Linking Culture and the Environment

196 Emerging Issues in Culture and Tourism
community as they relate to tourism and the conservation of national parks.
Staiff notes that the cultural inscriptions of ‘nature’ are quite different, and
from the visitors’ perspective portray very different interpretations of the
natural world. Staiff argues that these cultural inscriptions of nature are the
‘true’ values that each culture wishes to preserve or protect and should be
incorporated a priori into conservation and tourism development planning.
The sustainability of natural and cultural systems then requires that local
community cultural values towards nature are articulated to ‘sustain and
nurture the attraction, sustain and nurture the destination community and
maintain the economic viability of the industry’.
The community, as a tourism product, plays a very influential role in the
success or failure of the tourism industry. If resident perceptions and preferences
do not support tourism development policies and programmes, then
programmes are likely to fail or be ineffective in their implementation –
ultimately failing to achieve sustainability. Therefore, the goals and strategies
of both community and tourism development should reflect or
incorporate the views of the local residents through active participation in
the decision-making process. In Chapter 14 (this volume), Andereck and
McGehee, in an exhaustive review of research on the relationship between
resident tourism attitudes and support for tourism development, note that
the most important explanatory variable is the perceived personal benefit
residents received from tourism. They also note that the stage of a community
in its tourism development life cycle also seems to have an effect on people’s
attitudes and to some degree predicts resident support or opposition
for tourism. In other words, if residents perceive that they benefit in some
way from the presence of tourism within their community and that the level
of tourism is appropriate, then residents generally support additional tourism
development. Under these circumstances, the likelihood of sustainable
tourism development is more likely to occur.
In the final chapter of this part (Chapter 15), Trau and Bushell illustrate
several case studies of co-managed national parks – parks and protected
areas that are managed jointly by the local indigenous peoples and the
national resource management agencies. The coupling of local management
control of natural resources and nature-based tourism can empower local
communities, alleviate poverty and preserve local cultures. But as many
other authors in this text argue, local indigenous cultures typically lack the
human and economic capital to fully engage their potential in tourism developments
and are marginalized within this context.