Rwanda conservation news live from Kigali – Kwita Izina conservation conference kicks off today

ANNUAL CONSERVATION CONFERENCE KICKS OFF IN KIGALI TODAY

The main theme of presentations, contributions and discussions during today’s annual Kwita Izina conservation conference, held at the Kigali Serena Conference Centre, will focus on the UN’s Year of the Forests and is themed: Forest Stewardship by Community – Contributions, Benefits and Prospects, offering the Rwanda Development Board an opportunity to yet further disseminate information to Rwandans about the importance of conservation in the development of the people and for the communities living near forests and national parks. Internationally recognized experts are expected to deliver papers for discussion amongst the several hundred expected participants to find viable solutions and talk about projected benefits of forest conservation for future generations of Rwandans.

The Rwanda government has in fact embarked in the recent past on an ambitious programme of re-forestation linking the remaining patches of a once great uninterrupted rainforest from the Nyungwe area near the border to Burundi to Lake Kivu, ancient forests which are then extending from the other side of the lake into the vast rainforests and jungles of the Congo. This groundbreaking initiative, unique in East Africa and in fact the entire continent may serve other countries as a guide of how to go about forest protection, sustainable use of forest resources by neighbouring communities and the restoration of forest cover when it has been encroached in the past or subjected to illegal logging.

A related article by this correspondent is also published in Rwanda’s leading hospitality, tourism and entertainment guide ‘The Eye Rwanda’ under this link: http://www.theeye.co.rw/conservation.php while a second article in the previous edition talking about Rwanda turning their forests into tourism assets can be found via: http://www.theeye.co.rw/forest_tourism.php

East African aviation breaking news – Volcanic ash cloud from Eritrea affects air traffic

ERITREAN VOLCANIC ERUPTION BRINGS ASH CLOUD SCENARIO HOME

The recent eruption of a volcano in Eritrea and the subsequent ash cloud drifting across the continent is bringing home the Icelandic ash cloud scenario from last year to East Africa.

According to airline sources flights are being delayed or even cancelled already as the ash cloud drifts into the air-lanes leading across the continent, causing airlines to fly extensive detours while others have reportedly cancelled flights to Djibouti, Asmara and even Addis Ababa.

The eruption was registered on Sunday night and initially thought to be a local event, but soon it became evident that ash clouds were rising as high as 45.000 feet and began to drift across those parts of Eastern Africa frequented by aircraft flying at various altitudes between 37.000 and 41.000 feet enroute to and from Europe.

Located near the border with Ethiopia the Nabro eruption was preceded by several earthquakes, about which no damage reports are available from Eritrea, a country almost notorious for its secrecy about all and sundry and current weather forecasts are also not conclusive if the ash cloud, should eruptions continue, could eventually drift across the Red Sea and reach the Arabian peninsula, where intense air-traffic would be equally disrupted.

Watch this space.

 

 

Kenya aviation breaking news – Water heater explosion at JKIA causes fresh questions

MORE BAD NEWS FOR JKIA AS WATER HEATER EXPLODES

Only days after a failure of electricity supply and of all backup systems brought East Africa’s busiest international airport to a complete and utter halt for several hours, leading to flight delays galore, has the explosion of a water heater in the government VIP section of the airport caused more consternation amongst passengers and air operators. The water heater, probably – and this is speculation as of right now in the absence of hard technical evidence – may have been damaged by power fluctuations and the often experienced low voltage periods, and when the thermostat failed the water overheated and eventually cause the tank to explode due to overpressure.

One regular source was immediately available for comment and had this to say: ‘it is lucky for everyone that there were no casualties. It goes to show that KAA – the Kenya Airport Authority – has huge problems in maintaining our most important airport in the region and unless they pull up their socks we may find more such accident happening for lack of good preventive maintenance. They charge us airlines a lot of money, the airport expansion and rehabilitation is slow in progressing, the power backup failed last week again and caused all airlines losses through delays and now this. Maybe the time is right to  bring professional airport management to Nairobi now and send the civil servants home’.

Harsh words but understandably so, considering the endless petitions and requests made to the KAA by operators and most of the time to no avail.

Watch this space.  

 

 

Uganda tourism news update – Airline chiefs tell government to scrap Visa fees

SCRAP VISA FEES AIRLINES TELL GOVERNMENT

Airline representatives associated under the Board of Airline Representatives in Uganda have earlier in the week spoken out on how they think tourism to the country can be stimulated and promoted, highlighting amongst other measures the dropping of Visa charges for foreign nationals visiting the country.

For several years in the past this in fact was done, setting off a trend to annual double digit increases of visitors, which however started to level out at lower increase levels when Visa fees were re-introduced and other factors like the constant underfunding of the tourist board and the non-implementation of the country’s tourism policy came into play.

Airlines have in recent years added extra flights, started to use bigger aircraft on the routes flown and new airlines like Turkish have entered the Ugandan market, overall offering more seats and yet the increases in passenger numbers were generally below their expectations leaving seats empty, especially since the riots caused by political opposition rabble rousers who almost welcome the negative economic fallout in a clear display of lack of patriotism.

Airline chiefs have as a result offered special deals, like Brussels Airlines giving a rebate for tourists coming to Uganda who have a prepaid gorilla tracking permit in their possession in order to stimulate demand for holidays in Uganda through lower fares, no matter how difficult that is at present considering the constantly high aviation jet fuel prices.

In the airline meeting demands were also made to bring down the cost of aircraft and passenger handling at the Entebbe International Airport with some airlines like Air Uganda continuing to demand permission from the Civil Aviation Authority for ‘self handling’, citing nearly double the cost of handling in Entebbe compared to for instance Nairobi, where competition in the sector has brought charges down to considerably lower levels.

The airlines at the same meeting also criticized the ministry of finance for poorly facilitating tourism marketing and while appreciating the launch of a separate tourism ministry decried the lack of seriousness by government to give it enough money to be able to carry out their mandate.

Watch this space as the blame game has started over below potential sectoral performance.