84 Tourism, Indigenous and Local Communities and Protected Areas in Developing Nations educational values can be promoted to the tourists, who may gain some understanding of indigenous and local cultures. Albeit this is often quite superficial but at least helps sensitizing people to cultural diversity. Spiritual values are less clearly assisted by any type of tourism operation, as the entry of 'outsiders' may play a role in diminishing the importance of traditional lifestyles and beliefs. Moreover, it is critical to have a strong communal system in place to help minimize and/or control impacts on sacred sites and important traditional customs.
Key issue
The issue of the cultural and social sensitivity at the local level with regard to PA tourism ventures has been raised many times in the literature and received some attention during the Vth World Parks Congress. Cultural and social impact assessment (that also takes into account economic, livelihood and governance issues) is no doubt essential to the natural and cultural tourism sector regardless of what model is used, but is rarely undertaken thoroughly and professionally.
Tourism, Indigenous and Local Communities and Protected Areas in Developing Nations 85 offers much potential for both PA and adjacent resident communities' sustainability and viability.
2. View tourism as just one element of a diversified economy. One of the greatest challenges faced by tourism is that it is a fragile and fickle industry. Terrorism, natural catastrophes, political upheaval, economic shifts, epidemics and many other factors can cause major downswings and collapses of seemingly solid tourism enterprises. Seasonality and other fluctuations in tourism also cause significant shifts in tourism flows, and hence revenue. For these reasons, tourism endeavours within communities should not focus exclusively on shifting the community's economy to tourism. Rather, communities should be supported to maintain other economic activities, as primary or secondary sources of income.
3. Strongly promote the need for Social Impact Assessment (SIA) as part of a broader impact assessment process related to tourism in protected areas. There is still a need to ensure that SIAs are rigorously carried out and enough resources allocated to support this complex process. This includes an understanding of potential changes to community lives as a result of constant contact from outsiders.
4. Respect and recognize customary ownership, use and access rights for local, indigenous and traditional people in the development and implementation of any tourism ventures associated with protected areas. This requires sensitivity towards and understanding of those rights through processes of negotiations that needs to occur from the outset of any idea for a tourism venture and throughout planning and implementation.
5. Empower local and indigenous communities to be active partners and managers of tourism ventures within or surrounding protected areas. This requires the promotion of inclusive and flexible governance systems for tourism ventures that provide for legitimacy of voice, transparency and fairness, and are culturally sensitive. A gender perspective, addressing the different roles that woman and man can have in those ventures, may also be culturally necessary and underscore the success or otherwise of tourism initiatives
6. Establish conflict resolution systems and negotiation protocols. Conflict resolution and negotiation are often extremely complex and tend to be culturally and locally specific.
The establishment of systems of sharing information and decision-making can greatly contribute to transparency and greater understanding.
7. Establish written agreements at the outset of joint ventures and collaborations.
Managing expectations of ownership, profit and risk sharing, transference of goods and capital and other key elements of any joint venture or collaboration is always a challenge.
Reliance on verbal agreements during the course of establishing a tourism enterprise is risky: people in positions of authority may change, political pressures may emerge, and memories may fade. Written agreements developed through negotiation processes that are culturally sensitive are an essential element of any joint venture (Pedersen, 2002).
8. Develop and implement mechanisms to provide for fair compensation for negative impacts on indigenous and other local communities and to ensure equitable
86 Tourism, Indigenous and Local Communities and Protected Areas in Developing Nations distribution of benefits. Cost-benefit analyses should be part of the establishment, evaluation and ongoing monitoring phases of tourism initiatives.
9. Make good use of existing resources, such as the many manuals now available. Many resources have been spent on documenting processes and best practice for engaging communities in tourism (Drumm and Moore, 2002; Hausler and Strasdas, 2002). Often these documents and their lessons do not reach those making decisions and designing projects and enterprises on the ground. These case studies and manuals should be closely reviewed to avoid the costly problem of making the same mistakes. In addition, more general publications and guidelines should be used such as the ones related to Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas (Beltran and Phillips, 2000) and Indigenous and Local Communities and Protected Areas (Borrini-Feyerabend et al, 2004a); and for co- management and governance of Natural Resources (Borrini-Feyerabend et al, 2004b).
10. Use the CBD Guidelines. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has developed useful guidelines for developing and implementing tourism in fragile ecosystems (UNCBD, 2003). These guidelines and other regulations and legal instruments should be actively considered and, where appropriate, applied to new projects and tourism enterprises.
Notes
1. See principles of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) and poverty alleviation in United Nations instruments, particularly the Convention on Biological Diversity, for example the CBD Subsidiary Body On Scientific, Technical And Technological Advice (SBSTTA) Protected Areas Programme at http ://www.biodiv. org/doc/meetings/ sbstta/sbstta-09/official/sbstta-09-06-en. doc
2. See Chapters 17-18 on the economic viability and experience of South African parastatal SANParks and Ontario Parks, the management agency for protected areas in Ontario Provence, Canada.
3. A considerable part of the earth's biodiversity survives on territories under the ownership, control or management of indigenous peoples and local (including mobile) communities. Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) are natural and modified ecosystems, including significant biodiversity, ecological services and cultural values, voluntarily conserved by indigenous and local communities through customary laws or other effective means. The term as used here is meant to connote a broad and open approach to categorizing such community initiatives, and is not intended to constrain the ability of communities to conserve their areas in the way they feel appropriate. (Source: IUCN, World Parks Congress 2003, recommendation 5.26).
Tourism, Indigenous and Local Communities and Protected Areas in Developing Nations 87
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