POACHING, THE ASIA QUESTION, AFRICAN HOTELIERS

No Time To Be Shy, New 5 Star Rating Score Card Is In Town

Usually gentle, this is frank.

KENYA: Wednesday 10^th April 2012 Lewa Conservancy, Isiolo County, Kenya. It is beginning to begin here. Week-old carcass of a pregnant White Rhino discovered. Horn missing. The alarms have been totally jingling. They have to be daft. Posse not known for stealth.

CAMEROON: Earlier in the year mass slaughter of elephants. 1 scene alone. 35 elephant carcasses found mutilated in a single attack by poachers at a popular safari destination in Cameroon. Explicitly of that attack one photo captures this. Single elephant lying alone, trunk severed. Trunk strewn next to the no longer there face.

When horseback-riding gangs openly carrying machine guns, travel 1,000 miles from Sudan, across Central Africa and Chad to reach Cameroon to do that, you sit up. You take notice. Serious notice.

Last August 2011, WWF during the 61st meeting in Geneva of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), called on representatives of world governments and other groups attending, to stem the growing global trade in illegal ivory and rhino horn.  WWF was equally concerned by reports of illegal trade to Thailand and allegations of rhinos being farmed in China for their horns. Like every aspect surrounding this issue and most importantly not least, the end market is known. Vietnam in example is the major destination for illegal horn, an alleged cancer treatment must have, yet Vietnamese authorities appear to be doing little to address the problem. 

Interestingly and of profound curiosity, during that same August 2011, a group billed as the “best tourist destinations in Africa” gathered to launch the “China To Africa Project", goal being to promote Africa to the new generation of 50 million Chinese outbound tourists.  The initiative apparently was welcomed by both African and Chinese travel and tourism industries according to eTurboNews who credit source information to chinatoafrica.org

Pray tell all in Africa, for indeed this is excellent news for hospitality service providers. Providers though with a backbone. Providers with a spine. Time to kick in literally. The game is over.

All travelers to countries that are home to elephant and rhino, certainly will eat at some point. Some will even sleep.  Substantial enough will have no showers. Yet providers now as will do then, even with a glimpse of the accommodate of that suggested 50 million share, have, shall have groaning buffet tables or exquisite fine dining however remote the location. Coarse sheets or +1000 thread linen variety. Water in none, flowing in others. The shyness ends now. Forget “housekeeping issues”. Take a stand. Whatever the time, whatever the activity, where you catch them, 5 minutes is all it takes to show a vivid, candid, graphic picture of what it now takes to get that illegal horn. That illegal tusk. It is no longer about the money. It’s about showing guests, customers, a thought to take home. What one does with it.  Up to them. Take the flack. Take any ‘ism’s that will follow.

One thing that should resonate. Tell them. Even elephants bury their dead.