Community views of ecotourism Stronza, Amanda; Gordillo, Javier
Annals of tourism research,
April 2008, 2008-04-00, 20080401, Letnik:
35, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Ecotourism can be an incentive for conservation, especially when it triggers positive economic change. Yet it introduces many changes to communities:positive and negative, social and economic. The ...full range of change is seldom evaluated in direct relation to conservation at the local level. In this study of three Amazon ecotourism projects, local leaders discussed changes from ecotourism in their communities. Economic benefits were mentioned, but so were new restrictions on time, decreased reciprocity, and social conflict. Other changes included heightened self-esteem and greater community organization. Such shifts should be considered in relation to conservation as they affect the stability of local institutions and the prospects for long-term collective action for resource management.
Opinions communautaires sur l’écotourisme. L’écotourisme peut motiver la conservation, surtout quand il déclenche des changements économiques positifs. Pourtant, les nombreux changements peuvent être positifs et négatifs, sociaux et économiques. La totalité de ces changements est rarement évaluée en relation directe à la conservation locale. Dans cette étude de trois projets écotouristiques en Amazonie, les leaders de la population locale ont mentionné les bénéfices économiques mais aussi les nouvelles restrictions sur le temps, la réciprocité diminuée et le conflit social. D’autres changements comprenaient un respect de soi accru et une meilleure organisation communautaire. On devrait considérer de tels retournements en relation à la conservation et leur effet sur la stabilité des institutions locales ainsi que les perspectives pour l’action collective pour la gestion des ressources à longue terme.
Negative attitudes of resident communities towards conservation are associated with resource decline in developing countries. In Botswana, Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) was ...adopted to address this challenge. CBNRM links rural development and conservation. However, the impact of CBNRM on changes of resident attitudes towards conservation and tourism is not adequately researched. This paper, therefore, assesses the impacts of CBNRM on resident attitudes towards tourism development and conservation in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The study purposively sampled villages of Khwai, Mababe and Sankoyo. Household data using variables like: economic benefits from CBNRM; level of satisfaction with CBNRM; co-management of natural resources between resident communities and government agencies; and collective action was collected. This data was supplemented by secondary and ethnographic data. Using qualitative and quantitative analysis, results indicate changes in resident attitudes from being negative to positive towards tourism and conservation. These changes are triggered by economic benefits residents derived from CBNRM, co-management in resource management; and, collective action of communities in CBNRM development. Positive attitudes towards conservation and tourism are the first building blocks towards achieving conservation in nature-based tourism destinations. As a result, decision-makers should give priority to CBNRM and use it as a tool to achieve conservation and improved livelihoods in nature-based tourism destinations of developing countries.
Tourism is relevant to many theoretical and real-world issues in
anthropology. The major themes anthropologists have covered in the study of
tourism may be divided conceptually into two halves: One ...half seeks to
understand the origins of tourism, and the other reveals tourism's
impacts. Even when taken together, these two approaches seem to produce only a
partial analysis of tourism. The problem is that most studies aimed at
understanding the origins of tourism tend to focus on tourists, and most
research concerning the impacts of tourism tend to focus on locals. The goal of
future research should be to explore incentives and impacts for both tourists
and locals throughout all stages of tourism. This more holistic perspective
will be important as we explore the ways in which ecotourism and other
alternative forms of tourism can generate social, economic, and environmental
benefits for local communities while also creating truly transformative
experiences for tourists.
Many conservationists have promoted ecotourism as a strategy to protect natural resources while also meeting human needs. The purpose of this study was to analyse effects of ecotourism on natural ...resource use and livelihoods in an indigenous community of 80 families in Peru. Household interviews and participant observation were used to track social and economic changes in the community as it partnered with a private tour company to build and co-manage an ecotourism lodge. Effects of ecotourism were measured among the same households before and after the lodge opened, and between households with varying levels of participation. The hypothesis that economic benefits from ecotourism would provide incentives for people to alter their livelihoods and change their uses of natural resources was tested. Results showed that ecotourism effects were ambiguous. Though employment led to a general decline in farming and hunting, new income enabled greater market consumption and expansion of production. Ecotourism also prompted sentiments not easily measured in economic analyses alone, including willingness to be involved in ecotourism work, despite relatively minimal economic returns. These findings are a reflection of the fact that ecotourism is not merely an economic 'tool' for conservation, but also the cause of new values and social relations.
Funding for basic conservation research is chronically lacking. The potential for ecotourism to fund conservation research exists, but has been little explored. One branch of ecotourism with funding ...potential is volunteer tourism, where conservation scientists and recruiting agencies develop research projects and volunteers provide funding and labor. We examine the costs and benefits of a three-way partnership among a conservation research project (The Tambopata Macaw Project), an ecotourism operator (Rainforest Expeditions), and a volunteer-recruiting NGO (the Earthwatch Institute). From November 1999 to December 2006, Macaw Project researchers invested about 1700
h in giving research presentations and interacting with ecotourists and received from Rainforest Expeditions ∼$278,000 worth of salaries, transportation, food, and lodging (total cost to Rainforest Expeditions ∼$98,000). Since 2001, researchers invested 2300
h in training and supervising volunteers and related activities and received from Earthwatch 328 volunteers, ∼13 000
h of volunteer labor and $115,000 in research funding. Rainforest Expeditions received $175,000 in fees from Earthwatch for food and lodging for volunteers. In this association, all parties benefited financially: the research received >$400,000 in cash, goods and services, Earthwatch retained $387,000 in volunteer fees, and Rainforest Expeditions received nearly $300,000 in gross income. Additional benefits to Rainforest Expeditions included services for their guests and free marketing through research related publications and word of mouth. We discuss ways to structure projects to maximize the benefits and the potential of this model for funding other long-term conservation research projects.
This article evaluates two theories to explain the relationship between ecotourism and conservation. One posits that economic benefits must accrue to local communities for ecotourism to result in ...conservation; the other holds that social benefits, including participation in management, must also be present. Although these ideas about causal mechanisms are not mutually exclusive, scholarly studies tend to reflect one more than the other. Two ecotourism projects from Brazil and Peru are compared. The Brazil study illustrates sea turtle ecotourism that generates economic benefits for coastal communities. The case in Peru also generates economic benefits for a local community, but has the added goal of building local management capacity. Both cases provide empirical evidence for causal mechanisms linking ecotourism with conservation. In the Brazil case, economic benefits alone seem to account for conservation outcomes. In Peru, local participation in ecotourism management has also sparked collective action for conservation.
This paper offers a critical reading of the purpose, practice and institutionalisation of ecotourism. Tracing the evolving relationship between ecotourism and conservation, ecotourism and sustainable ...tourism, and ecotourism and certification/monitoring schemes as we do in this paper reveals conflicting values and possibly incompatible objectives. Sustainable tourism and ecotourism are rooted in notions of individual/societal and environmental well-being. Yet, our study indicates significant inequities in ecotourism practice, particularly with respect to cultural aspects such as human ecological relationships. It is argued here that various actions and programmes associated with ecotourism's inception and evolution have institutionalised a modernistic, commodified paradigm: the environment and its inhabitants (human and non-human) are dominated by scientific, industry and other interests that treat these primarily as means to an end, that is, instrumentally. The analysis suggests that ecotourism (and, by extension, ecotourism certification) needs to be re-oriented towards well-being, in other words, a social-cultural paradigm based on participatory democracy and equitable, meaningful relationships with the biophysical world. Suggestions are forwarded for re-envisioning ecotourism, particularly with respect to the notions of cultural equity, participatory practice and researcher praxis.
Ecotourism is a complex phenomenon that has grown rapidly in the last three decades. The emerging field of inquiry based on this phenomenon has followed a similar trajectory of growth. Understanding ...the dimensions of its impacts can pose great challenges to researchers. As a result, ecotourism literature is characterised by continued debates of definitions, bias towards small-scale, one-shot case studies, and overall lack of coherence, and a dearth of explanatory theory. We discuss how hierarchy theory may be used to address these issues. Hierarchy theory has been applied in other disciplines to organise research inquiries, characterise the conclusions drawn from them, and reconcile competing definitions and theories. We explain how key concepts from hierarchy theory are of relevance to levels of analyses of ecotourism whether conducted on individual people or destinations or on the global phenomenon as a whole.
Community-based conservation (CBC) emerged in the 1980s as part of a paradigm shift from wilderness-minded preservation to people-centered conservation. The change prompted a focus on communities as ...both subjects and agents of conservation. Recently, conservationists have a new paradigm, one that characterizes the planet as being in the “Anthropocene,” an ecological era shaped inexorably by humans. This recognition has focused conservation priorities on climate change and other global trends. Though conservation problems are defined differently in the Anthropocene, we argue that the basic principles of CBC still apply and can be expanded to match demands of the era.
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