Towards a green economy Box 3: Strengthening the Protected Area Network (SPAN)

Strengthening the Protected Area Network (SPAN) is an initiative funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) designed to maximise the potential of the protected-area system in Namibia by bolstering its management and establishing partnerships. It is a six-year project with a GEF grant of US$ 8.5 million and co-financing amounting to US$ 33.7 million. Global Environment Facility analysis indicates that tourism in Namibia’s protected areas contribute to 3.1 to 6.3 per cent of the country’s GDP. Investment by the government of Namibia in the past 20 years has achieved a rate of return of 23 per cent. The government has increased the annual budget for park management and development by 300

per cent in the past four years. A quarter of the park-entrance revenue is to be reinvested in park and wildlife management through a trust fund, providing additional sustainable financing of US$ 2 million annually. First implemented in 2007, The National Policy on Tourism and Wildlife Concessions on State Land has approved more than 20 new tourism and hunting concessions. After two years it had generated more than US$ 1 million annually in fees payable to the government. Local communities were granted most of the concession rights in protected areas, creating revenue and jobs for local people. Source: GEF (2009)

at major sun and beach destinations in Spain (Box 4). The authors estimated a present value of investments (capital expenditure) on water and energy efficiency, emissions mitigation and biodiversity conservation of US$ 1 billion and a significantly higher present value of savings (US$ 2.5 billion), with strongest investment recovery from biodiversity.

3.5 Cultural heritage

The largest single component of consumer demand for more sustainable tourism is for cultural authenticity (CESD and TIES 2005). Cultural heritage includes living cultures, both mainstream and minority, as well as historical, religious, and archaeological sites. Tourism

Box 4: Financial cost-recovery of green programmes in tourism

Based on its experience with the greening process of one of the world’s leading sun-and-beach tourist destinations (a seaside locale in Spain), Booz & Company report significant returns from investment in energy efficiency and GHG emissions, lower water

consumption, better waste management practices and biodiversity conservation. The green

Green water transport Resilient water supply Biodiversity

Buildings operations efficiency (hotels) Buildings operations efficiency (others) Green building design

0 200 400 600 Savings/capital expenditure (present value)

800 %

transformation strategy was developed after a thorough baseline analysis that showed, like most tourist

destinations, unsustainable water and

energy consumption patterns, problems with waste management and the risk of total depletion of key natural resources such as coral reefs and marine animals (main attractions). Capital expenditure on greening the tourism sector can quickly be offset by the savings in operation costs, which include not only the costs of greening initiatives, but also the socioeconomic effects of lost tourism revenue. Savings by reducing operation costs from green programmes, compared with the capital expenditure, range from 174 per cent (hotel buildings operation efficiency) to 707 per cent (biodiversity conservation). Private investment and public funding was used to secure sufficient funding. The greening transformation followed a three-step process, including an assessment of the destination’s environmental status, the development of a green strategy and the collaborative execution of projects related to the green strategy. Source: Ringbeck et al. (2010)

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