Basseterre, St. Kitts, November 04, 2021 (SKNIS): The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis has made considerable progress in creating a diverse tourism product that encompasses the critical component of environmental protection. During the November 3, 2021, edition of ‘Working For You’, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Mrs. Carlene Henry-Morton, spoke on the impact of the changing climate on the tourism industry.
“We rely heavily on our natural environment, that is fundamentally what we build our tours and experiences around. Yes, we do have our heritage, our entertainment, and many other things but fundamentally what draws people here is very often people imagine themselves in the islands on a beach…It is about perspective because what we are doing even at the Ministry of Tourism in our own little way is that we want to make a dent, so we have a committee called the Sustainable Destination Council which is a multi-part committee where we have people from electricity, people from the private sector and various government departments,” said Permanent Secretary Mrs. Henry-Morton.
The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis won the 2019 World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) award for the Destination Stewardship category.
“The St. Kitts Sustainable Destination Council was founded based on the principles of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) criteria for destinations following St. Kitts and Nevis’ GSTC destination sustainability assessment, so we are thrilled to be continuing our partnership with GSTC for ongoing destination stewardship,” said Diannille Taylor-Williams, Chair of the St. Kitts Sustainable Destination Council, at a special ceremony to receive the award during the 19th WTTC Global Summit in Seville, Spain, in 2019.
“There is a Chinese proverb that says that we must plant trees that we know we will never be able to have any shade under them but our children and our neighbors’ children and grandchildren and so on will benefit. We are not selfish enough to say that it will not have anything to do with us since we will be dead by then so we do not care, that must not be our attitude. We must make sure that we put systems in place that those who come after us must look back with reverence and say thank you that you cared enough to put these systems in place to make sure the future generation has something to build on as well,” said Permanent Secretary Mrs. Henry-Morton.
Currently, world leaders are meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change also known as COP26. A main aim of the COP26 talks is to secure enough national promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions – mostly from coal, oil, and gas – to keep the rise in the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
