David Western and Megan Epler Wood at the international conference in Nairobi. At the international conference of The International Ecotourism Society held in Nairobi on 25th to 27th September 2013, David Western and Megan Epler Wood were awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards for their contributions to ecotourism. Western’s studies and planning efforts in wildlife tourism in Amboseli in the 1970s were cited as pioneering work leading to emergence of ecotourism. Western and Megan Epler Wood jointly established The International Ecotourism Society in 1990 and Western and Chris Gakahu Ecotourism Kenya, the first ecotourism body in Africa five years later.
At the Nairobi conference Western looked at the progress in ecotourism since 1997 when TIES, the Kenya Wildlife Service and Ecotourism Kenya jointly hosted an international workshop on Ecotourism at a Crossroad. He pointed out that Kenya at that time represented the worst and best of tourism. On one hand Kenya had become notorious for minibus tourism crowding lions and cheetahs in national parks, on the other as a pioneer in community-based ecotourism. That same year Kenya Wildlife Service launched its Parks Beyond Parks movement to spur community conservation efforts on the 50th anniversary of park. The first community conservancy in Kenya was launched in Kenya the same year. A decade and a half later, the movement has spawned over 150 conservancies covering more than 6 percent of the land area of Kenya and conserving more than all national parks and reserves combined. Dixon Kaiyelo of the Wildlife Conservancy Association of Kenya, John Kamanga, coordinator of the South Rift Association of Kenya, Daniel Letoiye of the Northern Rangelands Trust and Benson Laitayan of the AmboseliEcosystsem Trust reviewed the remarkable growth of the Parks Beyond Parks movement and the growth of ecotourism from a community perspective.
http://www.responsibletravel.org/resources/documents/reports/TPhil_Conference_Kenya.pdf
At the Nairobi conference Western looked at the progress in ecotourism since 1997 when TIES, the Kenya Wildlife Service and Ecotourism Kenya jointly hosted an international workshop on Ecotourism at a Crossroad. He pointed out that Kenya at that time represented the worst and best of tourism. On one hand Kenya had become notorious for minibus tourism crowding lions and cheetahs in national parks, on the other as a pioneer in community-based ecotourism. That same year Kenya Wildlife Service launched its Parks Beyond Parks movement to spur community conservation efforts on the 50th anniversary of park. The first community conservancy in Kenya was launched in Kenya the same year. A decade and a half later, the movement has spawned over 150 conservancies covering more than 6 percent of the land area of Kenya and conserving more than all national parks and reserves combined. Dixon Kaiyelo of the Wildlife Conservancy Association of Kenya, John Kamanga, coordinator of the South Rift Association of Kenya, Daniel Letoiye of the Northern Rangelands Trust and Benson Laitayan of the AmboseliEcosystsem Trust reviewed the remarkable growth of the Parks Beyond Parks movement and the growth of ecotourism from a community perspective.
http://www.responsibletravel.org/resources/documents/reports/TPhil_Conference_Kenya.pdf
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