Couple Mohammed Drihem
Last Friday, July 14, the locality of Ail Ali Youssef, capital of the territorial community of the same name under the Province of Boulmane, welcomed around fifty associative actors representing various local, provincial and national associations and cooperatives from the Province who came take part in the work of the successful First Ecotourism Forum by the Provincial Association for the Development of Sustainable Tourism of the Province of Boulmane in partnership with the TARGA-AIDE and Carrefour ADRAR Associations.
Organized in celebration of the 29th International Day of Cooperatives placed this year under the theme: “Cooperatives: partners for accelerated sustainable development”; this 1st Initiated Forum, in particular with the assistance of the Province of Boulmane, the Provincial Council of Boulmane and the council of the territorial community of Oulad Ali Youssef; under the theme: “Environmental and geological heritage: leverage for the development of sustainable tourism in the province of Boulmane” was an opportunity to discuss various topics relating to the promotion and development of the ecotourism and tourism sector. sustainable and responsible tourism in the Middle Atlas region in general and in the province of Boulmane and the locality of Ait Ali Youssef in particular.
For Azoulay Moulay Abdellah; president of the Provincial Association for the Development of Sustainable Tourism of Boulmane created in February 2023 by the innkeepers and lodgers of the communes of Ail Ali Youssef, Imouzzer Marmoucha and Sekoura Mdaz and organizer of this First Ecotourism Forum, the objective of this meeting is to highlight the tourist wealth and potential of which the Eastern Middle Atlas region in general and the province of Boulmane in particular enjoys and the networking of the various actors involved in the promotion of tourism both at the provincial and international level. at regional and national level such as cooperatives; associations of guides to natural areas and other associations active in the sector that took part in the work of this Forum.
For his part, Salhi Mohamed, Coordinator of the TARGA Association for Development and the Environment, partner and co-organizer of the Forum and working on sustainable development and the social and solidarity economy through different provinces of the Kingdom, in particular that of Boulmane, he declared to MAP that the objective of TARGA’s participation in this meeting is to exchange its different experiences and knowledge with the different actors invited to this forum, to discover and better know the different potentialities enjoyed by the region and to contribute to the development of the mountain tourism sector in this Province.
For his part, Pr Hajjaj Hassan, president of the Carrefour Adrar Association, told MAP that his participation in the First Ecotourism Forum in Ait Ali Youssef aims to honor a commitment made with Mr Azoulay Abdellah during the one of these visits to the region as a simple family tourist and during which he had discovered the long combat journey of this man for whom he takes his hat off and with whom he has undertaken to prepare the conditions necessary for the holding of a meeting to develop mountain tourism.
I salute the fight of this modest, simple and humble man to have effectively created an ecosystem in an environment; certainly pleasant when one comes there as a tourist but rough and difficult as well in winter as in summer; and as president of the Carrefour ADRAR Association, he added, the latter is interested in the development of ecotourism, mountain tourism and geo-tourism, given that the Eastern Middle Atlas is rich in its geological heritage and paleontological and as a result, she took on her own; the mobilization of these research professors and these specialists animating the debates at this forum to evoke and discuss precisely these riches of this region to go out after these discussions with the local authorities, the civil society, the lodgers, the innkeepers and all the actors involved in the mountain tourism sector with recommendations and a roadmap for developing this type of tourism, which is much sought after and highly valued, especially by foreigners interested in solidarity tourism; to ecotourism that respects nature, human dignity, the woman fighter in this region.
According to Driss Ourhache, geologist and university teacher at the Dhar Mahraz Faculty of Science in Fez; the discovery of traces of Dinosaurs in the region of Boulmane, in particular on the site called Boulahfa where two species were discovered: a stegosorus – “Jurassic dinosaur characterized by its triangular bony plates located on the back which owe it the nickname of “reptiles with roof” and which is the first to be found in North Africa and the oldest in mode and a second which is an Ankylosaurs – “ornithischian herbivorous dinosaurs of the infraorder Ankylosaurs and the family Ankylosauridae” which is a totally new species on a global scale.
These discoveries which is a world first which makes Boulmane nowadays known worldwide through these discoveries and through scientific publications of these results and the particularity is that the fossiliferous deposits are a wealth which is non-renewable that it must be preserved because if people who now know the region of Boulmane would know one day that they could see these preserved bones in situ; they will look for the trip to land in Boulmane – as a tourist must be understood (NDR) –
Finally, it should be noted that this first ecotourism forum was marked by the presentation and discussion of several communications made by eminent research professors and specialists dealing with the “geotourism potential of the South-Eastern Middle Atlas” by Dr. Driss Ourhache, the ” Middle Atlas Oriental as a geological museum for the development of the Region”, of the question of “ecotourism as a lever for sustainable development” for the region, of the “reality of the perspectives of sports cooperatives in the province of Boulmane”, of the ” Role of local authorities in the promotion of ecotourism” and the subject of “horizons of networking and the future action plan”
In particular, delegations representing the Moroccan Association for the Development of Sustainable Tourism, the association of hikers “Maroc Aventure” and the young “Club Crète Atlas” participated in the success of this first Ecotourism Forum in Ait Ali Youssef. Almis Guigou – paragliding in the high mountains