Local attitudes towards conservation and tourism around Komodo National Park, Indonesia

Ensuring local support for protected areas is increasingly viewed as an important element of biodiversity conservation. This is often predicated on the provision of benefits from protected areas, and a common means of providing such benefits is tourism development. However, the relationship between receipt of tourism benefits and support for conservation has not been explored. This study examined local attitudes towards protected area tourism and the effects of tourism benefits on local support for Komodo National Park, Indonesia. Komodo National Park is a flagship for tourism in a region where protected areas are becoming increasingly visited and where local support for conservation has not been investigated. Results of a questionnaire survey revealed positive attitudes towards tourism and high support for conservation (93.7%), as well as a recognition that tourism is dependent upon the existence of the park. Positive attitudes towards tourism were positively related to the receipt of economic benefits, and to support for conservation. However, a positive relationship between receipt of tourism benefits and support for conservation was not identified, suggesting that benefits from protected area conservation make no difference to local support for conservation. Local people recognized distributional inequalities in tourism benefits, and the most common complaints were of local inflation and tourist dress code. To fully identify the impacts of protected area tourism, long-term studies of local attitudes alongside traditional economic and ecological assessments are recommended.

[1]  W. Auffenberg.  The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor , 1981 .

[2]  M. Walpole,et al.  Tourism Conservation and Sustainable Development: Case Studies from Asia and Africa , 1998 .

[3]  W. F. Boer,et al.  Natural resource use, crop damage and attitudes of rural people in the vicinity of the Maputo Elephant Reserve, Mozambique , 1998, Environmental Conservation.

[4]  M. Pimbert,et al.  Social change and conservation: environmental politics and impacts of national parks and protected areas. , 1997 .

[5]  Stephen R. Kellert,et al.  Local attitudes toward community-based conservation policy and programmes in Nepal: a case study in the Makalu-Barun Conservation Area , 1998, Environmental Conservation.

[6]  M. Walpole.  Dragon tourism in Komodo National Park, Indonesia : its contribution to conservation & local development , 1997 .

[7]  Patrick Long,et al.  Resident support for tourism development , 1990 .

[8]  J. Haukeland.  Sociocultural impacts of tourism in Scandinavia. Studies of three host communities. , 1984 .

[9]  U. Ite.  Community perceptions of the Cross River National Park, Nigeria , 1996, Environmental Conservation.

[10]  R. Allen.  World conservation strategy. Living resource conservation for sustainable development. , 1980 .

[11]  P. Sheldon,et al.  Perceived influence of tourism on social issues , 1990 .

[12]  G. Wall.  Perspectives on tourism in selected Balinese villages. , 1996 .

[13]  W. Newmark,et al.  Conservation attitudes of local people living adjacent to five protected areas in Tanzania , 1993 .

[14]  S. Jacobson,et al.  Local Communities and Protected Areas: Attitudes of Rural Residents Towards Conservation and Machalilla National Park, Ecuador , 1995, Environmental Conservation.

[15]  H. Goodwin,et al.  Local economic impacts of dragon tourism in Indonesia. , 2000 .

[16]  Turgut Var,et al.  Resident perception of the environmental impacts of tourism , 1987 .

[17]  S. Chape,et al.  2003 United Nations list of protected areas , 2003 .

[18]  T. Var,et al.  Resident attitudes toward tourism in Argentina , 1988 .

[19]  M. Walpole,et al.  Pricing Policy for Tourism in Protected Areas: Lessons from Komodo National Park, Indonesia , 2001 .

[20]  Michael Wells,et al.  People and Parks: Linking Protected Area Management With Local Communities , 1992 .

[21]  Turgut Var,et al.  Perceived impacts of tourism by residents , 1995 .