Elephants cross the plains of the Boma-Jonglei landscape in South Sudan.[Photo by Paul Elkan and Jeremy Gustafson]

The Ministry of Wildlife, Conservation and Tourism has called on the national legislature to speed up and enact the Wildlife, Conservation and Protected Area and Tourism bills.

Both bills before the national parliament are yet in second readings.

Minister Rizik Zacharia Hassan says that once passed it will help govern the protected areas.

According to him, habitat destruction, degradation, logging, possession of illegal firearms, poaching, poor park management and lack of infrastructure have hindered the development of the tourism sector in the country.

Minister Rizik also says after having the laws in place, the Ministry will develop regulations to standardize the hotels and recruit a young and qualified workforce.

He was speaking during the recent presentation of a discussion on the effective and efficient utilization of tourism opportunities in the country.

“There is a lot of habitat destructions, a lot of degradation, charcoals, logging, grazing even encroachment. Then we have illegal firearms and poaching, we have poor park management, and a lack of arms and equipment. Lack of mobility is one of the issues, issues of capacity building and infrastructure,” Rizik said.

“All of the hotels have not been classified, we don’t have the law, and we don’t have the regulations, this is what I have inherited and now we are working on it,” he said.

“Once the tourism law is out, we will develop the regulations and hopefully, we will come and standardize the hotels.”

“We have issues with the workforce, most of our workforce is aged but we are working on it, one of the recommendations is that we are recommending the recruitment of young and qualified to help us.”

“We have the protected areas, we have the migration, but they lack the infrastructure, they lack the facilities and tourism cannot be effective without having those facilities in place.”

“The first issue is an enactment of the laws, we have the wildlife conservation and protected area bill standing for the second reading in the assembly,” said Rizik.

“The second law is the tourism bill which is standing for the second reading in the assembly once it is out, I think we will be the happiest. Then we have a regulatory framework, obviously, they will be developed out of these laws.”

Today marks World Tourism Day.

This year it is under the theme “Tourism and green investment” highlighting the need for more and better-targeted investments for the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN roadmap for a better world by 2030.

According to the World Tourism Organization, looking ahead, the global tourism workforce will require millions of hospitality graduates annually between now and 2030 and a further 800,000 jobs a year will require specific vocational training.