TOURISM AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT

In many of the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) countries, tourism, wildlife and associated industries are among the leading foreign exchange earners. In the sub-region, wildlife co-exists with other human activities range-lands, mainly inhabited by agro-pastoral communities.

Climate extremes such as floods and droughts that are frequent in the region are often have severe impacts on wild life, tourism and associated sectors. Such impacts include lack of forage production and water resources; large scale migrations; loss of live; increased poverty level of most of the pastoralists; poor infrastructure and inaccessibility of wild life and tourism activities; higher risk of wild fire and the associated deaths together with loss of valuable fauna and flora; conflicts over meager water and forage resources; increased diseases incidences; and among many other socio-economic problems.

Climate interacts with the physical environment that determines the environmental conditions and natural resources of any given area. Wildlife conservation and tourism are based on the predictability and stability of climatic conditions. Tourism is largely based on wildlife, which is very vulnerable to climatic variability, as it affects the vegetation upon which they are dependent. Most of the wildlife conservation areas are characterized by climate variability that dictates the vegetation dynamics, wildlife movements and migrations. The variability of climate and consequent effects has serious implications on wildlife conservation and economic activities such as tourism.

The strategy for enhanced application of climate in the tourism and wildlife sector shall include:

1. Create awareness on factoring of climate information including impacts of climate change in national and regional tourism and wildlife management policies, enhance linkages between tourism and wildlife sectors and climate;
2. Develop user specific models and products for applications in the tourism and wildlife sectors;-provision of advisory national/regional tourists destinations and wildlife grazing alternatives in view of forecast climate.
3. Enhanced use of indigenous skills and knowledge of techniques for applications in the specific sectors;
4. Establish coping techniques by the, tourism and wildlife sectors to adapt to and/or mitigate against extreme climatic events.
5. Identify appropriate management options to capitalize on opportunities and threats to wildlife based on advance information about the forthcoming season. «top

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