air Trade Tourism (FTT) and the Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT) have joined forces to ensure that the people who
contribute their land, coastal and marine resources, labor, and knowledge to tourism are the ones who reap the benefits. Together with businesses, civil society, and local government on the Cape Whale Coast of South Africa, the DICT create awareness about protecting the marine environment to travelers visiting the Cape Whale Coast’s little towns of Hermanus, Stanford, Gansbaai and Kleinmond.
Why is your case a good example of linking tourism and conservation?
Within the destination of the Cape Whale Coast, Fair Trade Tourism has been working with a number of different businesses over the past 10 years. So far seven of them have been certified: Grootbos Private Game Reserve, Farm 215, Whalesong Lodge, Dyer Island Cruises, Marine Dynamics, White Shark Projects and Southern Right Charters. Dating back to the late 1990s these businesses and their multitude of partners from public authorities and civil society have organically grown a network of initiatives and organizations that have provided an exceptional example for responsible tourism development in a coastal and marine destination. While the leadership for sustainable tourism development that these business owners have demonstrated over the past years was independent and originally unrelated to Fair Trade Tourism certification, the building blocks of FTT’s services help to structure and reinforce the outputs and outcomes of these good practices along the set of criteria in its quality management system. The Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT) was founded in 2006 by Wilfred Chivell, owner of Marine Dynamics and Dyer Island Cruises. Together with the companies, DICT conducts research, conservation and education in the incredible marine environment of the Gansbaai district,Cape Whale Coast in the Overstrand Municipality of the Western Cape. The commercial companies provide logistical and onsite support for biologists and the Trust to operate. The Trust projects are focused on the Marine Big 5 – African penguin, great white shark, Southern right whale, Cape fur seal, dolphins – surrounding Dyer Island. Dyer Island lies 8 kms off Kleinbaai harbour and is a breeding colony for the endangered African penguin, a species endemic to southern Africa. The Island is managed by CapeNature and is considered an Important Bird Area by Birdlife International.
Linking conservation to maritime tourism on the
Cape Whale Coast, South Africa
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