The 5 European Black Rhinos To Save Rwanda’s Tourism by 2024
The 5 European Black Rhinos To Save Rwanda’s Tourism by 2024; Rwanda tourism sector has been facing quite a challenging time as the statistics have been oscillating from 2010, and unceasingly, the president of the republic of Rwanda, President Kagame, together with Rwanda development board (RDB) has not put down the shield to fight for the tourism sector of Rwanda through several ways which lately have been holding the countries tourism sector in a reasonable situation. However, recently last year, the announcement was passed that some rhinos where going to be Trans-located from Europe to one of the famous national parks in Rwanda, Akagera National Park.
The 5 European black rhinos were flown into Rwanda on the 23rd of June 2019 from some European zoos. The rhinos were transported using a chartered air cargo plane called Boeing 747-400F, an aircraft operated by air Atlanta. The plane landed at Kigali international airport at 2:45am on Monday morning. “Three female rhinos and two male rhinos of 2 to 9 years old were exclusively selected from the zoos in Europe ; jasiri, jasmina and many where selected from the national park called Dvur Kralove safari national park in Czech Republic. Olmoti was got from flamingo land in the United Kingdom whereas mandela is from Ree park safari Denmark”, African parks publicized on its website.
The black rhinos that were transported from Europe to Rwanda are part the European association zoo and aquaria ex-situ program, and were donated to the Rwanda development board together with African park (partner in the management of akagera national park in rwanda).
Immediately when the plane landed at the airport, a team from the Rwanda development board and other airport staff first loaded off the cargo which is believed to be containing the feed for the rhinos. Possibly, this means that the rhinos are not going to go direct to the national park; perhaps, they are going to first be trained or kept somewhere and later transferred into akagera national park.
The 5 European Black rhinos that were Translocated from Europe to Rwanda, are zoo rhinos, meaning they have spent all their life in the zoos. So they are going to first be nurtured before releasing them in the wild setting of Akagera national park. According to the CEO of the Rwanda development board, Clare akamanzi, poaching in Rwanda is almost currently non-existing in almost all the national parks in the country. She further, emphasized that the board is truly confident that the new rhino species are ready to thrive in the natural habitat of akagera national park.
The head of communications in the Rwanda development board explained to the reporters that there were so many other things that still needed to be validated. He continued that usually it was just the board to work on such matters, but for this time, there are many other different players. The Rwanda development board is still going through a lot of validation exercises, however, it is almost done.
The 5 European black rhinos are critically endangered species in Rwandan national parks, therefore, the translocation of the rhinos from the zoos in selected European countries to Rwanda, is expected to enhance the natural ecosystem in akagera national park in Rwanda, according to the reports from Clare akamanzi the chief executive officer of the Rwanda development board (RDB).
Rwanda still strives harder to maximize the tourism earnings; targeting to collect about $800 million and receive over 2.2 million arrivals by the year 2024. Besides the rhinos, Rwanda is also putting so much focus on the tourism sector that is well known of; MICE tourism or meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions.
The translocation of the black rhinos to Akagera National Park is a courtesy of the unique collaboration of the government of Rwanda, African parks, and the European association of zoos and aquaria (EAZA). The translocation is not just something that happened over a night; rather it took time from last year when the European association of zoos and aquaria (EAZA) donated five critically endangered black rhinos to akagera national park in Rwanda.
Rwanda recently had records of a 12% drop or decline in the tourism revenue in 2018; from 438 million dollars which was reported in 2017, the official Rwanda ministry of statistics told the reporters. Now Rwanda is with high hope of receiving more tourists and an increment from the sector, perhaps, due to the new mammal species introduced in akagera national park and the development being planned for other national parks like Nyungwe National Park and Volcanoes National Park.
