Link to Atlas Project

Documents

Overview

The four-year project ‘Mainstreaming the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity into the tourism development and operations in threatened ecosystems in Egypt’ (MBDT) is expected to target ecologically sensitive areas exposed to tourism development pressures in the short-to-medium term with the objective of mainstreaming biodiversity conservation into tourism-sector development and operations.

This project comes at a critical time in Egypt’s recent history with the political changes that are currently underway to make government institutions more accountable and to develop the economy, both of which are resulting in considerable changes in the way that both tourism and biodiversity resources may be managed in the future. Therefore, the project will work on two levels:

The first level will engage directly with tourism industry and government to fill gaps in the existing planning and regulatory framework, namely a Strategic Environmental Assessment, in order to identify key areas, habitats and ecological processes, and assess their vulnerability and also the guidelines for the existing EIA regulations specific to biodiversity, linked to an offsetting mechanism. As a consequence, the project will develop a monitoring programme to track the impacts of tourism on biodiversity for conservation management purposes.

The second level will engage the tourism industry by developing Responsible Tourism Grading and promoting Egypt as a global destination for ecotourism and developing community-based systems to allow those closest to the resources to benefit and manage them sustainably.

One of the issues to be addressed in the country is related to the cumulative impacts on biodiversity and environmental resources caused by tourism investments and developments. Management and operational practices that take place in tourism establishments and at tourism operations generate several impacts on the environment and its biodiversity.

In late 2013, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the Egyptian Hotel Association jointly launched The Green Star Hotel (GSH) which is a national green certification and capacity-building program managed by the Egyptian Hotel Association (EHA) under the patronage of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.  The GSH program offers an opportunity for hotels operating in Egypt to be internationally recognized for raising their environmental performance and social standards while reducing their operational costs.  A team of certified local and international experts guide interested hotels through a sequence of training and information support sessions leading to field audits to ensure compliance with the program standards prior to granting the GSH certification.

In 2015, the Green Star Hotel program achieved Global Sustainable Tourism Council ‘GSTC Recognized’ status. GSTC-Recognized means that a sustainable tourism standard has been reviewed by GSTC technical experts and the GSTC Accreditation Panel in order to be deemed equivalent to the GSTC Criteria. Additionally, an organization that meets GSTC requirements must administer the standard. The purpose of the GSTC programs is to recognize and reward genuine practitioners of sustainable tourism, which in turn builds confidence and credibility with consumers.

After 8 years of successful implementation in the sector despite different local and global challenging conditions, the GSH program is now ready to update its standards and to push the hospitality industry to different heights.  Therefore, a set of environmental sustainability measures has been developed in collaboration with EHA by assigning a team in order to upgrade the Green Star Certification Program criteria among other supporting activities