OMSLAG 5.indd - IUCN

2. 4
and the lodge to use local produce exclusively. Adrift estimates that this will
generate a regular income for 450 small plot farmers in the area, who are
mostly women. Women’s groups are being set up to coordinate the supply
and Adrift provides training courses for these groups.
Of course it is impossible to buy everything locally. Rafting equipment
– for instance – is a very specialised product; it has to be safe and the
quality standards are high. But the ideal is to reduce leakage to a minimum,
without undermining the quality of the tourism product.
Does poverty reduction work
as a conservation tool?
To IUCN NL, the question whether community development through
tourism leads to conservation or to fewer negative influences on
Handicrafts
for sale in a
visitors centre
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biodiversity is crucial, but hard to answer. Most of the projects supported
by IUCN NL have been running for just a few years. Sometimes, the
positive effects on the development of the community are crystal clear.
There are people who earn an income from the new tourism product. But
it takes time to find out whether this income has an effect on conservation.
In all cases, there was a real change in attitude and awareness. The goal of
all these projects was conservation of a specific species, a natural area or
an ecosystem. This means that a great deal of effort was put into providing
information about environmental awareness and the value of the local
ecosystem and training. The people who were actively involved in the
tourism developments invariably came to see the natural values of their
surroundings. Before the tourism project in the RPPF Muriqui in Brazil,
many of the people living close to it had never been in the reserve. The fact
that tourists are willing to travel a long way to see the Muriqui monkey
really opened their eyes. They became aware that the area where they live
is a very valuable region because it is one of the last remaining stretches
of the Mata Atlantica or temperate rainforest along the Brazilian Atlantic
Coast. Training courses and a festival in the reserve helped them to become
familiar with the reserve. A poll among community members showed that
most of them are very supportive of the reserve and its goals.
Whether attitude change leads to different behaviour or a change in
economic activities is another matter. Many of the projects were small scale;
they rarely created more than one or two jobs. It takes time before benefits
materialize, so the coming years will show whether the developments are
viable enough to continue and to grow.
In Tangkahan, the community-owned tour operator LPT organised several
ecotourism itineraries and project initiator INDECON successfully
generated more funds. The project has made a real difference for the
communities involved. According to the project coordinator, tourism has
brought full-time employment to 73 people, either directly or indirectly.
This includes staff for the two lodges and the restaurant, market stallholders,
farmers, guides and guards. They also set up a distribution system for the
profits: one half goes to village funds (two communities) and the other half
to the tour operator. It is realistic to assume that a large group will support
the project goals. Fewer villagers have to depend on illegal logging and
there are fewer conflicts with park authorities on logging.
Some projects made real headway toward the goal of conservation. Project
initiator YK-RASI in the Mahakan River in Kalimantan showed the local
fishermen how they could free the endangered dolphins from their nets
without harming them. YK-RASI also set aside a percentage of the income