“Georgia is a unique country with unique potential. It has been keeping me charmed and amazed for thirteen years already – a life may not suffice to discover Georgia”, says John Kapanadze, an activist, founder of The Adventure Tourism Development Association, and a 2018 alumnae of the Civic Leadership Program.
John’s ultimate goal is to contribute to the development of sustainable tourism industry in Georgia. To this end he has been active in promoting adventure tourism, as well as organising hiking and camping tours and creating recreational infrastructure: “We have been exploring trails in Georgia’s Protected Areas and running rather a popular vlog to promote domestic tourism in partnership with the Agency of Protected Areas and Wissol Georgia. Another area of our work includes route planning in specific highking areas, trainings, recommendations and highking to beautiful places in order to whet appetite for travelling and desire to get to know our country”, says John.
It is unsurprising that John is deeply concerned with the situation with respect to Georgia’s biodiversity and environmental protection in general. He believes that society’s long-term interests have been sacrificed for relatively short-term economic benefits. In John’s view social and environmental aspects are often ignored in favour of economic interests. “When it comes to the regional development, there are no general plans which would be built on a trans-disciplinary approach…we ruin one thing by fixing others,” says John who joins efforts with like-minded people and local communities to fight off projects that he believes are unjustified and hazardous for the environment and detrimental for the development of sustainable tourism sector.
John is convinced that the construction of respective infrastructure, establishment of relevant services and professional staff are the way out of this difficult situation, especially when the demand for adventure and eco-tourism has been on the rise in the developed countries: “we are at Europe’s doorstep and considered to be a novel and interesting destination. There are cheap and easy flights to Georgia and we can offer a lot. Visitors from these countries are interested in active leisure and wild nature which is an opportunity for us to provide life energy even to the smallest of vessels and thus develop local economy. This is a perfect recipe to provide critical monetary resources to remote regions and motivate people to stay or return to these places.”
John is grateful for an opportunity provided by the Civic Leadership Program to cement his knowledge and reaffirm findings that he has drawn either in academic environment or by trial and error. John is particularly impressed with the Communications and Leadership components. John says his participation in the Civic Leadership Program reassured him of righteousness of the path he has chosen and further strengthened his determination to keep treading this path: “first and foremost, either you have to accept the reality without whining and complaining about it, or stop complaining and try to change the reality. The fact is that we need to make decisive steps towards resolving our problems. I have discovered my own challenges and set out to resolve them.” Says John.