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Uganda: The Uganda Wildlife Authority offers four concessions to the private sector to develop and improve hospitality facilities and services in protected areas. Botswana: Botswana and the European Union sign a P70 million wildlife conservation and management agreement. S.Africa: Nelson Mandela promotes a multimillion-rand conservation fund-raising scheme known as "My Acre of Africa". / Verloren Vallei Nature Reserve in Mpumalanga receives recognition as a Ramsar wetland site. Mozambique: Considered one of the big five dive sites in Africa, the Bazaruto Archipelago is declared a national marine nature reserve by the government of Mozambique. The archipelago, which lies about 30 kilometers (20 miles) off the coast between the towns of Vilanculo and Inhassoro, takes in four main islands - Bazaruto, Benguerra, Magaruque, and Santa Carolina. The islands themselves were declared a national park in 1971. This new designation covers an additional 1,400 square kilometers (540 square miles) of ocean surrounding the islands. Asia & Pacific Australia: A logger who destroyed 23 heritage-listed rainforest trees in North Queensland has been jailed for a year, the first person to be prosecuted under the state's new world heritage protection laws. China: The Beijing Raptor Rescue Centre, China's first specialized rescue and rehabilitation center for birds of prey, starts operation. / WWF initiates an ecotourism program featuring birdwatching on China's largest freshwater lake of Poyang, in east China's Jiangxi Province. The lake is the largest winter shelter for migrating birds in Asia, with 95 percent of white crane species on earth spending winter here / Conservationists in Hong Kong begun airlifting hundreds of endangered turtles to a U.S. rescue facility and are battling to save thousands more of the animals confiscated from smugglers supplying China's exotic food market. The creatures were among a cargo of 10,000 turtles which were being shipped from Southeast Asia to markets in mainland China when they were intercepted by customs officials. Vietnam: received 2.3 million foreign arrivals and served 12.3 million local tourists this year, a year-on-year increases of 9.2 percent and six percent respectively, Vietnam News Agency reports. Indonesia: The Indonesian government has said it will require all forest concessionaires to obtain a government-approved certificate by 2003 as part of efforts to improve the country's bad reputation for environmental negligence. According to the World Bank, Indonesian forests were reduced by an annual average of some 3.7 million acres between 1985 and 1997. India: More than 300 people dodged tigers and crocodiles to take part in one of the world's largest tiger census operations in eastern India's Sunderbans Delta / Rajaji National Park in the Himalayan foothills has been closed to visitors after the killing of two elephants for their tusks. Four platoons of Provincial Armed Constabulary and 300 forest guards and rangers are combing the park for the poachers. / In the northern Indian city of Agra, officials were planning to camouflage the Taj Mahal, the famous 17th century marble monument to love, in case of air attack. A tourism official told Associated Press that tailors were stitching together more than 400 metres of cloth to cover the mausoleum's dome and its minarets./ PATA has confirmed that former US President Bill Clinton will deliver the keynote address, "Tourism -- Looking Ahead and Beyond," at the 51st PATA Annual Conference, in April, in New Delhi. Pakistan: Ornithologists in Pakistan fear that populations of birds whose migration route takes them over Afghanistan may have been devastated by the weeks of bombing there. At this time of the year usually several thousand ducks and other wildfowl migrate here from Central Asia via Afghanistan. So far this year, not one has arrived. Nepal: Nepal has become the first South Asian country accorded the Approved Destination Status by China. Chinese tourists comprise 1.27 percent of the total tourist arrivals to Nepal, but this figure is now expected to rise substantially. Lebanon: According to Greenpeace and local group Greenline, more than 50 sewers dump waste directly into the sea every day. Thailand: The Tourism Authority of Thailand is surveying foreign tourist opinions about travel in Thailand. Whether you have been to Thailand once, many times or never, the TAT is interested in your opinions. To access the questionnaire visit http://chalethill.com/tat/intro.html. / The cabinet has endorsed a revised plan for a special body dedicated to promoting the country's long-stay tourism business after previous structure was rejected. The body will be a state-owned, non-profit institution and will provide services to long-stay tourists from helping with visas to setting standards for their accommodations, as well as distributing information among government and private-sector groups, tourists and tourism operators. The Caribbean nations hope to become the world's first sustainable tourism zone, said Norman Girvan, the secretary-general of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) at the opening ceremony of ACS's third summit held on Margarita Island, Venezuela. Girvan emphasized tourism is the main source of income in Caribbean nations and foresaw a faster growth in this sector in the near future. He urged the conferees to take advantage of this opportunity to expedite the creation of a "Sustainable Tourism Zone," the first ever in the world, which is aimed at calling on countries to adopt sustainable development guidelines for hotels and other tourism - related businesses. Bermuda: may consider developing a one stop Internet site allowing tourists to book every activity they plan on the Island Bahamas: In a tourism summit organised by the 14-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) trade bloc, tourism officials announced they must pool resources to offset a drop in tourism to the region after the terror attacks on the United States. Some suggested forming a regional airline to guarantee flights. Dominican Republic: The world's smallest lizard has been discovered on a tiny Caribbean island off the coast of the Dominican Republic. UK: A 13 percent overall decrease in the number of visitors and exhibitor personnel attending World Travel Market 2001, was noted this year. Italy: gave the green light to build a series of movable dams to keep the slowly-sinking lagoon city of Venice afloat as part of a controversial project dubbed Moses. An inter-ministerial commission headed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi approved the initial US$2.3 billion proposal. Greece: Tilos inhabitants and frequent tourists, vote to ban hunting on this island of 68 square kilometers. The mayor Tassos Aliferis, in an interview with Kathimerini newspaper, states that "Over the past few years, we have developed ecotourism due to the rich fauna on the island - we're lucky enough to have water. We lengthened the tourist period in this way and we are virtually full until October." The only thing we can sell to the tourists is the environment and we're fighting to improve it." Three thousand visitors to Tilos, on top of the island's inhabitants, voted by e-mail against the opening of the hunting season. Hunting has been banned for the past seven years. / The Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) reports that it has secured commitments from 110,000 travel operators to take part in its plan to extend the summer tourism season for tourists from abroad. Under the three-year programme that began in autumn 2001, a subsidy of 40 euros is awarded per tourist arrival from October 15 to April 30, the GNTO said in a statement. / A row with Britain over a group of British plane-spotters who had been in detention since their arrest in November 8 on suspicion of espionage, after repeated warnings, ends with their release on bail. / Greece's state tourism agency offers free holidays for 50 children of firefighters killed in the Sept. 11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center towers, the agency said Sunday.Greek welfare agencies and charity groups have often provided free summer holidays for children from war zones, mostly from conflicts in the neighbouring former Yugoslavia. Mexico: A new study of satellite images suggests that Mexico is losing forest cover almost twice as fast as previously estimated, making it the country with the second-highest (first is Brazil) deforestation rate in the world, according to the Mexican Environment Department. Over the eight years, the amount of forest lost was equivalent to the area of Ireland. Ecuador: 40 miles of ocean surrounding the Galapagos Islands have been promoted to the status of UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site nearly one year after an oil spill threatened an ecological disaster. Brazil: In the midst of an expedition to document the impact of global warming and pollution on the Amazon Basin, two times America's Cup yacht race champion Sir Peter Blake was shot and killed, when pirates boarded his research boat at the mouth of the Amazon River. Blake had recently retired from competitive sailing to devote his time to studying ecological problems and launching an adventure travel company. / Two archipelagos and two protected savanna areas have been declared UNESCO world heritage sites. The Fernando de Norhonha and Atol das Rocas archipelagos, which lie more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) off Brazil's Atlantic coast, offer near-pristine conditions to an exuberant array of marine life, including a large number of rotator dolphins. The protected savanna areas are the Chapada dos Veadeiros and the Emas National Parks in the midwestern state of Goias — some of the last untouched remnants of a tropical savanna habitat known as a cerrado. The region contains one-third of Brazil's plant and animal species, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Today, only about 30 percent of the original cerrado is still standing. Honduras: The Honduran government initiated a seven-month rationing program for drinking water in the capital Tegucigalpa due to unseasonably low rainfall that has left aquifers practically dry. Tegucigalpa residents will have to go three days a week with no water at all. Guatemala: Guatemala City, Dec 20 (EFE).- The tourism industry was Guatemala's leading source of foreign currency for the second consecutive year, once again surpassing revenue from coffee exports. Tourists spent some $449.6 million through October of 2001, according to the Guatemalan Tourism Institute (INGUAT), 8% down from the $487.5 million spent in the same period last year. USA: Environmentalists in Florida are concerned about state plans to weaken protections for the manatee and the red-cockaded woodpecker. To qualify as endangered in the state, a species must now have lost at least 80 percent of its population during the past 10 years; a threatened species must have lost at least 50 percent of its population in the last 10 years. / Bodega Bay, California, location for Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller "The Birds," has been named a Globally Important Bird Area (IBA) by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). Flocks of tourists from all over the world come to Bodega Bay, seeking spots where 'The Birds' was filmed. / An enormous squid that grows 23 feet long and lives more than 3,000 feet under the ocean, has baffled scientists with what they call its strange looks and weird behavior as reported in the journal Science. / Intel co-founder's Foundation pledges $261 million to Conservation International, a nonprofit group based in Washington. Canada: Following up on campaign promises to boost the economy, British Columbia's Liberal government has welcomed applications from tourism companies offering helicopter and caterpillar skiing, as well as snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle trips, into many of B.C.'s hitherto untouched rivers, mountains, and lakes./ Quebec's Ice Hotel is getting ready to open for a second year - in a new location and much bigger, with a spa, a wedding chapel, a driving range and a skating rink. The luminous 27,000-square-foot structure and all its furniture, fixtures and artwork will be constructed from 11,000 tons of snow and 350 tons of ice. It also will have some new amenities such as heated bathrooms and two working fireplaces. Quebec is to host the International Year of Ecotourism Summit in May. Hopefully the hotel will have melted away by then. |