Stockholm - The Ecotourism Society of Sweden has been awarded the 2011 WWF Carl Mannerfelt Prize for its work with sustainable tourism and the Nature’s Best quality mark. The prize is around USD 15,000. This is not the first time the Society’s groundbreaking work with quality marking has been acknowledged – it has previously won the Great Tourism Prize and the Änglamark Prize.
”We’re very pleased and proud about the prize. It’s particularly pleasing that our work with sustainable tourism is recognised in this way,” says Ulf Lovén, Chairman of the Ecotourism Society of Sweden, which now has over 200 quality-marked Nature’s Best activities in Sweden, from Skåne in the very south to Lappland in the far north.
The prize, which was awarded for the final time last year, is aimed at stimulating sustainable use of natural resources with technical and financial development under the motto, "Conservation and Development".
The comment of the jury was as follows:
"The Ecotourism Society of Sweden has been awarded the 2011 WWF Carl Mannerfelt Prize for its work with certification of sustainable tourism. The quality marking and promotion of sustainable adventure tourism corresponds well with the spirit of the prize and motto, Conservation and Development”.
The jury comprises representatives of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. Previous prizewinners have been a long series of professors, environmental heads and journalists, including Susanna Baltscheffsky, environmental journalist (2009) and Johan Rockström, head of the Stockholm Environment Institute (2006), but also Bo Hansson, coastal fisherman at Smögen and approved Nature’s Best operator (2003).