Nyungwe wins global environment award

Nyungwe Forest’s Nziza Project was announced winner of the British Guild of Travel Writers’ Globe Award in recognition of its efforts to harmonise tourism, wildlife and the agricultural community in one of Africa’s last surviving rainforests.At an event held last weekend in London, United Kingdom, the project was lauded as exemplary and which is poised to develop and protect one of the world’s richest and most diverse eco-systems. The project was initiated by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB),“Nyungwe Nziza is a model tourism project for developing countries whose benefits will long outlast this or subsequent governments,” Guild Chair, Roger Bray said, while presenting the award.The project also came first during the awards’ Wider World category. The two runners up were Georgia’s Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park and San Antonio Texas’s Morgan’s Wonderland.“We are delighted that the Rwanda Nziza Project was named winner of the prestigious British Guild of Travel Writers’ top Globe Award,” said Clare Akamanzi, the acting CEO of the RDB. “In Nyungwe, we are able to see a combination of tourism, wildlife, environmental and agriculture development, which adds to beauty as well as create jobs for our people in line with diversification of tourism products. It shows that the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration for sustainable tourism is limitless.” Akamanzi further noted that Nyungwe, in particular, has received a 44 percent increase of tourists, from 5,755 in 2010 to 8,274 in 2011. She attributed this to the introduction of the canopy walk, which gives tourists an aerial view of the forest from 40 metres above the ground.Based in South-Western Rwanda, Nyungwe National Park is home to 25 percent of Africa’s primates.Other major award winners included UK’s Cutty Sark Restoration and France’s Loire à Vélo Cycle Trail. Tourism continues to be Rwanda’s major cash cow after coffee, tea and mining, with revenues increasing by 11 per cent between January and June this year compared to the same period last year.The increase is indicated by US$128.3m generated from the sector between January and June compared to US$115.6m generated in the same period last year.So far investment projects worth US$184.1m since January 2012 and are expected to generate over a thousand jobs.The extremely rare mountain gorillas in the Virunga Mountains continue to be the leading tourism attraction.