The Tribune

A Bahamas National Trust (BNT) team recently participated in a project kick-off meeting hosted by the National Audubon Society (NAS) and the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), aimed at educating all parties about bird-based tourism as a sustainable development tool.

Audubon is partnering with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Belize (the Belize Audubon Society); Guatemala (Asociacion Vivamos Mejor and Wildlife Conservation Society); Paraguay (Guyra Paraguay); and the Bahamas (Bahamas National Trust) to establish stronger bird-based tourism programmes throughout these countries.

“Bird-based tourism is not new in the Bahamas,” said Karen Panton, BNT’s director of finance and operations, who attended with Predensa Moore, BNT’s science research officer .

“This project will act as a catalyst to bring all the stakeholders together to participate in creating a national nature tourism product. We want to extend its impact; to help Bahamians, particularly in the Family Islands, to better prepare and benefit from targeting and participating in nature tourism.”

The project’s goal is to create a niche, high value, sustainable birding tourism product that will use the bird-watching market to create jobs, while protecting the biodiversity and natural resources in these countries.

During the meeting, the NGOs, project partners and funding agencies met to discuss the various components for the next steps to get birding tourism moving.

John Beavers, director, of the International Alliances Programme for NAS, who was one of the presenters at the meeting, gave an overview of the project’s goals and objective. This was an impetus for conversation between the groups about the project’s goals, objective and possible challenges.

The groups also addressed the challenges, strategies, and action plans that will come up when trying to implement bird-based tourism in these countries.

The BNT and Audubon will be introducing these programmes to the Bahamas within the next year.