Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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monitoring of impacts from tourism on PA resources. This is attributed to the lack of capacity to
monitor various development in and around the national parks. Tourist numbers are steadily
increasing in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park with gorilla tourism continuing to take the
lead. In the short-term, this is likely to have negative impacts on the park. It is therefore
important to continuously monitor the likely impacts of tourism on the ecosystem and animal
behavior.
In protected areas, the Monitoring and Evaluation framework provides for a compulsory annual,
midterm review and end of plan evaluation. The goal behind the Monitoring and Research
Program is the provision of information for planning, decision-making and evaluation in
biodiversity conservation, and sustainable management of wildlife resources. In the monitoring
framework, the main issues identified in terms of tourism have been waste management and
park staff. They are also focused on understanding the impact of resource extraction on tourism.
There has been an increasing pressure to habituate more wild gorillas for tourism. It is an
attractive proposition when conceding the revenue that can be generated from each gorilla
permit sold to a tourist, at $600 per day. Districts add pressure because they are keen on the
revenue share generated from the park. No study has been carried out to understand the most
viable population that can be habituated out of the 30 gorilla families. Bwindi has around 400
individual gorillas and currently over a third are habituated for gorilla tourism. The park
authorities work with local government officials to guide and enforce EIA compliance. The
Warden Ecological Monitoring (WEM) will continuously monitor compliance with EIA
mitigation measures spelt out in the different EIA certificates and will be assisted by the
Planning and EIA Unit at UWA Headquarters. Restoring and maintaining healthy Ecosystems
includes indicators to measure the negatives impacts of tourism facilities.226
In a relatively new program to be launched within the next year, although some work began in
2014, the UNEP introduced the Sustainable Tourism Program and the Uganda Tourism
Ecosystem Platform (UTEP) in order to help localize the tourism value chain for the benefit of
local communities. This platform is intended to support the tourism industry players including
the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), Association of Uganda Tour Operators (AUTO), Uganda
Tourism Association (UTA), Uganda Community Tourism Association (UCOTA), Uganda Hotel
Owners Association (UHOA), and Enterprise Uganda among others.227
Lessons Learned
Careful design of tourism experiences around the country’s fragile natural resources, and in the
case of gorilla tourism it is a high value and low volume product generating substantial revenues
for successful conservation of protected areas - tourism and conservation can be integrated –
they have limited the tourism development in order to protect the resource on which it is based.
Whilst revenue sharing with local communities could be improved in the utilization of funds, it
has helped to contribute to local community development and conservation efforts. Specifically,
revenue sharing is encouraging communities not currently living next to protected areas in
226 Uganda Wildlife Authority. (n.d.). BINP General Management Plan 2014 – 2024. Retrieved from
2023.pdf.
227 UNDP. (2017). Uganda Tourism Ecosystem Platform (UTEP) launched to promote inclusive tourism in the country . Retrieved
from
platform-utep-launched-to-promote-inclusive-tourism-in-the-country.html.