Project Title Project Title ECOTOURISM DESTINATION PLANNING AND

Project Title : Project Title ECOTOURISM DESTINATION PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT FOR THE ADA ESTUARY PROJECT OBJECTIVES To strengthen existing environmental policies, legislations and institutional arrangements for environmental management in Ghana’s smaller hotel sector through combination of both regulatory and voluntary initiative and also to create market in the supply of environmental products and services.

Available resources

Planned Activities • Protection of biodiversity and their habitats; Ø By undertaking monitory, patrols and data collection of species on weekly/monthly basis • Greening of the environment especially the beach; Ø Collaborate with ACI, Zoomlion, Tourists to plant economic trees such as of coconut at the beach to provide alternative livelihood for locals, • Training of stakeholders; Ø Training of tour guides, hotel staff, and local gin producers and vegetable growers. • Production of ecotourism maps, directional signs and sinages; Ø Produce ecotourism maps of natural resources and key attractions at the demo site in Ada • Create Awareness at community durbar grounds and schools; Ø Communicate COAST project objectives and results on bill boards, t-shirts, flyers, brochures, and radio programes • Data collection on tourist activities and changes occurring in income generation; Ø Collect data monthly on number of tourist visiting and income earnings by tour guides, hotel staff, local gin distillers/sellers as well as vegetable growers to ascertain impacts. • Sanitation activities; Ø Collaborate with Zoomlion, ACI, ECO Brigade, and community members to clean beaches and communities.

Main Activities Carried So Far. • Training of some stakeholders; Stakeholders trained on environmental and personal hygiene, tourism resources, handling of customers and opportunities in Ada. • Number of people trained. • 30 Tour Guides, 27 Boat Operators, 107 Hotel/restaurant/ veg. growers & gin producers • Facilitation of the formation of local chapter of hotel operators association

Main Activities Carried So Far. (cont’d) Clean up exercises; • Collaborated with 188 men from ACI, Zoomlion, Zoil and 2 communities with 72 people participating in a clean up exercise during world environment day • Distributed 100 t- shirts, rakes, 10 wheel barrows, 30 wastes bins to communities and school during the WED day • Collaborated with 55 youth from Raleigh Ghana and 18 community folks to clean up the village tourist sites on Aflive island. (Gin island) • Greening the beach by planting 200 coconut trees with ACI, Raleigh Ghana and Azizanya community members - 126 people participated.

Main Activities Carried So Far. (cont’d) Communication and information sharing • 2 communities were educated on the protection of natural resources for sustainable living. The role of coast was highlighted. 2 secondary and 1 tertiary schools with total population of 1092 were educated on sanitation and conservation of biodiversity to attract tourist. • 7 radio discussion programs were held on the following – World Earth day, World wetlands day, World Environment day and World day to combat desertification and drought and others. • 2 dsmc meeting held to review project and chat the way forward on tourism developments

Main Activities Carried So Far. (cont’d) Patrol, Monitoring and Data Collection Species well monitored species, 1044 individual birds and 17 species were counted. • Erosion – 1. 50 meters to the east. Accretion- 2. 00 meters to the west. • Turtles - 3 dead, 7 nest crawls and 4 nest spots were identified. • 2322 tourist visited , GHC 1, 569. 00 earned by tour guides.

Challenges • Inadequate funds to implement most of the activities on the plan. • Inadequate logistics to facilitate and implement some plan activities. • Difficulty in obtaining information from some hotel operators. • Misconception about project and fund disbursement

Recommendation q There should be timeline for the release of funds and logistics for planned activities. q There should be a coordinated plan to get funds and logistics trickling down to the demo site. q Further training – turtle task force and boat operators. q Further information sharing with stakeholders at all levels