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Other relevantsocioculturaland economicdataAdministrativeand managementdata• Ethnological and demographic profile of local community• Level of local community engagement with tourism, directly and indirectly (e.g. equity, employment,sales of products and services)• Other sources of local income/livelihood and effect on biodiversity• Type, significance, location and sensitivity of cultural assets• Pattern of land ownership, including traditional and community land rights• Past and current area plans, including tourism, environment, development and land use plans• Recent Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), Strategic Environmental Assessments and their outcome• Application and enforcement of relevant legislation and regulations• Available human and financial resources for conservation and managementIn collecting and assembling this information, particularattention should be paid to:✤Any known direct impacts of tourism on biodiversity✤Past and current cumulative impacts✤Spatial distribution of biodiversity, tourism andother issues, which will require map-based data✤Relationship to neighbouring and wider areaswhich may affect the local tourism/ biodiversitysituation✤Ability to replicate data over time in order tomonitor and measure change.4.3 Sources of informationThe following main sources are seen as possible providersof existing information or as participants inthe collection of future information.International bodies. UNWTO and other bodies canprovide tourism and other data, which is often assembledfrom local sources. Some bodies may haverelevant data on certain sites which have an internationaldesignation. Technical assistance agenciesthat have been supporting local projects may havegood local knowledge.An Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool for researchand conservation planning (IBAT R&CP) provides accessfor not-for-profit organizations to a range of global andnational data layers, such as protected area boundaries,biological information about habitat and species diversityindices, and key areas for biodiversity. Wider circulation ofthis data to all stakeholders may be important. 48National government/agencies. They may have tourism,biodiversity and socio-economic data on thelocal area or national data that could be disaggregated,but caution is needed to ensure that suchdata is sufficiently robust and relevant to the localsituation.Subnational government, local authorities and protectedarea bodies. They should have at least some localdata on the main topics, but there may be manygaps and possible issues of reliability. Protected areamanagement plans and tourism plans may containvaluable information. In some cases, DestinationManagement or Marketing Organizations can helpdetermine effective monitoring systems.NGOs. International conservation and communityNGOs may have relevant data. They are also likely tobe an important source of knowledge on biodiversityand local community/livelihood issues.Tourism businesses. A highly important source of informationon tourism flows, activities, performanceand outlook. A systematic survey of tourism businesses(formally established as well as informal)could be undertaken, as well as more informal contact.Tourism businesses could participate in datacollection.Local community. Engaging the local community inproviding knowledge and opinion and in collectingnew data is important in raising awareness of theissues and generating support.Visitors. Obtaining information through well designedand simple visitor surveys can add greatly tothe availability of local knowledge on tourism andbiodiversity. Visitors can also be engaged in collectingdata and reporting on issues such as environmentalconditions.Site surveys and observation. Information on biodiversityconditions may need to be obtained directlyfrom site surveys and observations repeated overtime.22 Tourism Supporting Biodiversity