Wade Davis to Keynote the ESTC 2008

World Renowned Explorer and Anthropologist

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. October 14, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC, September 26, 2008. The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) is pleased to announce that Wade Davis will be a featured keynote speaker at the upcoming Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Conference 2008 (ESTC 2008), to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, from October 27th to 29th, 2008.

A National Geographic Explorer, an ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker, Davis is an inspirational story teller with vast knowledge of Indigenous societies and cultures, myth and religion, and the global biodiversity crisis-to name just a few of the numerous fields of research that have taken him across the globe. In 2004, he was made an Honorary Member of the Explorers Club, one of twenty so named in the hundred-year history of the club. In recent years, his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Vanuatu, Mongolia and the high Arctic of Nunuvut and Greenland. He is a principal character in the MacGillivray Freeman IMAX film, Grand Canyon Adventure, released in the spring of 2008.

Davis is a native of British Columbia, and as a licensed river guide and avid outdoor adventurer, he has developed intimate local, as well as global, knowledge of the biological, cultural and spiritual web of life. As a global explore who has been described as "a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet, and passionate defender of all of life's diversity," Davis will draw from his varied travel experience and share his insights into the roles of ecotourism and sustainable tourism as a tool to continue enhancing bio-cultural diversity.

Davis' featured keynote presentation will be during the plenary lunch session, on Wednesday, October 29th, 11:30am - 12:30pm. Embodying the spirit of this one-of-a-kind annual industry conference, Davis' address will be among the premier highlights of the ESTC 2008, which hosts over 500 delegates, 25 sessions, 60 speakers and endless networking opportunities.

"One of the intense pleasures of travel," said Davis, in a speech on his studies in cultural diversity, "is the opportunity to live among peoples who have not forgotten the old ways, who feel their past in the wind, touch it in stones polished by rain, taste it in the bitter leaves of plants...peoples [who] reveal that there are other options, other means of interpreting existence, other ways of being. This is an idea that can only inspire hope."

Registration for the ESTC 2008 is available online at: www.ecotourismconference.org. The conference registration includes, among other benefits, free admission to the priority-interest meetings scheduled on Monday, October 27th: Indigenous Business Leaders in Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism (10am to 1pm); Mainstreaming Sustainability in the Tourism Industry: The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (11am to 1pm); and The Opportunity for Marine Tourism Development in Chilean Patagonia (10am to 1pm).

About the Conference:

Highlighting innovating solutions for greening the tourism industry in the US and Canada, the ESTC 2008 (Vancouver, BC, Canada, October 27-29) will bring together 500+ industry leaders and community stakeholders from across the region, and offer unique opportunities to gain practical skills and participate in invaluable networking and knowledge sharing.

ESTC 2008 Media Contacts:

Ayako Ezaki, Director of Communications, TIES

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 202 347 9203x412