Exploring How Tourism Can Benefit Protected Areas

Megan Epler Wood, Director of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health International Sustainable Tourism Initiative, was elected to the global executive committee of the “Tourism and Protected Area Specialist Group” for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

She joins global experts to:

• Provide strategic advice to governments and others on the optimum approaches to sustainable tourism in protected and natural areas.
• Strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of protected area managers, policy makers, and others in relation to sustainable tourism.
• Enhance the level of tourism contribution to the goals of protected areas and protected area systems.
• She chairs the standing committee for knowledge development and will work to improve how the tourism industry generates global economic benefits to protected areas, focusing on large-scale industry supply chains and the growth of tourism worldwide.