A Guide to the Healthy Parks Healthy People Approach and Current Practices

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Ecotourism and the health of parks,
protected areas and communities
Given the great increase in tourism based on
natural heritage, and the growing expectations
society holds for tourism not only as a source of
funding for protected area management but also
as a source of income for local residents, it is
important we explore the question “How does
ecotourism affect and benefit local communities
and ecosystems?” This session did that.
Summary of session and discussion
Communities and protected areas are linked by
political, cultural, utilitarian and economic
relationships. Exploiting those relationships
through tourism transforms both the community
and the protected area. Ecotourism benefits
should be equitably shared between community
segments. For example some Mexican National
Parks have accommodation in commercial
tourism ranches outside parks as well as
homestays within local communities in the park;
others only have ranch stays and locals may miss
economic benefits.
While economic benefits are important, the goal
of building an ecotourism sector around natural
heritage needs to consider how it can contribute
to making the community more resilient in the
face of accelerating globalisation. By building
community resilience, we enhance community
health and vibrancy.
In so doing we need to think about 21st century
visitor interest and markets, which means that
new visitor opportunities and experience—the
tourism product—may be needed for a local area
to be competitive.
Moving toward resilience as a goal requires
rethinking what skills, capacities and policies will
be needed. Partnerships that share lessons
learned, enhance capacity, and develop and share
knowledge are critical to constructing a viable
local tourism section.
Some barriers to ecotourism include lack of social
and financial capital, lack of management
capacity in protected areas, lack of vision and
leadership. The conservation sector is usually
reticent to introduce new visitor opportunities,
but we do need to create new opportunities
since visitors and the revenues and political
support they bring may be crucial to protected
area sustainability.
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