towards Conservation and Tourism around Royal Belum State Park, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction: Assessment of Local Attitudes towards Conservation and Tourism around Royal Belum State Park, Malaysia

Khairul Hisyam Kamarudin*, Ibrahim Ngah and Khamarrul Azahari Razak

International Conference on Development and Socio-Spatial Inequalities 2015 19-20 August 2015, Bayview Beach Resort, Penang, Malaysia

• Introduction
• Local Economic Development and

Poverty Reduction through Sustainable ECT

• Stories of Two Villages

 Study approaches

• Results, Discussions and Conclusion

 “inclusive development strategies”  One of the key focus area highlighted in the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020) is the urgent need to tackle the issue of households in the Bottom 40% of income (or termed as B40 group).  “inclusiveness”  is used to address the development which focus on the need of 2.7 million household in Malaysia identified as B40 in year 2014.

 Government Transformation Programme (GTP)  will continue.  Provision of infrastructure and services + strategy for poverty reduction and rising the household income for B40  education, training programmes and diversification of local economic base, aiming at high income generation through innovation.

Focus  diversification

• f

rural economic activities  will allow for a specific study including

• n

locals’ attitude towards conservation and rural development project (or in this case, sustainable eco-culture tourism, ECT project as

• ne
• f

rural development strategy for Orang Asli’s B40 group).

Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction: Assessment of Local Attitudes towards Conservation and Tourism around Royal Belum State Park, Malaysia

 Garnering a strong and continuous support, and ‘buy-in’ from local community and their stakeholders has become an important prerequisite for a successful local economic development (LED) and biodiversity conservation project.  Marginalized community living in a protected areas (Royal Belum- Temengor Forest Complex, BTFC in this context), common means of providing benefits for both local economy and conservation could be realised through careful adoption of ‘development through conservation’ approach.  This is where the eco-culture tourism (ECT) programme has come into the limelight.

Local Economic Development through Sustainable ECT

Eco-culture tourism (ECT) has brought a multitude of definitions for individuals from varied backgrounds. an individual or a certain human group travel to enjoy the nature’s beauty and also the unique cultural diversity of human populating the earth, where the relationship between both elements (nature and the local community’s culture) happens symbiotically.

“ ”

Kamarudin et al. (2014)

Figure 1: Proposed conceptual model for sustainable eco-culture tourism. Source: Adopted from Kamarudin et al. (2014)

 Sustainable ECT  primarily driven by the host communities’ desire to fulfil their economic objectives.  Review of literature  rural communities regarded tourism programmes as a way to revitalise local economics  host communities received various direct and indirect economic benefits such as employment, income and may be help to reduced poverty & out-migration of rural populations.  Trickle-down effects – still debatable  successful /unsuccessful cases of local tourism

Data collection from two villages

Data collection from two villages

Village (or Kampung) Population Number

• f families

Male Female Total Semelor 85 74 159 30 Sungai Tiang 191 218 409 83 Village (or Kampung) Sub Ethnic Religion TOTAL Jahai Temiar Islam Christian Bahai Animisme Semelor

• 159

80

• 79

159 Sungai Tiang 409

• 49

47 43

• 409

Source: Department of Orang Asli Development (Gerik) (2014)

Data collection from two villages

Data collection from two villages

 The analysis was done manually  small number of respondents (n=20).  The contribution of each of the factors (reasons/constraints) for sustainable ECT was examined and the ranking of the attributes in terms of their criticality as perceived by the respondents was done by use of Relative Importance Index (RII) which was calculated using equation (2) and the results of the analysis are presented in Table 1 to Table 2.

Results and discussions

 Reasons for supporting the idea of sustainable ECT  Possible challenges/constraints for adopting sustainable ECT

Answers given by respondents

Likert Scale

(n=) RII Rank 1 2 3 4 5

• Potential for income generation (full-time job)

1 3 16 20 0.95 **1

• Potential for income generation (part-time job)

3 15 2 20 0.79 *5

• Gaining experience / skill in tourism-related activities

though training (human capital development and entrepreneurship) 2 7 11 20 0.89 2

• Potential for local facilities (physical and

communication) improvement 2 17 1 20 0.79 *5

• Increase protection of local biodiversity and socio-

culture opportunities 5 15 20 0.95 **1

• Increase internal link for marketing of local ECT

products and SME products 7 10 3 20 0.76 6

• Training ground for future leaders in managing

sustainable ECT 3 7 10 20 0.87 3

• Potential for receiving development funds by

government/private investors 15 5 20 0.85 4

Reasons for supporting the idea of sustainable ECT (n=20)

Source: Research fieldwork in 2014

Note:

• 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’
• RII (Relative Importance Index)

The study revealed the following factors/reasons for supporting the idea of SECT around RBSP namely:

• Top/most influence answers given by respondents as reasons for supporting the idea
• f SECT - shared by (1) the respondents’ desire to increase opportunity for income

generation and (2) increase protection of local biodiversity and socio-culture (with RII value of 0.95 respectively).

• Less influence in supporting the idea of SECT - Increase internal link for marketing of

local CBET products and SME products (RII = 0.76)  supported by field observation  almost no tangible/direct linkage between tourism activity and the indigenous community (did not benefit locals in terms of employment, income, sense of pride, sense of urgency to protect environment).

Answers given by respondents Likert Scale (n=) RII Rank 1 2 3 4 5

• Tough competition with existing tourism

players/operators from outside 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5

• Language barriers (English in

communication) 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4

• Lack of access to the village (poor road and

internet/telecommunication coverage) 2 7 11 20 0.89 2

• Lack of capital and organisational readiness

(lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs) 1 3 16 20 0.95 1

• Seasonality of activities and hard to maintain

costumers (income instability) 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4

• Lack of training in tourism-related activities

(past experience) 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5

• Modernization and culture distortion

(influenced by visitors) 3 7 10 20 0.87 3

Source: Research fieldwork in 2014

Note:

• 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’
• RII (Relative Importance Index)

Possible challenges/constraints for adopting sustainable ECT (n=20)

The study revealed the possible challenges/constraints for adopting SECT around RBSP namely:

• Top 2 most influence challenges/constraints – Lack of capital and organisational

readiness (lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs) (RII = 0.95) and Lack of access to the village (poor road and internet/telecommunication coverage) (RII = 0.89).

• Less influence factor considered as challenges/constraints shared by – (1) Tough

competition with existing tourism players/operators from outside and (2) Lack of training in tourism-related activities (past experience) (RII = 0.76 respectively).

Summary of main points and conclusion:

 Positive attitude towards tourism (92% level of agreement) and strong support for biodiversity conservation (95% level of agreement)  acknowledgement of symbiotic relation between LED through ECT and the protected area which they live in.  Three (3) main reasons to link between establishment of protected area with respondents’ positive attitude towards tourism and conservation:

 It is suggested by this study  benefits from protected area conservation could bring LED (and poverty reduction) which in turn, could increase local support for conservation  “development through conservation”  This notion  dependent  prolong issues such as poverty (low income and low wage jobs), access to land for economic activities and integrated local economic development initiatives are to be addressed for the future planning of BTFC.  Recommends for a long-term studies on local attitudes + ECT capital to fully identify the impacts of protected area towards tourism and conservation efforts.

KHAIRUL HISYAM KAMARUDIN, PHD

Lecturer/Researcher in Planning (Rural Development & Sustainable Tourism) UTM Razak School of Engineering & Advanced Technology UTM Kuala Lumpur Email: khkamarudin@gmail.com Website: http://khairulhkamarudin.wordpress.com Head Geo-Sustainability Research Cluster UTM-High Impact Research on Royal Belum (TRANSROYAL) http://www.utm.my/royalbelum/ Member International Rural Research & Planning Group (iRRPG) http://rrpg.org