Speaker Bios – Sustainable Tourism Criteria Workshop IUCN World Conservation Congress, Barcelona, Spain 2:30-4:00pm, October 6th, 2008 Kelly S. Bricker Chair, The International Ecotourism Society Dr. Kelly S. Bricker, Associate Professor at the University of Utah and Chair of the International Ecotourism Society, completed her Ph.D. research with The Pennsylvania State University where she specialized in Outdoor Recreation and Nature-based Tourism within the program of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management. She has special research and teaching interest in sustainable tourism development, natural resource management, and sense of place relative to communities. She has conducted research on heritage tourism, social impacts of tourism, and natural resource tourism environments. She has presented papers on issues in heritage tourism, sense of place and natural resource management, ecotourism, and incentive travel programs. She has written articles on sense of place and whitewater recreationists (kayakers and rafters), heritage tourism, perceptions of incentive travelers, and ecotourism tourism projects. She has been a faculty member at the University of the South Pacific and West Virginia University and from 1999-2001 served as President of the Fiji Ecotourism Association. With her husband Nathan, she developed an ecotourism whitewater and sea kayaking operation called Rivers Fiji, located on the main island of Viti Levu, which established the Upper Navua Conservation Area and Fiji’s first RAMSAR site. Dr. Bricker has served on the TIES Board since 2001. Kathy Calvin Executive Vice President & COO, United Nations Foundation Kathy Calvin is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the United Nations Foundation. The United Nations Foundation was created in 1998 with businessman and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic gift to support UN causes. The UN Foundation builds public-private partnerships to address the world's most pressing problems, and works to broaden support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach. The UN Foundation is a public charity. Prior to joining the UN Foundation, Kathy served as President of the AOL Time Warner Foundation, which she led from its creation in 2001, when AOL and Time Warner merged. Kathy also guided AOL Time Warner's other philanthropic activities and was the chief architect of the company's corporate responsibility initiatives. She joined America Online in 1997 as Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at America Online, following a career in politics, journalism and public relations. Immediately prior to joining AOL, she was a Senior Managing Director at Hill and Knowlton, a global public relations company, where she led the U.S. Media Relations practice. For 12 years before that, she was the Director of Editorial Administration for U.S. News & World Report. From 1976 through 1984, Kathy served as Senator Gary Hart's press secretary in his Senate office and 1984 Presidential campaign.
Throughout her career, Kathy Calvin has taken an active role in a range of philanthropic activities. She currently serves on the boards of City Year, the International Women's Media Foundation, Internews, Share Our Strength, the National Women's Law Center, and the United Nations Association of the United States of America. In 1999 she and Art Bushkin founded the Stargazer Foundation, which provides free online tools for nonprofits through the web platform StargazerNET.net. Kathy is a graduate of Purdue University and the recipient of numerous awards for leadership and philanthropy. Ahmed Djoghlaf Executive Secretary, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity An Algerian national, Dr. Djoghlaf has pursued a distinguished diplomatic career that has included postings with the government of Algeria and UNEP. He assumed the position of Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on January 3, 2006. He was named to his previous position as Assistant Executive Director of UNEP in June 2003, following his success as Director and Coordinator of UNEP's Division of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), where he played a key role for some seven years and successfully raised UNEP’S profile. During his tenure at the GEF, the portfolio grew from 6 projects worth US$ 28 million to 600 projects worth more than US $1 billion implemented in 155 countries. Throughout his impressive career, Dr. Djoghlaf has increased his extensive knowledge of global environment processes within the UN system and within the CBD process. Notably, he was the General Rapporteur of the Preparatory Committee of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), better known as the “Rio Summit”. He was Vice Chairman of the Eleventh Session of the Intergovernmental Committee on Science and Technology for Development and Vice President of the Negotiating Committee on the Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as Chair of one of the two negotiating committees of the Convention to Combat Desertification. His numerous positions at the CBD included Acting Principal Officer on intergovernmental issues and cooperative arrangements at the Secretariat, during which time he was in charge of meetings including the First and Second Conferences of the Parties. In 1994, in his capacity as Special Adviser to the Executive Secretary of CBD, he was responsible for the preparations for the First Conference of the Parties held in Nassau, Bahamas, in December of that year. Prior to joining the United Nations, Dr. Djoghlaf held a variety of important posts in the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was advisor on environmental issues to the Prime Minister of Algeria and, prior to that, to three Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Algeria.
He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Nancy, France, as well as four other post graduate degrees including Master of Arts, Government and Politics from St. John’s University, New York and a Law degree from the University of Algiers. Dr. Djoghlaf, who holds the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, is married and has two children. He and his family now reside in Montreal. Dr. Djoghlaf speaks Arabic, English and French. Stefanos Fotiou Tourism and Environment Programme Officer, United Nations Environment Programme Stefanos Fotiou has been working in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since March 2006 as the co-ordinator of the “Tourism and Environment” unit. Before joining UNEP, Stefanos was working as Managing Director in a consultancy company for governments and the industry on issues related to sustainable tourism and sustainable regional development. He has also worked as a monitoring and evaluation expert for the Environment General Directorate of the European Commission, as head of the Sustainable Development unit of the Greek Biotope Wetland Centre as well as a research associate in the Aristotle University. Stefanos has managed more than 30 international projects dealing with sustainable development with a total budget of more than US$ 100 million. He has been involved as a leading expert in the development of national and regional strategies related to sustainable development in many countries/regions and he has published scientific papers, monographs and a number of articles on sustainable tourism, economics of the environment, sustainable development, information economics and natural resource management. Stefanos has also an extensive experience as an educator; he has taught as a visiting lecture for 6 years in the Department of Planning and Management of Natural Resources of the Aristotle University and in the Department of Business Administration of the University of Macedonia. He holds a first University degree in Forestry, a PhD in Environmental Resource Economics and a Master in Information Systems. Stefanos is currently coordinating in UNEP a portfolio of international projects and initiatives related to tourism and environment. The main objective of the UNEP’s tourism and environment programme is to mainstream sustainable forms of economic efficient tourism that safeguard the environment and promote social progress. To achieve this objective UNEP is working with governments, the business sector and the consumers in a number of projects and activities that: i) demonstrate the value that sustainability can add to the tourism value chain, ii) improve the knowledge base of the tourism stakeholders, and iii) promote innovation throughout the tourism industry. John Francis Vice President, Research, Conservation & Exploration, National Geographic (moderator) Dr. John Francis serves as Vice President for Research, Conservation, and Exploration at the National Geographic Society, directing funding of these disciplines through the
Committee for Research and Exploration, the Conservation Trust, and the Expeditions Council. Francis also oversees the Society’s Center for Sustainable Destinations and the Remote Imaging laboratory. Francis’s professional career is rooted in wildlife biology and a deep belief in the importance of conservation. He has fashioned his interests and expertise into highly successful turns as a scientist, wildlife filmmaker, and current leader of the Society’s storied research and exploration arm. He began his professional career as a behavioral ecologist at age 19 and over the next fifteen years, studied more than half of the seal and sea lion species living today. During this time he earned a B.S. from the University of Washington, a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and spent five years as a postdoctoral fellow and research associate at the Smithsonian Institution. His research took him around the world to Australia, Canada, Mexico, Chile, New Zealand, Hawaii, California, Alaska, and Argentina. This period also saw Dr. Francis receive two research grants from the National Geographic Society that allowed him to study the little-known Juan Fernandez fur seal on the islands where the Robinson Crusoe tale was born. This work led to a film on the subject, which captured the interest of National Geographic and opened the door to filmmaking. For Francis, the power of the film media to stir conservation action was an attractive lure. He began a six-year stint with National Geographic Television and Film in 1993, working on a variety of subjects from chimps to tigers to coyotes. By the end of his tenure, he was producing films closer to his expertise on blue whales, seals, and sharks. Dr. Francis was also able, during this time, to serve on the Committee for Research and Exploration, offering expertise on marine mammal science and serving as a conduit to National Geographic media. In 1999, Dr. Francis became the Executive Director of the Committee for Research and Exploration and led the creation of the Conservation Trust in 2001 to focus grant making on identifying the most urgent natural resource issues and working toward solutions. A reorganization of Mission Programs in 2003 led to his appointment as Vice President and the addition of the Expeditions Council under his leadership. Given his background, Dr. Francis is uniquely positioned to ensure that the knowledge gleaned from the Society’s research and expeditions grants is shared with the public through the vast reach of the Geographic. Francesco Frangialli Secretary General, UN World Tourism Organization Francesco Frangialli served as Deputy Secretary-General from January 1990 to September 1996, when he assumed the top post WTO ad interim. He was elected to that post by the General Assembly in 1997 for the period 1998-2001, in 2001 for the period 2002-2005 and again in 2005 for the period 2006-2009. Mr. Frangialli has an extensive background in public administration and served from 1986 to 1990 as Director of the Tourism Industry in the French ministry responsible for Tourism. He has a degree in economics from the Paris School of Law and Economics,
studied at the National School of Administration (ENA) and is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, where he was a lecturer from 1972 to 1989. Jeff Glueck Chief Marketing Officer, Travelocity Jeff Glueck oversees marketing activities for Travelocity, including advertising, merchandising, customer experience, design, personalization, CRM, search engine marketing and editorial content, business development, and community sites including IgoUgo.com. Since assuming the role in January 2004, Jeff has helped Travelocity launch a new site design and interface, a new logo, the wildly popular Roaming Gnome Advertising campaign, the Travelocity Guarantee and Customer Bill of Rights, as well as a new tagline: “You’ll never roam alone.” Previously, Jeff led the product team that built Travelocity's dynamic packaging platform, which has helped more than one million travelers build their complete trip, while saving time and money by booking flight, hotel, car and activities together. Prior to Travelocity, he helped found and launch Site59, where he served as chief strategic officer and VP Business and Product Development. Site59 became the leader in the US “last minute deals” arena and won numerous honors for innovation. In March 2002, Site 59 was acquired by Travelocity. Earlier in his career, Jeff served as advisor to the Ministers of trade and travel of Peru, Venezuela and Bolivia as well as a White House Fellow in Washington D.C. working on international trade and economic development financing for Asia and the Middle East. Under Glueck’s direction, Travelocity has been recognized for its business rejuvenation, including “Turnaround Company of the Year” from the American Business Awards, and a Gold Effie from the American Marketing Association for best retail advertising campaign in the USA. Glueck, named to Advertising Age’s 2007 “40 under 40,” holds degrees from Harvard University and Oxford University, where he was honored as a Marshall Scholar.
Anna Spencely Director of the International Centre of Responsible Tourism – South Africa; Member of IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Tourism Task Force; IUCN-WCPA Transboundary Protected Areas Taskforc; IUCN Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group . Dr Anna Spenceley is an independent consultant and researcher who works on responsible tourism and sustainable development issues, mainly in emerging economies. Based in South Africa, she specializes in biodiversity conservation, sustainable livelihoods, certification, fair trade, transboundary protected areas, poverty alleviation, integrated and triple-bottom-line assessments. Anna consults for institutions including the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF), the Netherlands Development Agency (SNV), Columbia University, Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, and the International Ecotourism Society. During a recent postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of the Witwatersrand, she compiled a new book “Responsible Tourism: Critical issues for Conservation and Development’, which is to be published by Earthscan in partnership with the IUCN Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group (SAUSUG) in 2008. Her doctoral research saw the development the Sustainable Nature-Based Tourism Assessment Toolkit (SUNTAT) – designed to address the environmental, socio-cultural and economic sustainability of nature-based tourism enterprises. The work was conducted through the International Centre for Responsible Tourism. Chris Thompson Head of Responsible Tourism, Federation of Tour Operators Chris has worked in the travel industry for over seventeen years in a variety of roles such as Overseas Holiday Representative/Guide, Resort Manager, UK Quality Manager and Health and Safety Manager and has a very broad knowledge of the Industry. He worked for both First Choice Holidays and TUI UK prior to joining the UK Federation of Tour Operators in 2003 and for the last 5 years he has been responsible for the development, coordination and delivery of a sustainable tourism strategy for the FTO. In addition, he has worked for the UK Travel Foundation, a sustainable tourism charity and continues to provide a conduit for them in creating linkages with the outbound industry. Chris has worked closely with a number of European and International organizations to develop the Travelife sustainability toolkit and is the General Manager of the Travelife Sustainability System. He is sustainable tourism advisor to the International Federation of Tour Operators and is a major player in the creation of a sustainability agenda for the European package travel industry. He represents the UK outbound industry at an International level sitting on a variety of sustainable tourism committees and steering groups. Chris has a Diploma in Sustainable Business from the University of Cambridge. Ted Turner Chairman of the Board, United Nations Foundation R.E. Turner is currently chairman of Turner Enterprises, Inc., which was created in 1976 to oversee Turner’s private landholdings. The company’s mission is to manage Turner lands in an economically sustainable and ecologically sensitive manner while promoting the conservation of native species. Turner is also chairman of the UN Foundation, a charitable organization he founded to support United Nations causes, and chairman of the Turner Foundation Inc., the Turner family’s private grant-making organization, which focuses on population and the environment. Turner co-chairs the Nuclear Threat Initiative with Senator Sam Nunn. The Nuclear Threat Initiative seeks to strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use and preventing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Turner is a member of the board of directors of the National Cable Television Association, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change, the Greater
Yellowstone Coalition, the International Founders Council of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of the American Indian, the Business Council for the United Nations and Brown University. In 1980, Turner inaugurated CNN, the world’s first, live, in-depth, round-the-clock news television network. A second all-news service, Headline News, began operation on January 1, 1982, offering updated newscasts every half hour. Launched in September 1985, CNN International serves as the company’s global news service and is distributed in more than 210 countries and territories worldwide. Turner originated the Goodwill Games in 1985 as a quadrennial, multi-sport, international, world-class competition. The inaugural Goodwill Games were held in July 1986 in Moscow and were followed by the 1990 Games in Seattle, Washington, the 1994 Games in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the 1998 Games in New York City. The 2001 Goodwill Games took place in Brisbane, Australia. Mr. Turner became vice chairman of Time Warner in October 1996, with the merger of Time Warner Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System Inc. Mr. Turner oversaw Time Warner’s Cable Networks division, which included the assets of Turner Broadcasting System Inc. (TBS, Inc.), the CNN Newsgroup, as well as Home Box Office, Cinemax and the company’s interests in Comedy Central and Court TV. He also oversaw New Line Cinema and the company’s professional sports teams—the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers. In January 2001, he became vice chairman of AOL Time Warner, a position from which he served until May 2003. Turner is an active environmentalist and has received numerous civic and industry awards and honors, including being named Time magazine’s 1991 Man of the Year. He is also a superior yachtsman, having won national and world sailing titles, including a successful defense of the 1977 America’s Cup, the 1979 Fastnet Trophy and four Yachtsman of the Year awards. In January 2002, Turner opened the first Ted’s Montana Grill in Columbus, Ohio, with his partner, George W. McKerrow Jr., founder of the Longhorn Steakhouse chain and several other successful restaurants. Ted’s Montana Grill offers classic American comfort food, including bison or beef burgers, in an authentic Montana bar-and-grill atmosphere. Ted’s Montana Grill expects to open up to 40 more restaurants in the next few years. Turner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 19, 1938. When he was 9 years old, his family moved to Savannah, Georgia. He received a degree from Brown University, where he was vice president of the debating union and commodore of the yacht club. Mr. Turner is the father of five children and resides in Tallahassee, Florida.
Tensie Whelan Executive Director, Rainforest Alliance Tensie Whelan serves as Executive Director of the Rainforest Alliance. She has been involved with the Rainforest Alliance since 1990, first as a board member, and then later as a consultant, becoming the executive director in 2000.
Whelan served as the executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters from 1992 until 1997, prior to which she was Vice President of Conservation Information at the National Audubon Society. Whelan also worked as a journalist and environmental communications consultant in Costa Rica, and she was the managing editor of Ambio an international environmental journal based in Stockholm. For several years prior to coming to the Rainforest Alliance, Whelan worked as a management consultant to various environmental and political groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, the Hudson River Park Alliance and the Federation of State Leagues of Conservation Voters, among others. Whelan's published work includes one of the first books on eco-friendly tourism, Nature Tourism: Managing for the Environment (1991, Island Press). She is the Chair of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition and served on the boards of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and the Vermont League of Conservation Voters. She holds an M.A. in International Communication from American University's School of International Service and a B.A. in Political Science from New York University.