in the Comoros and the countries of the Congo Basin. It is therefore very interesting to work on the implementation of virtuous tourism on a national scale - such as the national ecotourism strategy for the Parks and Reserves of Congo Brazzaville that we have set up with the help of the US Forest Service on behalf of the Ministry of Protected Areas. Overtourism is the result of our societal ills... the need to do and to see the same things, to look alike... But fortunately, numerous measures are taken in protected areas - here in France, for example, to compensate for and re-qualify spaces: returning to soft mobility, establishing shuttle systems, or promoting lesser-known places that are just as worth a visit.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: So what are the key challenges facing ecotourism/sustainable tourism in France?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: The management of protected areas to guarantee quiet areas, the management of the number of visitors mentioned in the previous question. Some places now have to take drastic measures and impose quotas, such as in the Calanques National Park. We also meet, especially since the COVID crisis, new tourist profiles, city dwellers who do not particularly know the rules to be respected in a natural area. So much so that the authorities sometimes have to take new and more drastic measures due to the rapid degradation of fragile environments that are under too much pressure over a short period of time. Access to protected areas is mainly free in France, unlike the Anglo-Saxon way of managing parks and reserves. Consequently, no entrance fees are paid to ensure the conservation of the premises. The State must cover this, but sometimes the financial and human resources may be lacking.
Qassiarsuk, Greenland: tackling the issue of cruise ships not bringing any income to the community
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: If you had a mandate to change one key thing in French tourism, what would it be and how would you go about it?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: There are some very good examples of tourism management in France, including the remarkable work by ‘the Grands Sites de France Network’. If I were Minister of Ecological Transition (lol!) I would allocate much more resources to nature conservation to focus on awareness, environmental education - much more than on repression! Many tourists act out of ignorance. We should be able to hire more environmental mediators so that everyone has the right gestures and reflexes, in the mountains like any other protected natural area. In terms of facilities, I would develop a large soft mobility programme to allow visitors to access the parks and reserves by bus, train or even by bike rather than by car. I would leave the most emblematic places untouched by any development to privilege their wilderness, their naturalness.
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Peace, cooperation and reconciliation are in short supply these days. Based on your experience working with communities, can the right sort of tourism contribute to peace and reconciliation or are those prerequisites for tourism?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: Tourism can quickly become a source of conflict within a community. And there are many more cases demonstrating this than the other way around, unfortunately! It is essential to prepare the population well in advance and to work alongside them to prepare them for the reception of foreign visitors as well as for intercultural exchanges. In some African societies, cultural differences are so immense that they can deconstruct a community. The prerequisites for a community tourism project are therefore to identify a local partner who will be able to support the community in receiving foreign visitors and therefore, generate direct and indirect income for them, by offering services such as guiding, beverage services, restaurants and community hostels. The whole community will obviously want to earn some currency... But of course, not everyone is involved. It is therefore necessary to set up a community development fund where a percentage of the profits are paid and allocated to the needs of the community: the construction of a borehole, a dispensary, a market hall, etc.
Escorting officers in the Virunga, DRCAntonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Going back to your experience in Africa, based on your first-hand knowledge, how do Tourism and Conservation fit in the "new scramble for Africa"? Do you see superpowers and smaller powers using them for geopolitical gains or do they have more direct and suitable means?
Nathalie Maisonneuve: There are very good models of tourism management within Protected Areas in Africa. We welcome the introduction of PPPs, particularly in the parks and reserves of West and Central Africa, which were seeing their wildlife dwindle. We can mention the African Parks Network, which is doing remarkable work in the fight against poaching and trying to restore a positive image to attract visitors. Noé Conservation, WCS, WWF, the success of conservancies in Southern Africa are no longer up for debate as it is known internationally and has been widely documented. Community-based tourism initiatives can also be widely welcomed such as the MIHARI network of Community-based Areas in Madagascar. Good management models take time to be put in place, while tourism is an unstable sector, subject to economic hazards, health crises, etc. But when it is managed effectively by conservationists involving the direct and indirect participation of local populations, it has shown itself to be a real tool for conservation and development (e.g. Mountain Gorilla Vision Tourism in Rwanda, the Conservancies in Namibia).
Antonis Petropoulos - Ecoclub.com: Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom and experience as a leading ecotourism consultant with us. You have clearly stated the win-win case, namely the mutually beneficial cooperation between ecotourism, conservation and communities, which is fortunately taking place in many areas. Yet we must not forget the frequent, serious and well-documented, criticism by human rights organizations against the 'fortress' or 'colonial conservation' model involving the displacement and eviction of indigenous populations living inside protected areas (in East Africa and South Asia among others) and the gradual privatization of those areas, under the pretext of anti-poaching measures, while tourism and conservation themselves, like other industries, become, usually unwillingly, the vehicle of sinister geopolitical games. Decent, independent ecotourism and community tourism consultants will often find themselves between a rock and a hard place, but their ability to make a real difference in terms of defending communities and wildlife through tourism, is invaluable. Readers wishing to follow your ecotourism career footsteps will particularly appreciate your valuable advice and insight - thank you again!