Jordan's eco work
Jordan is setting a stirring example with pioneering work in eco-tourism, spearheaded by its dynamic Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN). RSCN initiated Jordan’s first eco-tourism operation more than 12 years ago in the spectacularly beautiful Dana Nature Reserve.
The revolutionary programme was introduced to link the protection of the Reserve with economic development for local communities. After ecological assessments and careful planning, a range of facilities was constructed, including hiking trails, campsites, a visitor centre and a strikingly designed guesthouse. Within a few years these were attracting thousands of tourists and, buoyed-up by this success, RSCN took the plunge and replicated the ‘Dana model’ in five more protected areas, creating the largest network of eco-tourism sites in Jordan. Each site now offers uniquely designed accommodation, from simple campsites to elaborate eco-lodges, and activities that include hiking, bird watching and mountain biking.
RSCN’s main aim with these tourism enterprises is to raise revenue to sustain the protection of Jordan’s nature reserves and to generate job opportunities for local people, thereby building widespread public support for nature conservation. Visitors to RSCN sites last year exceeded 60,000 and this generated enough money to cover 50% of total conservation costs and to support thousands of local community beneficiaries.
The Dana Reserve has won international commendations for sustainable development and is promoted in the latest “Rough Guide” as the one of the best tourism experiences in the Kingdom. RSCN’s success in linking nature conservation to rural development has, in no small measure, been due to its willingness to embrace the tools of business and engage with the private sector. Under its trading division, ‘Wild Jordan’, the Society has teamed up with more than 26 local tour operators to promote and market its eco-tourism programmes.
It has also formed the Wild Jordan Centre in Amman; a popular city-centre showcase for RSCN’s tourism and handicraft products. Protected areas are no longer considered irrelevant to the social and economic needs of ‘ordinary’ Jordanians: they are now recognised as engines of rural development, able to offer alternative and sustainable livelihoods for some of the poorest communities in the Kingdom.
