Fiji's Tourism Development Plan

Building Sustainable Tourism

© Brent Stirton/ Getty Images/ WWF-UK. Construction site for Marriot Hotel in Tikina Wai, Sigatoka, Fiji.

This was a proposed marine protected area. According to community members, at times, one could see upto 31 reef herons when this site was a wetland/marsh land.

For conservation of biodiversity to be fully appreciated and actively pursued at national and regional level, WWF also supports efforts to mainstream conservation into national and sectoral plans, policies and programmes. The Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) of Fiji's Tourism Development Plan exemplifies this approach.

The objective of the SEA was to assess the environmental and sustainable development impacts of the Plan to enable the Ministry of Tourism and its partners to make future plans sustainable.

The SEA indicated a major need for the present policy to be reviewed in order to protect Fiji's environment and people. There were concerns about Fijians benefiting economically from tourism. The planned expansion of the tourism industry in the Plan threatened to cause irreversible environmental damage and could lead to tension between tourist developers, landowners and local communities.

Based on these findings, the report was published and an Advisory group was established to guide the SEA process. The group comprised representatives from the Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of National Planning, Fiji Hotel Association, USP, tourism consultants, The Fiji Visitors Bureau and WWF. This process was a three way partnership between the Ministry of Tourism, the Asian Development Bank and WWF South Pacific.

» Download A Strategic Environmental Assessment of Fiji’s Tourism Development Plan

CORAL Unveils Sustainable Marine Tourism Standards

Ocean Vacations That Don’t Hurt: Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) Releases First Regional Sustainable Marine Tourism Business Standards

The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) today announced the release of their “Voluntary Standards for Marine Recreation in the Mesoamerican Reef System.” This guide provides marine tourism businesses, bulk purchasers of visitor excursions, and tourists with tested standards that will prevent recreational overuse and misuse of coral reefs.

“These are the first set of marine tourism standards to apply to an entire region. The Mesoamerican Reef is a single ecosystem spanning four countries: Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. CORAL involved every group that uses this reef in the creation of these standards and then field tested their efficacy,” says CORAL Program Director Rick MacPherson. “These standards are affordable, attainable, and effective.”

In areas of high volume tourism, such as Mesoamerica, repeated direct contact with the reef poses an immediate threat. Hundreds of boat groundings and hundreds of thousands of tourist interactions each year reduce sections of coral reef to rubble. Human contact also reduces coral’s resilience to other stressors such as rising sea temperatures and diseases.

Sergio Rivera Environmental Manager for Scubacaribe in Playa del Carmen, Mexico says, “Since our dive shop has been involved in the standards project, my staff has become more environmentally and safety conscious. Now we provide environmental briefings before every dive and equip every BCD [the inflatable jacket a diver wears] with sound devices to ensure location of divers who get separated from the group.”

The standards provide detailed requirements for environmentally friendly and safety conscious marine tourism businesses in the areas of diving, snorkeling, and boating and can be used by a variety of different groups such as:

• Concerned tourists to help them choose sustainable and safe marine excursions
• Marine Tourism Businesses to evaluate their own practices
• Non Governmental Organizations and Governments as a basis for creating standards in their area
• Bulk purchasers such as cruise ships to select sustainable and safe business partners

Hearing of CORAL’s success in Mesoamerica, government and business groups in Maui, Hawaii have also engaged CORAL to develop similar standards.

With over 11 years of field experience, Coral Reef Alliance is a non profit organization dedicated to protecting the health of coral reefs by uniting ecosystem management, sustainable tourism, and community partnerships. Find out more at www.coral.org.

To obtain your copy of the standards: Download from www.coral.org or contact Eileen Weckerle eweckerle@coral.org / 888-CORAL-REEF x315.