2001 Sustainable Wildlife Tourism Convention

	Overview
	Program of Events
	Presentations
	Summary of Proceedings
	Outcomes
	Future Conference

Overview

Australia's first national convention to explore the future of wildlife tourism was recently held in Hobart, Tasmania on 28-30 October 2001, jointly hosted by the CRC for Sustainable Tourism and Tourism Tasmania. The conference brought together a wide range of stakeholders including operators, government and academics, and led to recommendations towards a sustainable future for Australian wildlife tourism.

Is this an important growth area for Australian tourism, bringing economic and conservation benefits? Or are there serious concerns about its sustainability? This convention explored both sides of the picture, and provide directions that will help us charter a course that maximizes the benefits for all: wildlife, tourists, operators and society as a whole.

A total of 141 delegates were officially registered, in addition to a number of guests. The delegates consisted of tourism operators (22%), government conservation agency staff (22%), government tourism agency staff (6%), academics and students (39%) and representatives of a variety of other conservation and tourism-related groups.

There was strong media interest in the conference, with 13 news items appearing in newspapers, radio and TV around Australia.

Program of Events

The Sustainable Wildlife Tourism Convention was held at the Wrest Point Convention Centre in Hobart, Tasmania. A reception on Sunday 28th October 2001 welcomed all delegates, followed by concurrent presentations on Monday 29th and workshops and a closing session on Tuesday 30th October. The formal proceedings consisted of 5 keynote presentations (including 3 international speakers), 58 concurrent presentations, and a set of workshops and a plenary session designed to generate recommendations and initiate further action. The concurrent sessions and workshops were organized under four themes: industry planning and development; managing environmental impacts; integrating wildlife tourism and conservation; and products and markets. In addition there were a series of field trips showcasing Tasmanian wildlife tourism, and a conference dinner held at Mt Field National Park. An optional workshop on the development of a Wildlife Tourism Website was held on the Tuesday afternoon and the Uni of Tasmania.

Presentations

A total of 58 presentations were delivered at the Sustainable Wildlife Tourism Convention by a range of speakers from the tourism industry, conservation groups and universities. The presentations were arranged under four themes:

1 - Industry Planning and Development
2. - Managing Environmental Impacts
3. - Integrating Wildlife Tourism and Conservation
4. - Products and Markets

Some authors have submitted their conference presentations to be made available on this website. These presentations have been converted to pdf format from either word or powerpoint documents. The presentations are listed below in alphabetical order by surname of the author. For a detailed list of presentation titles and authors, please download the SWTC Program and Abstracts (pdf 768kb).

Please note that most images in the presentations have been deleted for copyright reasons, we apologize for any formatting or reading difficulties.

Copyright Notice
All work contained in these presentations is copyright, and authors also assert their moral rights in this work. Apart from any fair dealing as permitted by the copyright law of your country, all reproduction in any form or transmission by any method is forbidden without the express permission of the authors. The CRC for Sustainable Tourism has published this work on the World Wide Web with the permission of the authors.

Sustainable Wildlife Tourism Convention Presentations:

Bennett, Mark (pdf 183kb)
Boyle, Alicia (pdf 33kb)
Burns, Leah (pdf 560kb)
Cameron, Phil (pdf 54kb)
Davies, Joanne (pdf 44kb)
De Lacy, Terry (pdf 257kb)
Eagles, Paul (pdf 687kb)
Ellis, Claire (pdf 119kb)
Fausnaugh, Carolyn (pdf 54kb)
Galletly, Anne (pdf 48kb)
Giese, Melissa (pdf 393kb)
Gyuris, Emma (pdf 446kb)
Ham, Sam and Weiler, Betty (pdf 32kb)
Higginbottom, Karen (pdf 76kb)
Higginbottom, Karen ? Plenary (pdf 56kb)
Higham, James (pdf 1,934kb)
Ingram, Colin (pdf 246kb)
Kerr, Anne (pdf 105kb)
King, Narelle (pdf 101kb)
Kriwoken, Lorne (pdf 243kb)
Mallinson, Jeremy (pdf 36kb)
Manteit, Mark (pdf 15kb)
McIntyre, Mick (pdf 462kb)
Moncrieff, Daryl (pdf 272kb)
Nevard, Tim (pdf 189kb)
Newell, David (pdf 476kb)
Northrope, Chelsea (pdf 43kb)
Page, Skye (pdf 138kb)
Tremblay, Pascal ? A (pdf 981kb)
Tremblay, Pascal ? B (pdf 42kb)
Rann, Kelley (pdf 15kb)
Rodger, Kate (pdf 805kb)
Saltzer, Rebecca (pdf 153kb)
Scott, Noel (pdf 161kb)
Sofield, Trevor (pdf 810kb)
Stokes, Tony (pdf 386kb)
Tanner, Zoe (pdf 334kb)
Tribe, Andrew (pdf 352kb)

Summary of Proceedings

For a free copy of the proceedings from the conference, please download either the complete or summarized version:

2001 SWTC Proceedings Full Version (pdf 169kb)

2001 SWTC Proceedings Summary Version (pdf 80kb)

Outcomes

The following recommendations for the future of wildlife tourism in Australia were generated through the workshop and plenary processes, and were supported by the vast majority of delegates. A number of mechanisms to achieve these objectives were also discussed.

It was recommended that the overall goal of planning and development in relation to wildlife tourism in Australia should be to develop a ?strong diverse industry which supports biodiversity conservation?

The recommended priority objectives that should be addressed were as follows:
1. Build coordination and communication channels between wildlife tourism stakeholders
2. Enhance development of wildlife tourism businesses
3. Ensure adequate funding of relevant authorities/ interested parties to ensure management of acceptable (priority) environmental impacts (and identification of unacceptable impacts)
4. Identify, evaluate and monitor activities and environmental impacts associated with wildlife tourism on the environment
5. Improve awareness and understanding of domestic legislation and regulation; treaties and conventions; guidelines; standards; codes of conduct and ethics dealing with the environmental impacts of wildlife tourism
6. Strategically increase links between wildlife tourism and conservation
7. Improve conservation-related education
8. Assess product quality
9. Develop excellent guides
10. Obtain knowledge of, and meet consumer expectations

Further Actions to progress recommendations
A working group was formed consisting of 27 of the delegates. This group, along with the conference organizing committee, will work on progressing the above recommendations. This will include sending letters and seeking audiences with government representatives, and developing practical action plans.

Future Conference

The majority of delegates supported the idea of holding another wildlife tourism conference in approximately two years time. We will keep you up to date with the progress on this issue.

Please contact darren.platypuscorner@bigpond.com for queries and comments on the website