Ecotourism: Reinforcing Local Demand for a "Waste to Wealth" Approach to Sanitation

Cave, K., Heikoop, B., Quillérou, E., Schuster-Wallace, C. J. (2015) Ecotourism: Reinforcing Local Demand for a “Waste to Wealth” Approach to Sanitation United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH). Available from: http://inweh.unu.edu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo/ CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO

The Waste to Wealth initiative, supported through a Government of Canada funded Grand Challenges Canada grant, was established to develop a national multisectoral strategy for wastewater management and sanitation services financed through profits made from waste by-products using anaerobic digestion technology.

Ecotourism was originally developed out of a joint demand from tourists for improved rural development and nature conservation, with a strong preference for benefits falling onto local communities. In Uganda, the policy base and social network of the ecotourism sector is young, yet provides a promising and solid foundation for rapid development. Adequate sanitation facilities are key for a pleasurable (eco)tourist experience, both in terms of personal use and cleanliness of the environment in which they are staying. In turn, (eco)tourists increase the volume of waste generated and collected and therefore increase the volume of positive waste management by-products generated (energy and fertilizer). These by-products can be used to support local tourism for cooking and lighting (energy) and for increased food production (fertilizer). This report outlines the potential synergies between the development of an anaerobic digestion sector and the ecotourism sector for the delivery of sustainable sanitation, rural development and conservation, as well as realization of social, environmental and economic benefits. These physical and economic links demonstrate an opportunity for communities to build upon such synergies, create development opportunities and scale up sustainable sanitation, provided an enabling environment at the national and the regional levels. There is a definite potential to exploit synergies between the ecotourism and sanitation sectors through an ecotourism-sanitation nexus in Uganda. The establishment of communityowned and -run businesses has the potential to multiply benefits derived by the local communities as well as the overall economy from the nexus.