Can urban parks qualify as “ecotourism”?

Con­struc­tion of Rwanda’s first “eco­tour­ism park” is under­way on 134 hec­tares. The launch was part of Nation­al Envir­on­ment Week, May 27-June 5, 2017.

The Nyandun­gu Eco­tour­ism Park pro­ject will cost RWF 2.4 bil­lion (~ USD 2.85 mil­lion) and will be com­pleted in five years.

It will have walk­ing and cyc­ling trails, fish ponds, and botan­ic­al gardens.

Min­is­ter of Nat­ur­al Resources Dr Vin­cent Biruta said: “The pro­ject is part of a plan to improve [the] air, pro­tect the envir­on­ment, but also provide a green envir­on­ment for cit­izens to spend their time off in sports and enjoy­ing the environment.”

The Nyandun­gu wet­land had been dam­aged by human activ­it­ies over the years.

“We are focus­ing on plant­ing nat­ive trees and restor­ing the wet­land because it has been dam­aged by dump­ing and oth­er human activ­it­ies,” said Jean Pierre Bucy­ensen­ge, a Rwanda Envir­on­ment Man­age­ment Author­ity (REMA) spokesperson.

The mod­el is expec­ted to be rep­lic­ated at the Gikondo wet­land area also in Kigali from which indus­tri­al activ­it­ies are being relo­cated to a spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone at sig­ni­fic­ant cost to com­pensate business.

While this blog is sure that the cit­izens of Kigali will enjoy the urb­an green spaces and appre­ci­ate the res­tor­a­tion of loc­al wet­lands, we won­der wheth­er these sort of pro­jects should qual­i­fy as “eco­tour­ism” and be pro­moted as such.

What do you think?