President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the awareness programme last month intended to conserve and protect the environment for current and future generations by reducing pollution on land. 

The spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Affairs, Albi Modise, tells OFM News that the pollution on land has a bearing on the ocean species.   

“Most of the plastic that finds its way into the ocean, gets consumed by the marine species,” warns Modise. The Protect Our Species theme has spilt over into the tourism industry as well.

Recently OFM News spoke to Australian tourism academic, Larry Dwyer, who says consumers are now, more than before, deliberately targeting businesses that operate in a sustainable way, while still offering good quality services. 

Dwyer, who was the keynote speaker at the Second International Conference on Entrepreneurship Development at the Central University of Technology (CUT) in Bloemfontein in early April, says this shift in thinking coincides with a huge shift in management thinking. 

He says previously companies were primarily concerned with the profitability of a business, an ideology that is now considered to be too narrow. 

Tourism companies are steadily become socially and environmentally aware, aligning with tourists’ needs and wants. 

“If a destination is to be sustainable, it must be the firm’s behaviour that determines that,” says the academic. Modise echoes Dwyer’s sentiments, adding that South Africa has the third most diverse species in the world, both terrestrial and marine. 

He adds that the country’s tourism success hinges on the country's fauna and flora, which citizens must commit to conserve.

OFM News