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WTTC Buenos Aires Declaration – Update on Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference London
Posted on October 23, 2018
INTO is a member of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). As such INTO signed the Buenos Aires Declaration which we did and you will see the INTO logo on the Declaration. Catherine Leonard attended the IWT conference in London last week.
We are posting this message from WTTC.
Dear All
It was great to see those of you who were at the IWT conference in London last week, thank you for joining us. I just wanted to take this opportunity to share with the group some of what happened at the conference and the outcomes.
This was a high level conference attended by three UK Cabinet Ministers and the Duke of Cambridge, as well as several heads of state, first ladies and over 90 country delegations. Travel & Tourism was one of four industry sectors highlighted during the event and WTTC’s Buenos Aires Declaration (now up to 106 signatories) was the focus for it. Our participation included:
- A side event on tourism’s role in providing economic opportunities for communities ‘at risk’ from poaching. This was opened by Gloria Guevara and the Minister of Tourism of Tanzania, followed by a panel session moderated by John Scanlon. Time was tight but the event was very well attended and was an excellent way of showcasing the Declaration and what the sector is doing.
- Gloria Guevara and WTTC Member Geoffrey Kent of Abercrombie & Kent participated in a panel in the main plenary alongside other industry leaders including Sir Tim Clarke of Emirates, and senior execs from Standard Chartered and Microsoft, thus positioning tourism alongside the other focus sectors of transport, financial services and tech.
During the event Gloria was able to meet with the UK Foreign Secretary, the First Lady of Kenya and various tourism ministers. There was a clear understanding of the importance of tourism in tackling the Illegal Wildlife Trade, and the unique role sustainable tourism can play on the ground.
WTTC’s pledge video was played during the closing ceremony. You can see it here
We were also joined by a senior executive from Ctrip which, under the umbrella of our declaration, made a commitment to raise awareness of IWT amongst its 300m users and work with NGOs to ensure that it is not promoting IWT via its platform.
In terms of announcements, we made the following (click here for release):
- 106 signatories of the Buenos Aires Declaration (click here for latest list which includes UNWTO)
- Signing of an MOU between WTTC and WWF
- Ambition to align content to raise awareness amongst 1 billion travellers (click here to see video )
Here are some examples of the coverage:
Travel Weekly: http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/313787/travel-firms-collaborate-to-combat-illegal-wildlife-trade
Travel Mole: https://www.travelmole.com/news_feature.php?news_id=2034411
There was a lot of activity on social media – please take a look at #EndWildlifeCrime which is still very active so please do feel free to share any activities you may have in this area with that hashtag and #WTTC so we can pick it up!
In the next month we will work with WWF to define a clear plan in terms of delivery of our Declaration commitments which we will discuss in our next Working Group call in early December. We are having good discussions with Amazon Web Services, google and others in terms of refining our plans for the consumer campaign and I will reach out to some of you on that separately.
With apologies for such a long email, but please do get in touch if you have any questions. If any of you who were at the event would like to share your feedback with the group please let me know.
Best regards,
Olivia
Olivia Ruggles-Brise
POLICY AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR<
Email: olivia.rugglesbrise@wttc.org
Direct: +44 (0) 207 481 6489
Mobile: +44 (0) 781 544 8782
The Harlequin Building, 65 Southwark Street
London SE1 0HR United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 207 481 8007
Fax: +44 (0) 207 488 1008