LT&C in its fourth year still is an entirely voluntary Norwegian-registered NGO but achieved significant global outreach, particular if related to its small budget. Our members (“penguins”), who are well distributed over all continents, are the stalwarts of the organisation. They represent and connect the world of nature conservation and tourism, linking different geographies, society levels and cultures. Ensuring the linkages, synergies and networks between our members and partners are strengthened continues to be a key element of our work.
The profiling of case studies, where tourism is supporting nature conservation in protected areas has been a core activity. In 2017, we added 3 such LT&C-Examples: Friends of Karura Forest Community Association in Kenya, Delaware Bay at Cape May, New Jersey, USA, and the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This brought us to altogether 26 LT&C-Examples. Several of them have been re-profiled in other media, such as in the glossy marine protection and travel magazine SEVENSEAS, and in our partner organisations, such as IUCN-Panorama, Blue Solutions and The Long Run.
Another exciting development this year was that six LT&C-Example providers/authors were awarded as “Global Sustainable Destinations Top 100”. This helped to make our examples popular and to create incentives for others to take interest in these cases and try to copy them.
Without a doubt, however, the most important achievements in 2017, where LT&C was involved were:
1) The inauguration of Raet National Park on the Skagerrak coast of Norway, and
It remains important to focus work on how to “export” our LT&C-Examples to other places in the world. In this context, the workshop in the Wadden Sea also played an important role. Incentives, such as those provided by financial institutions to help replicate LT&C-Examples, will be crucial to the scaling-up implementation of LT&C’s mission.
Read the full report: Annual Report 2017
