Abstract
Improving household livelihoods through tourism, while at the same time achieving the goals of conservation, remains a challenge in high-value nature areas around the world. This paper studies a herder-community-based tourism system in Mongolia in light of these challenges. The social–ecological system (SES) framework was used as a conceptual foundation. The generic SES framework was adapted to the case of the herder-community-based tourism system. The adapted framework was then used to assess the economic, ecological, and social objectives of the herder-community-based tourism system characterised by natural resources and cultural landscapes. Primary data collection included interviews with key informants in the tourism sector: tourism researchers, representatives of donor projects, managers of tour operators, and guides. Based on their responses, the study site was selected in the buffer zone of the Hustai National Park, which is a protected area. Respondents in the second stage of interviews were herders who participate in herder-based tourism and who live in the vicinity of the protected area. Results show that the SES framework is able to diagnose the sustainability of the herder-community-tourism system, but sustainability outcomes indicate an imbalance between social, economic, and environmental performance. The herder-community-based tourism system is successful in conserving wildlife and habitats; however, the distribution of revenues gained from tourism shows that only a small and inequitable share reaches the herder community.
Highlights
Diversification of rural livelihoods can reduce the vulnerability of rural communities and create new opportunities for developing rural economies and conserving natural resources [1]
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: the section presents the social–ecological system (SES) framework and its sub-systems; Section 3 introduces the context of rural livelihoods, conservation, and tourism in Mongolia; Section 4 introduces the research region and the case-study for this research; Section 5 draws out issues of multiple-use and multiple-user commons research [24], applying the SES framework to describe the main components of the herder–Community-based tourism (CBT) system in the Hustai National Park and identifies the likelihood variables for the sustainability of the complex system; Section 6 contains a discussion and the conclusions
Key informants emphasised many points which can be summarised as follows: (i) CBT helps to improve the livelihoods of local communities and to preserve nomadic cultural resources; (ii) in the history of Mongolian CBT, many projects failed because CBT could not develop without the support of donors and external coordinators; (iii) when local communities participate in the tourism industry, their shared income is lower than that of other tourism stakeholders; (iv) recently, the best case of CBT is among the herder groups of Hustai National Park
Summary
Diversification of rural livelihoods can reduce the vulnerability of rural communities and create new opportunities for developing rural economies and conserving natural resources [1]. The Hustai National Park is located about 100 km away from Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, and aims to integrate wildlife conservation, buffer zone development, and tourism through sustainable natural resource use in and around the protected area. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: the section presents the SES framework and its sub-systems; Section 3 introduces the context of rural livelihoods, conservation, and tourism in Mongolia; Section 4 introduces the research region and the case-study for this research; Section 5 draws out issues of multiple-use and multiple-user commons research [24], applying the SES framework to describe the main components of the herder–CBT system in the Hustai National Park and identifies the likelihood variables for the sustainability of the complex system; Section 6 contains a discussion and the conclusions
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