UN Environmental Agency Teams Up With Key European Travel Group to Save Dolphins
New York, Dec 4 2006 5:00PM
With 2007 declared the “Year of the Dolphin,” the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) has teamed up with TUI, Europe’s leading travel group, to launch a major public awareness campaign on
various threats to the marine mammal’s survival such as entanglement in fishing nets and the degradation of their
habitats.
“The United Nations often lacks sufficient resources to undertake global public awareness projects; thus the need to
join forces with others,” said Robert
Hepworth, Executive Secretary of the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species, an intergovernmental treaty concluded under
UNEP’s aegis that seeks to conserve wildlife and habitats on a global scale.
“We are very pleased to welcome TUI as our corporate partner of this campaign and rely on their established
communication network to spread our message,” he added.
Activities promoted though this partnership include the publication of information on dolphins in brochures and travel
catalogues, in-flight magazines, a dedicated website (www.YoD2007.org) and the development of a ‘dolphin diploma’ for
children. Multilingual dolphin manuals will also be developed and distributed to young travellers and their families in
TUI destinations and passed onto local schools.
“We believe that our tourists and managers could contribute to an important cause while enjoying their holidays or doing
their work,” TUI Director of Corporate Environmental Management W. Michael Iwand said, adding that the alliance with the
Convention “is a smart way to conjugate business needs with outreach and communications on important environmental and
social issues.”
TUI will also assist with the organization of an important meeting in the Canary Islands in late 2007 to develop an
international agreement for the conservation of small cetaceans in West Africa, by providing logistics and assistance to
developing country participants.
ENDS