The Unfenced Desert Towards a strategy for eco ... - Nwrc.gov.sa

from human use in order to conserve representative portions of key habitats and the
wildlife these supported. A rational network of some 110 sites was originally envisaged,
but increasing public, as well as government ministry opposition to an exclusionary
management policy has delayed the creation of new sites, and by 1999 the NCWCD’s
protected area estate nominally consisted of 14 sites plus two research/captive breeding
stations.
The problems facing the management of wildlife protected areas in Saudi Arabia
are no different in substance from those facing many strict protected areas throughout
the world: lack of public support; lack of governmental funding, and lack of local
community involvement. There has been increasing realisation among the global
conservation community that a preservationist approach to protected area management
is neither a sufficient nor sustainable option, and that while strict protection will remain
necessary and appropriate in certain circumstances, increasing attention should be paid to
the effective integration of conservation objectives with human development needs,
particularly those of local, rural communities. In the last few years the NCWCD has
sought to increase the involvement of local stakeholders in all aspects of the creation and
management of new protected areas, but a major hurdle has yet to be overcome. To date,
the existence of a protected area has meant a net loss of benefits for local communities.
To some extent this has been offset by the employment of local people as rangers and
the use of local services, but shrinking government funding relative to a growing
protected area estate makes this an unsustainable approach in the long term. What is
needed are ways in which to both increase tangible benefits to traditional stakeholders,
and decrease the reliance on government funded management.
Any way you look at it, leisure tourism is booming as an industry of global
importance, and one of the fastest growing sectors is nature-based tourism. The
awareness that nature tourism has a very real potential to degrade the very resources on
which it is based, whether cultural or environmental, combined with consumer demand
for low impact visits to relatively pristine areas, spawned the sub-branch of eco-tourism,
or sensitive and informed tourism to natural sites which seeks to minimise impacts on
the one hand, and provide conservation benefits on the other. True eco-tourism would
appear to carry the potential to solve the problems facing wildlife protected areas: it
could generate revenue, increase public exposure and thereby improve public support,
and could provide a means to empower local communities to manage and conserve the
natural environment as an alternative means of livelihood. But to do all this, tourism
developments, particularly those in and around protected areas, need careful planning so
that the impacts are indeed minimised, and the expected benefits do indeed accrue to the
right targets
6