Dr Reza Azmi

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"Creating incentives for conservation: The Wild Asia Model"

by Dr Reza Azmi

Founder and Director, Wild Asia

Abstract

Wild Asia is a conservation group dedicated to increasing the understanding and knowledge of the natural environment and to promoting its conservation.

Since 1998, WA has embarked on an innovative programme to create incentives for tourism operators in Asia to work towards the ideals of sustainable tourism. Nine years on, this paper outlines some of the landmarks and challenges ahead.

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Inspiring Success Stories ..

BIO-DATA

Reza Azmi
Dr Reza Azmi is the founder and Director of Wild Asia, a Malaysian-based conservation initiative. Reza has over 12 years experience in issues relating to biodiversity conservation. His conservation career began with WWF Malaysia in 1994 and he went on to establish Wild Asia in 2003.

Apart from botanical and wildlife surveys, he has led numerous multi-disciplinary teams conducting conservation assessments for International Aid-agencies, National Governments and NGOs.

Besides technical advisory experience, Reza has written several popular publications, which include chapters in books on natural areas in Malaysia; guides to local plant and animal life and travel to natural areas. These publications have been published both in Malaysia and internationally.

Reza is also involved with talks and seminars on Responsible Tourism, and is lecturing on the subject for degree and masters students in Malaysia.

Session 1

Sustainable Development and Management:

sharing the expertise of practitioners in discussing the challenges and advocating sustainability in tourism development, marine environment protection and alleviating the impact of coastal and maritime activities.

Session 3

Succeeding in Marine Ecotourism: featuring proponents of marine ecotourism and initiatives undertaken by both private and public sector and addressing the widespread "green washing" practices that is harming the industry.

Session 2

Policies in Sustainable Tourism: Emphasis on capacity building as the way forward in environment awareness, education and interpretation of marine ecotourism among stakeholders and tourists and a call for national and international collaboration in addressing marine environmental issues.

Session 4

Conservation of Marine Resources: Presenting two successful marine conservation programmes - turtle terrapin rehabilitation programme in Setiu and coral reef protection programme in Sipadan and learning valuable lessons in helping to protect resources for ecotourism activities.