In Africa, tourism revenues in parks have long been part of win-win partnerships between conservation of biodiversity and business at all levels, private to public, and from national to communities and villages. Entrepreneurs combining smart business models with real conservation gains have shown the way for development agencies and banks, as models and promoters of sustainable development options – and many of them are Linking Tourism and Conservation champions.  

The health and travel restrictions and the economic crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic threaten the continuation of these partnerships as the UN prepares to vote on a 10-year global biodiversity framework, and on a long-term approach to mainstream nature and people into all sectors of the economy, including tourism. How LT&C champions are faring in these challenging times, what they are doing to overcome the challenges that impact their countries, and what the UN and the World Bank can do to support them, through assessments, standard-setting, loan and capital gains programs, policy tools and capacity building initiatives was the focus of our recent webinar.

On January 21, 2021, within LT&C-Webinar Series: How to design post-COVID tourism and conservation strategies for LT&C Champions, we focused on Africa. After our first couple of webinars in which we found out what worked and what didn’t for LT&C champions around the globe, we this time looked on a continent where tourism has played a fundamental role for conservation as well as for development, and where several innovative approaches have been tested over the years, from community-based tourism to conservancies and from concessions and PPPs to State-run park tourism agencies: Africa, our common origin. So, we looked at specific champions as well as innovative financial instruments to allow the sector to recover.

As before, our goal was to identify how LT&C champions can face the post-COVID-19 tourism protocols and the future client expectations regarding safe travels and diversify their activities to optimize economic returns on their stewardship of protected areas and other area-based means of conservation. Our ultimate goal is to share those examples to ensure the sector continues to be a critical contributor to the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.  If you did not join our webinar, we now provide you with the video of the webinar here and/or download the presentations of our speakers below:

Oliver Hillel from the CBD-Secretariat in Montreal has been the Moderator of the Webinar and introduced the topic: Innovative strategic financing instruments for conservation tourism in Africa: the example of multilateral development banks and LT&C-Example.

Tourism specialist with the World Bank Group for the past 15 years,  Shaun Mann, talked about his work on a concept for an Innovative strategic financing instruments for tourism in Africa: proposals to democratize conservation”:

Netsai Bollmann, based in Botswana, talked about “Pushing the Boundaries: Reimagining and repackaging destinations across Southern African Transfrontier Conservation Areas against a COVID-19 backdrop”:

Greg Bakunzi, based in Rwanda, talked about “Amahoro Tours and Redrocks Rwanda supporting Kahuzi-Biéga National Park, DRC”. See video or download pdf:

If you have any comments on this webinar, have suggestions on future ones or have questions, just let us know by contacting us: