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"AERIAL
HIGHWAYS" CRITICAL FOR POOR COUNTRIES |
November 17,
2007: OSLO, Norway – Without a rational "Aerial
Highways" system lifting tourists in and flying goods and
services out to global markets, the world's poorer countries
will be "sentenced to abject poverty," said the head of a
development agency.
Speaking this week to European aviation chiefs assembled in
Oslo, Lelei LeLaulu, president of Counterpart International,
observed terrestrial highways, roads and bridges are
recognised as essential components of infrastructure
responsible for turning new frontiers into thriving
communities as goods and commodities were transported to
markets. |
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Noting
infrastructure "was basically a means of spreading the
wealth," LeLaulu urged international donors like the World
Bank and IMF, which fund large infrastructural programs, to
look at developing world airlines, "not as money-losing
ventures but as an integral part of the infrastructure of
poorer countries." Adding, "no one ever questions whether a
highway or a causeway is going to make money."
He also asserted tourism, the world's biggest and fastest
growing industry, represented "the largest voluntary
transfer of resources from the rich to the poor in history,
and for those of us in the development community – tourism
is the most potent anti-poverty tool ever."
A rational aerial highways system would enable stakeholders
in destinations to determine how many tourists needed to be
brought in to enhance their health, education, wealth,
environment and culture, said LeLaulu, whose organization is
a partner in National Geographic Society's Geotourism
initiative.
Without a rational aerial highways system – flying tourists
into the developing world and lifting goods and services out
to the global markets – "the poorer countries of the world
would be stagnant backwaters of the thriving global economy
and its people sentenced to abject poverty," he warned.
Responding to groups trying to halt air travel because of
the carbon emissions of aircraft, LeLaulu – a speaker last
month at the special Davos meeting on Climate Change and
Tourism – said "they have the best intentions but they
should remember that airplanes are responsible for barely 2%
of carbon emitted. So, I would urge them to leave their
buildings and cars – which emit far more carbon – and take a
plane to the Pacific, which, according to the Royal
Aeronautical Society if it makes two stops will reduce
carbon output by 60% versus a non-stop."
Referring to the need to use carbon offsets to benefit
destinations in the poorer countries, LeLaulu, who hails
from the Pacific island of Samoa, suggested "once there,
they should chill in a fale (Polynesian grass hut without
walls or electricity) and take the occasional break from the
beach to plant trees with their carbon offsets which they
will, of course as sensitive environmentalists, purchase
locally."
He also pointed out that 49 of the world's poorest countries
rely on tourism as their major foreign currency earner.
Speaking to the 60th anniversary of Avinor, the company
which operates Norway's aviation systems and 46 airports,
LeLaulu challenged the highly efficient and profitable
company to select an African country and "go in there with
Avinor volunteers and lift that country's aviation systems
up to your standards. By so doing you will create peace
through prosperity." Furthermore, he said they should urge
the Norwegian aid agencies to strengthen that same country's
airlines.
Speaking to reporters, LeLaulu – a founding director with
Brazil's Institute of Hospitality of the World Tourism Forum
for Peace and Sustainable Development – mused, "Norway
confers the most important Nobel prize, so wouldn't it be
nice if, on its 70th anniversary, Avinor, after doing great
work in Africa and elsewhere, received the Peace Prize?"
LeLaulu is an advisor to the Mundo Maya Sustainable Tourism
Project of the Inter-American Development Bank, Mexico and
four Central American Governments, and founding director of
the Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism (CMEx).
Counterpart International is a member of the Carbon Poverty
Reduction Initiative and of the Global Sustainable Tourism
Alliance recently set up by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) to use tourism as a
development tool.
Counterpart International, founded in 1965, gives people a
voice in their own future through smart partnerships,
offering options and access to tools for sustained social,
economic and environmental development. Operating on five
continents, Counterpart is supported by the generosity of
its corporate and individual donors, foundations, host
countries, multilateral institutions and several U.S.
government agencies.
For further information, please visit www.counterpart.org.
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