Sustainable Development in Rwanda: #ClimateChange #Tourism #VisitRwanda #2030 #2050(FULL INTERVIEW )
i cannot hear you uh can you hear me now yeah i can tell you now okay um sorry for the delay but also i think the link was planned for 11 p.m actually in the morning i shared updated link and i thought they shared it to you as the nadine was was in yeah that's why i thought to get the ring so so far uh thank you for your time you're most welcome yeah should we start now yeah we can start okay all right uh thank you so much mr rijera it is an honor to have you for this interview um like i mentioned in the emails with your team uh the topic for this article more writing it's a sustainable development in rwanda and how rwanda is looking for is looking at climate change resilience so but before we start i would like to to hear from you can you tell me more about yourself uh the reason is um let's say seven years ago uh your team have been doing a very good incredible job and um you have been done a lot of things so giving it to the success in the lives of uh in the tourism in rwanda so it will be great to hear more about you about your approach to work and uh how you have put rwanda on the map as a to this destination thank you thank you celeste please allow me to also thank you for this opportunity to have this conversation with you uh like you rightly said my name is ariella khan the acting chief tourism officer at the runner development board uh which is the government organization that is in charge of conservation so we champion conservation efforts through sustainable tourism myself i joined rdb in 2019 in april i was from the ronald tourism chamber where i led the tourism chamber for one year but prior to that had served over eight years the rwanda national airline around there uh about rwanda ronda is a diverse destination for visitors and known for its sustainable eco-friendly and responsible tourism the country is home to big to the big five in the akagera national park it's also home to lush tropical rainforest ancient volcanoes and of course the magnificent mountain gorillas among many other great apes species that we have okay okay sounds good um i understand uh they said uh this is you are talking about the national parks and the climate change i understand there isn't some communities around volcanoes national park in the district of urea had been located with the purpose of expanding the park what is the main purpose of relocating these communities celeste please allow me to just make a very slight correction there's been no a relocation yet but uh we have a strategy and a pr program to expand the volcano's national park like rightly said and so far we've acquired 27 hectare of land uh which is a small portion of you know what our target is which is 3740 hectare of land that will be added to the volcanoes national park uh but uh just to also touch on the the purpose and the strategy and be in the thinking behind uh this program you probably know that mountain gorilla conservation is a global conservation success story with its population uh increasing uh by 26 percent within the whole of vulanga massif so the population increased from 480 uh individual gorillas in 2010 to uh 604 gorillas in 2016. so the the the primary goal um of this uh uh program is to achieve uh address an ecological challenge uh due to the small size of the this by diverse park which has insufficient and suitable space which is supposed to be interconnected for mountain gorillas and other wildlife species and this is a critical long-term issue that the pak expansion program is intended to address uh the expression process is really something that has been guided by several assessments and strategies that were conducted prior to government taking this as a as a strategic program and just to mention a few we've conducted a preliminary ecological impact impact assessment study in 2018 which indicated that overall the proposed park expansion area and adjacent land use a buffer zone is strongly and uh and ambiguously positive from an ecological uh perspective another preliminary socio-economic impact assessment study conducted in the semiya indicated the project could bring significant development benefits including economic growth and also poverty alleviation to communities around the volcanoes national park as you know uh conservation in rwanda uh puts as priority the communities and i think we'll touch on that later uh to show you how we've been working as with local communities that represent the different national parks beyond the volcano's national park as co-investors and stewards of um of uh uh champions and guardians of uh the different uh uh species and also the biodiversity of these uh um these uh uh ecologically important areas so to date as i just said no communities have been relocated and when the time comes it will apply a reset resettlement policy framework to ensure that the free prior and informed consent are principles and national requirements for land acquisition and supplement are adequately addressed so uh lastly the recently we've recently initiated uh a plan to conservation development which is uh essentially a master plan which will combine policy investment and business engagement opportunities to transform the economy in the landscape and secure sustainable livelihoods for 13 over 13 000 people living in the area to be expanded so with the collaboration of conservation partners the pilot project is under development to serve as a proof course of concept of the program as you can understand you cannot immediately full blast you know expand uh three thousand seven to three thousand seven hundred before you even conduct uh you know i've just explained to you the process through which we went through uh to understand why this was a an important issue and how it's going to be resolved okay okay so to interrupt you sorry sorry miserably terrible to you um do you have maps for expansion of national parks we will share that with you i cannot share that with you okay let me share that you are showing exactly the area actually that is going to be used as a proof of concept of the program so this area this program that i've just said the the proof of concept will help determine if any adjustment to the implementation plan that has been um already identified or if if any adaptations of the program are necessary so it includes a pack expansion that will the pak expansion itself that will result in the acquisition of 450 hectares of land a green village to reloc to host the relocated 560 households and ensure livelihood improvement that we see 22 hectares of land allocated to smart agriculture production and other income generating activities for the community this will include even activities to do tourism and conservation for communities themselves so this pak expansion will not only see addressing an ecological important issue but also addressed uh uh uh improve the livelihood continue to improve the livelihoods of the communities i hope that uh answers your question uh celeste okay okay yeah they also answer all the questions um talking about expression of the back uh the park you mentioned a little bit about sustainability sustainable tourism i can know how is sustainable tourism development factored in into the national park expression plan can you explain more about the tourism development strategies you mentioned if you can you add more so maybe just to recap to go back a bit currently sustainable tourism is the approach to tourism that we have in rwanda generally and this includes volcanoes national park as a country we've chosen the high-end tourism uh in order to limit the impact on the environment uh and this includes uh uh strategies to to increase even the guerrilla permit fee uh to 1500 uh we which was a strategy and a move to ensure that there is low impact on environment while generating enough revenue that are invested back in within the landscape itself and also supporting uh local communities uh that's just uh um as an example but also because of this strategy of uh sustainable tourism uh and also because of the very conducive uh doing business environment that we have in rwanda we've been able to attract renowned brands in equal tourism you've heard of high-end lodges in the areas that are close to national parks these have been attracted by our strategy they've been generating uh jobs uh for london's they've generated um revenues for the economy and also supported local communities and also the landscape itself within which they operate all right um talking about that's the new question that comes when we talk about the increase of uh gorilla vs permit uh there have been lomas uh like i say rumors people say about uh there is the in the region there is a congo gorilla there is a uganda gorilla so then rwanda is increasing the price of permit so how do you people have been commenting uh that's pride how are they the increase of the the the the buyers the client of buying the the payments are you so far having uh uh more people buying the payments is the number decrease uh so how far the the new change of uh the new pricing is working to to your department perhaps uh we can also take into context uh uh the current situation that we're in of the kovid 19 pandemic which has affected tourism globally and rwanda is uh was not isolated to that impact and therefore currently uh tourism generally has decreased including uh visitors to guerrillas uh within the national park but prior to that actually uh 2019 i was the best year in tourism uh uh where we saw the highest increase of revenues since uh you know a few years back and what that means is uh was mainly due to two reasons one was the increase of the guerrilla permit because we had an increase of revenues as you know it we reached for the first time close to half a billion dollars and we also were able to get uh renowned brands that i stayed in in our tourism ecosystem and this has also uh contributed largely to the increase of revenues because the price of the of the package increased which means that uh more revenues were generated from the tourists so meaning the tourist spent was increased so it was it has been a a positive move uh until of course uh kovit came uh to to to hit tourism but we will be built back uh better when travel restrictions and also uh the when you know it is safe for everybody to travel there's been a large out of uh vaccine even in tourism where the majority of our of the professionals and workers within the tourism industry have been vaccinated which provides the confidence uh that is needed by travelers to understand that rwanda is not only safe but also that tourism is a priority sector for the country which contributes largely to the country's economy as you know it's rwanda's primary forest foreign currency anna okay in the business when you increase prices you also include something additional to the package you provide to your clients so the new price of uh gorilla permits is it you have any package today today to the clients or just increase the price nothing additionally you you probably for instance i remember when they visited the career they would sometimes give the certificate they give a t-shirt they may provide a transportation is there any other addition you provide within that new price yeah celeste i'm actually very surprised you were provided transportation from your permit fee uh that must have been um uh perhaps uh uh an incentive for you to travel as a domestic tourist and uh also for you to uh explore and appreciate the tourism attractions within the country and i applaud you for having taken that challenge and having visited the national park but back to your question uh increasing the price uh goes again with the positioning of rwanda as a higher tourism destination i've just said it that when we increase the price we attracted renault uh investors within the industry and that means that the offering of rwanda and positioning of rwanda also increased further to meet the expectations of the high end tourists you must have seen that rwanda continues to receive high end tourists even within this pandemic where uh even this week alone we received uh uh high-end tourists that were touring africa and chose rwanda as the highlight destination uh as part of their greatest safari package but this shows you that um increasing the package of course we we've been also uh working with partners and also the private sector to upskill and uh position ronda properly in the markets that we serve so it has been an ecosystem uh even when you look at the the uh process through which uh our our clients or our visitors arrive it's it's all a a high-end forecast approach with services like vip meet and greet services being offered at the giggle international airport so that people can receive personalized services in addition the private sector has also positioned properly in uh proposing bespoke experiences because when someone has uh the money to pay 1500 and also the money to pay accommodation a high-end loan it means the package has to be personalized to them to meet their needs so we've been working very closely with the private sector for that offer to be positioned uh in a way that speaks and responds to the expectations of the clients that we receive okay uh you mentioned area about what communities around the national department get from the tourism especially around those parks tourism eleven sharing as she had been reports uh from wara db the tourism revenue even you mentioned that you mentioned area the tourism revenue sharing program provides support to community around the park through infrastructure builds by funds from a 10 percent revenue share why is a 10 percent the chosen percentage of for the amount of revenue to go back into communities how is the other 90 percent used or it all is being used yes thank you celeste first of all to maybe give you a bit of um understanding of where we came from this uh portion of ten percent was increased from five percent in 2017 since the beginning of this program the the program began in 2005 uh where we were sharing five percent of uh pac revenues to communities and later on it was increased uh to ten percent when in 2017 when the gorilla permit fee increased this is an approach that we took to ensure that communities living around protected areas benefit from conservation the government took the strategic decision to invest 10 percent of pac revenues to these communities uh under this scheme of revenue sharing and these funds are invested in projects identified by the members of the communities themselves and uh in 2019 2020 uh we have uh supported 30 community projects that are being implemented in in different sectors in agriculture in housing sanitation water supply uh where they were funded at a tune of over 600 million rand and france but since the beginning of this program we have invested about 6.5 billion run on francs to over 780 projects supporting communities um the rest of the park revenues are invested back in the park you probably know that the park running a national park is is expensive you need to maintain the ecosystem within that is producing all these revenues it's important to provide maintenance fees to these areas to protect them to acquire latest technology in in law enforcement uh to train the staff uh to respond to the the standards that are needed when managing and protecting a national park and also in veterinary services as you know we monitor uh the health of the of the wildlife species within the national parks and also outside uh national parks and and lastly in the promotion of what we have to offer uh last but not least is uh uh developing more products within the national park uh or within areas uh other national parks to provide a socket that responds to the expectations of the clients but also grows opportunities within our economy by enabling the private sector uh through these opportunities as well okay sounds a very good program and um so what is your vision for this program in the longer term for that i'm talking about the ten percent which goes back uh to communities so what is the your vision for this program for longer term we are actually in the process of uh researching um and and and make an analysis or stock taking of the achievements that the program has realized since uh the beginning uh in 2005 to understand what are the the things that we we we what are the gaps that we need to address going forward we've been implementing this program for all these years uh what are the next what is the next challenge uh for communities um and also taking lessons from covet 19. so we'll be able to share a con a comprehensive plan
uh after this research that we're undertaking is over uh but we do not see a future without community empowerment in conservation so this program will remain will be improved to respond to more uh community problems uh by continuing to enable wildlife conservation uh i understand you mentioned about sustainability over this community uh so is any other plan you may add for for sustainability over this community besides planning what have already shown during the program and what the program i mean what's the problems they need to be addressed is the under specific plans that for example i've seen the school's bills uh there is housing that's been built so um for sustainability of these communities then the addition you can add i would say that uh we we have developed also beyond by the way the volcano's national park you know there are other national parks within the country and they all provide opportunities for communities i would uh point out uh the akagera national park landscape where we've just concluded a master plan to develop the surroundings of this national park and this provides with opportunities for communities to uh be able to to also directly uh benefit from conservation uh beyond this program including creating community conservancies as an example uh being able to uh get higher uh uh diversify income generating activities uh by uh taking advantage of opportunities within the wildlife conservation sector and the wildlife economy so these are some of the opportunities and will be uh creating awareness about about these uh opportunities to to to to the communities with the support and the collaboration of local authorities uh so that you know these benefits start directly with communities first how do communities influence decisions for these projects in other words how our decision is made for the project the projects are designed and tailored by communities themselves so they are the the champions and promoters of these projects in a nutshell so um they do not only benefit from the projects but they design the projects themselves uh can you be specific for instance um the recently uh like event happened uh of you built a house you built some housing and uh so who came up with the idea of building those houses are the communities who brought the idea to build the house or is the other debate to bring the idol for this house no communities themselves have the need for housing and they've expressed it and once they express it uh we actually work with local authorities to understand how those families are structured so that we can design together the projects i invite you to come to this year's criticism uh which will be helpful remember uh to follow uh one of the projects will be highlighted uh how it has benefited the communities and you'll hear uh the testimonies from themselves from the communities themselves okay i have seen some i have a partner who have a tourism campaign i have seen some and uh thank you i'm very happy to to come and see more for criticism so how is climate change resilience addressed within the revenue sharing community and or how does primary change decision is made for this project for instance uh before you replay that question there is an an issue had been discussed the the center about water coming from the the the park uh so uh maybe you can also talk about that but uh maybe you can go through that that question yeah so i would say that is a general approach um to to environment uh um climate resilience uh strategy uh for the country and as such a green growth and climate resilience strategy uh was adopted by rwanda in 2011 it sets out the country's uh actions and priorities on climate change which relates to both mitigation of such issues that you've just mentioned but also adaptation on how this will be mainstreamed within even economic planning and the strategy aims to make rwanda a developed climate resilience a low carbon economy by 2050. you have probably heard that um rwanda has been making uh efforts to manage existing forests and also to reforest uh areas of the country that have led to a coverage of over 30 percent um of the country being covered with forest this uh plays an important role in mitigating randa's effect on ronda's mitigating effects of uh of uh climate change or reversing the effects of climate change so reforestation has been uh a big a major approach to reversing the the effect of climate change and i would also speak about uh you know other measures like um uh where we have uh provided infrastructure that manage uh such issues that you mentioned but this is a global approach to government management of of climate change induced challenges celeste i i need to up to to alert you that uh i'll i have another meeting in the next uh five minutes if you can hurry a bit okay thank you so much i think i really try to jump and uh take the last feature climate change and improvements in rwanda i think you have read more about this the united nations environment programs met that cost asset with the climate change adoption across africa could hit 50 billion dollar usd another by 2015 25th even the the global temperature does not raise more than two degrees resource above pre-industrial um in this case i want you to as the pandemic continued to impact tourism and therefore related to business so what is aradibi's role in gor is the recovery strategy from the pandemic and uh what is the plan for making up for roast tourism uh bring it back to what is diversifying away from tourists uh maybe you can yeah i guess thank you so uh i just talked about the uh government approach to uh you know uh growing a green growth economy and also having a climate resilience strategy which was abducted in 2011 and also increasing of forest coverage uh over to over 30 percent of uh total land area of the country but what this means for tourism as well is that even uh you know there are natural forests that are protected there are areas that are refreshed uh there are uh marsh lands that are protected and um uh uh which continue to provide uh opportunities for ecotourism uh you know bringing uh new offers in tourism uh in our ecotourism offering for instance um taking the the example of the marshland which you know at some point was suffering from human activities and with its protection and the communities also understanding the need for that it's a place that has been uh has become a refuge of uh uh species like grain crown cranes uh that are thriving with thriving populations there and also attracting uh tourism another example i can give you is the new um tourism uh uh sanctuary credit crown sanctuary in kigali called the musambi village that is a new product for kigali people and also for visitors to see and appreciate how conservation is important but also how we can continue to support conservation through ecotourism so those are initiatives very specific examples i can give you that have directly uh that have been taken to reverse climate change uh issues but that have directly contributed to growing tourism going to the impact of the pandemic and how it impacted tourism we've i've covered it a bit earlier uh global tourism uh and travel really was affected uh by the kovy 19 pandemic but rwanda was very quick to respond to this um kovi 19 pandemic by implementing uh stringent uh prevention measures and actively testing tracing and treating all cases with the goal of uh reestablishing traveler confidence rwanda re opened for tourism uh activities in june and the airport was uh opened for um commercial flights in august 2020 so that shows you uh how grand has been working quickly to address the health issue but while keeping the economic sectors running including tourism uh which um has been open for over a year now and uh with with uh with that uh with all the measures that we took the country was among the first tourist destinations that were recognized by the world's ever faster global safety and hygiene stamp launched by the world travel and tourism council last year that it's called the it was called the wttc safety stamp so together with the private sector we've also been uh in working on very uh specific measures uh and guidelines to ensure that uh not only uh we keep the health of the customers uh safe but also the health of those that are working the industry safe other than that of course the government has taken also measures to support economically and financially the private sector i introduced the economic recovery fund which saw 50 percent of the initial fund going to refinance hotel loans uh to support them to to to recover or to run smoothly as we're reopening lastly the same fund was also supporting tourism operators uh to support their capital uh the capital flow or cash flow so that they can be able to pay staff pay supplies and uh be able to open okay the last question uh which i'm very excited so to ask because i'm a fan of uh uh finishing the vc wonder program uh that promotion is very uh everywhere you go around the world everyone asks how is rwanda how is this rwanda so how has promotion of the visa rwanda been impacted by pandemic what was the success level prior to the pandemic and what has the impact been at what level has the arsenal football club advertising being impacted by the pandemic thank you the the maybe starting from the last question the advertising was not impacted by the pandemic because we were able to be flexible and agile to create content that was uh uh that could be consumed electronically or digitally by followers of um or fans of arsenal um or the visit ronda campaign uh but in terms of uh what has what we've gained as a destination before being hit by the pandemic we saw an increase in 2019 of leisure tourists from the uk as an example by 17 percent and in europe by 20 from europe by 22 percent in the year after the partnership launch this was a great success and um also the positioning of rwanda as a tourism destination uh received uh we've we've also seen that that has been a message that was received because we conducted a survey uh uh to understand whether with an international survey to understand whether people were aware of rwanda as a tourist tourism and investment this nation and we uh discovered that uh at the time we were doing the survey 51 percent uh were not uh were 71 percent after the sorry after the the the partnership and all the uh marketing activities that we conducted 71 percent of those people that uh sample shown that they were ready to uh they knew about run as a destination and they were ready to consider rwanda as as as a tourism destination for for for them and their families therefore thanks to this partnership rwanda has been seen globally uh and we hope that uh when the pandemic uh comes to an end or travel restrictions are lifted we're able to continue to uh get the value that we've invested in these uh in this partnership yeah thank you so much uh there was one more question which i think is a western management seems to be a development possible possibility possibility for rwanda are they investors being south south or already setting up in irwanda related waste management alternatives used for for the west i think this is the last question celestine uh randa has been championing the secular economy and um uh and is the founding co-chair of the african secular economy alliance so as a country recognize that the principles of secular economy turning west into wealth basically and the economic benefits it brings are well suited to rwanda's green growth ambitions through an investment by the grand ronda green growth green fund sorry the country recently opened the region's only state of the art e-west recycling facility the investment also developed the laws policies and standards needed to establish a new waste industry in rwanda today a unique public private public partnership has been set up and the facility is now managed by a private sector operator that is called enviroserv rwanda and has the capacity to process 10 000 tons per annum and has created more than 400 jobs this initiative therefore demonstrates how public sector investment can catalyze private sector investment to protect our environment and create jobs surrounding is also focused to turning general waste into a resource just this month the minister of environment has launched an initiative an innovative partnership with the luxembourg and the global grant growth institute to reduce untreated waste collected at land and landfill sites create revenue generating business models from existing west streams to create green jobs increased to also increase access to sustainable services for residents in the city of kigali while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the west sector so with this we are very confident that this project will improve waste management in the city of kigali and provide a sustainable model for other major cities around the country and as you probably know sis ronda has banned plastic bags in 2008 and single used plastics in 2019 we have faced challenges in establishing a sustainable funding model to manage an avoidable plastic waste where not available as a result they have joined forces to create a new model of managing single single-use plastics is managing the the result this is making uh you know the polluter also take responsibility this is definitely a very good example of extended producer responsibility in action these and other efforts are being supported by the newly established cleaner production and climate innovation center that is fast tracking randa's transition to a secular economy enabling businesses to grow back greener following the pandemic so yes uh we also continue to welcome investors in the west sector to contribute to these efforts and be part of the building uh of building a green and secular and productive economy a green growth green economy in rwanda thank you thank you so much to mr jericho i appreciate it for your time thank you so much i appreciate thank you celeste
2022-01-18 13:35
