Mark Bibby Jackson chats with three Climate Friendly Travel students who have recently started an internship within the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife Kenya.

One of the key aspects of SUNx Malta is the importance we place on youth – the future of climate action. This is why we introduced the world’s first academic Diploma on Climate Friendly Travel with our academic partners the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) Malta, with support from the Government of Malta. The idea of the course was to produce a cadre of global climate change champions.

Three of the original tranche of students have recently been accepted by the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife Kenya as interns. The project is a joint effort to enhance sustainable tourism development and management in Kenya’s tourism industry. The cooperation, like many good things in life, came quite by chance.

A Chance Encounter

“One of our most interesting SUNx Malta Community outreach initiatives has just started in Kenya – and it was a pure happenchance,” Explains Geoffrey Lipman, President of SUNx Malta.

“I was attending a meeting in Riyadh in December for a new, exciting Sustainable Tourism Global Centre, where I am an ‘Envoy’, and I got in a car one evening with a senior government leader from Kenya. As we chatted I spoke about the three smart Kenyan students on our CFT Diploma and he lamented that he wished for that kind of person for some strategic climate work he wanted to do.

“Long story short we shook hands on a deal for them to extend their internship to his office – and three months later it’s working like a dream. The work they are doing is really quite substantive – so it’s a great real world learning experience. I am hopeful it will be a model for other destinations.”

The assignments are a wonderful way for the students, Caroline Kimani, Lina Mkoji and Dominic Wanjiru to influence the direction of tourism in a more climate-friendly direction within Kenya.

Creating a Climate Friendly Travel Framework in Kenya

Dominic explains that the goal of his internship is to help position Kenya as a sustainable tourism destination.

“With our contributions we hope to see a complete overhaul of the tourism industry from ‘business as usual’ to value based,” he explains. “A complete overhaul means resilient, consciously managed, inclusive and zero GHG emission effective.”

Lina hopes that she will achieve “sustainable tourism and travel in action, not just on paper”. 

Caroline has been developing a roadmap to COP27, as a strategy toward sustainable tourism with the ministry since December 2021.

“So far, I have developed a structural framework for the roadmap which we envision will set Kenya apart as a leader in sustainability here in Africa,” she says.

“We are looking towards making the tourism industry in Kenya sustainable, thus climate friendly. It is also our hope, to exemplify a sustainable tourism sector regionally.”

Kenya’s Climate Champions

It is hoped that all three once they graduate this year will become climate champions within their countries.

Dominic sees his role as a Climate Champion is to generate greater awareness of the Climate Friendly Travel Registry, to encourage more tourism organisations to register on it, and to assist them to calculate their carbon emissions, and develop their climate action plans.

Lina sees it as providing, “technical assistance, guidance and leadership in the various activities that have been proposed for this great task ahead.” 

Caroline says that they are “ambassadors for change”.

“We are glad our actions will be nationally significant in transitioning one of the most important sectors economically in Kenya, and Africa, into low carbon development,” she says.

Diploma on Climate Friendly Travel

Dominic studied travel and tourism at Moi University, Kenya, before volunteering at the Global Travel and Tourism Partnership East Africa introducing sustainable tourism education to secondary schools students. The Diploma on Climate Friendly Travel made him aware of the importance of adopting a glocal attitude towards climate change – “taking global challenges with global perspective and handling them with a local approach”.

Lina, who recently completed a Tourism Management Master’s in Europe and now carries out freelance consultancy work in Kenya, believes she “learnt a great deal from the experiences and expertise of many professionals that we engaged with during our lessons on the CFT course.” 

Caroline, who is completing her MSc Range Management (Ecology) program at the University of Nairobi says, “through the program, we organised the Strong Earth Youth Summit which was a great success. This was a first for me. I am glad I had the opportunity to speak on indigenous solutions for climate friendly travel. It is also through the diploma that I won the Strong Earth awards on the importance the Earth Charter today. In this light, I see the diploma as being a pivotal part of building and shaping my career today.”

Leading the Battle against Climate Change

As for how to combat climate change at home in Kenya, all three have strong views.

Lina believes that we have to face up to the existential threat of climate change.

“There will be nothing to show the future generations if we don’t emphasise on making travel a part of active climate action,” she says. “It would be unfair to tell people not to travel because of the threats imposed on us by climate change but we can encourage people to be conscious of their actions while travelling to ensure that we are not causing more damage – because if we are really honest, we already have caused some damage.”

Caroline argues that it is not something that Kenya should face alone.

“The tourism and travel sector must also transition to decarbonisation to contribute to Kenya’s climate ambitions,” she says. “In addition, as Kenya’s tourism industry is primarily nature-based, there is an increasing need for conservation and restoration of tourist destinations within its borders which have been deteriorating due to biodiversity loss and land transformation.”

Whereas Dominic believes they should adopt a glocal approach to avoid catastrophe.

“The best way to handle climate change effects is by adapting a place specific approach as opposed to a blanket one,” he says. “Swelling of Lakes Nakuru, Baringo and Naivasha, to spreading wildfires at the Mt. Kenya, Aberdare and Tsavo ecosystems and the now common human wildlife conflict induced by drought and famine in the northern region are just but a few scenarios that need deliberate attention.”

And the solution, he concludes, could just be something with which we are all familiar.

“The Climate Friendly Travel Registry might just be the solution Kenya’s tourism has been yearning for.”

________

SUNx Malta hopes that the Kenya internship programme is the first of many similar partnerships with tourism ministries, and travel companies and organisations across the world who share our belief that climate change is existential and we have to act now to save the future.