Abstract
AbstractTropical forests significantly contribute to local livelihoods as well as global carbon storage and biodiversity conservation. Therefore, a strategy that harmonizes a better quality of life for local people with tropical forest conservation is required. In Community-based ecotourism (CBET), the local community participates in related economic activities. In this chapter, we summarize our current studies that quantified the contribution of CBET to the income and livelihoods of local people and forest conservation. We selected the Chambok CBET site in Cambodia for our case study. First, we quantified the effectiveness of CBET in forest conservation by analyzing forest cover change with published maps created from satellite images. Second, we evaluated the contribution of CBET to household income and livelihood changes through a household survey using a questionnaire. Analysis of the forest cover change maps revealed that deforestation had significantly decreased inside the CBET area as compared to outside it, although the reduction was not enough to stop net deforestation. The survey revealed that the total monthly income of CBET member households and non-CBET households was not significantly different. It also showed that the community members felt the livelihood change after the implementation of CBET. However, this change may have been caused by general socioeconomic changes in Cambodia. We conclude that CBET effectively contributed to forest conservation but in a limited capacity to household income.
Highlights
Tropical forests play a major role in global carbon storage (Bonan 2008; Sullivan et al 2017) and are global centers of biodiversity (Scheffers et al 2012)
The analysis using forest cover change maps showed that the Chambok Community-based ecotourism (CBET) contributed to reducing deforestation, but its contribution was not enough to stop net deforestation
While we showed the positive contribution of CBET to forest conservation, CBET seldom contributed to any increase in the income of the local people— ecotourism generated the only US $1.2/month in median comparison
Summary
Tropical forests play a major role in global carbon storage (Bonan 2008; Sullivan et al 2017) and are global centers of biodiversity (Scheffers et al 2012). There is an urgent need to develop mitigation strategies In addition to their contribution to the global storage of carbon and biodiversity, tropical forests have been recognized as an important resource of local livelihoods (Sunderlin et al 2005). We need a strategy that harmonizes forest conservation with the quality of life for local people in tropical areas. Community-based ecotourism (CBET), a kind of community-based forest management, is one of the strategies that could improve both quality of life for local people and conservation efforts in tropical forests. While the need for evidence-based decisionmaking is paramount, it is possible only by collecting quantitative data on local people’s livelihoods and forest conservation. Evaluate the effectiveness of CBET by presenting quantitative data on forest cover change in a CBET area and the total income of CBET members. We discuss how CBET contributes to household income and livelihood changes
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