ECOTOURISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL...
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ECOTOURISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL
CONSERVATION:
A Case Study of Nacula District, Fiji A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN TOURISM STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC
LORAINI CEVA SIVO
THE FACUALTY OF ISLANDS AND OCEANS THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC
SUVA, FIJI JULY 2006
DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY
I, Loraini Ceva Sivo declare that this thesis is of my own work except for those texts
that have been explicitly acknowledged otherwise and it contains no materials that
have been previously submitted for the award of a degree at any other university.
……………………
Loraini Ceva Sivo
ABSTRACT
Ecotourism on a global scale is becoming the fastest growing segment within the
tourism industry. Initially, it was adopted to save the environment as tourism develop
over time at its expense. There is no standard definition of ecotourism, and so it has
been open to interpretation in terms of theory and practice. Generally the definition of
ecotourism, as commonly described by many theorists, considers the environment a
primary concern and so it attempts to minimize negative impacts. Many tourism
operators, instead, have used ‘ecotourism’ as a catch phrase to make business, rather
than to protect the environment.
This research examines the operation of ecotourism in Nacula District, as a case
study, to build an understanding of the emphasis placed on environmental
conservation in the operation of ecotourism. The findings of the research show that,
the differences in the interpretation of ecotourism both to communities and operators,
can affect the practical approach of ecotourism in environmental conservation.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to personally thank the many people who have contributed to the
completion of this thesis.
Firstly, this study would not have been possible without the supervision of Dr
Stephen Doorne who has helped and assisted me in every way and especially as an
adviser and for this, I am very grateful.
To my very close friends, Litea Save, Louise Isimeli, Jone Amoe and Hung Lit Sue,
for their great support throughout the years. To my workmates and friends, Alex
Patrick, Ingrid Qauqau, Wayne Moy, Cagi Tokataa, Moala Tokataa, Naushad Yakub,
Alice Heffernan and Betani Salusalu, who have made me, believe that I could handle
the pressure of work and study. To my former boss and personal friends, David Olson
and Linda Farley, for their support towards my study from the very beginning. To
Greg Buxton, and Heidi Williams for their time to review my thesis. Personally to
Thomas Tui and Viliame Bula for having spent most of their free time with me. And
to my father and mother, Mataiasi and Keleni Sivo, for their educational upbringing
and words of encouragement.
I would also like to thank the staff of the Tourism and Hospitality Department of the
University of the South Pacific for their assistance especially to Dr Tracy Berno, Dr
David Short and Dawn Gibson. To the European Union Scholarship Program, for
offering me the scholarship to pursue my Masters Program especially to John
Stunnenburge. And to the hotel operators and communities of Nacula District for
their hospitality during my visit and for allowing me to interview them and especially
to Miliana Vukunisiga and Joana Waqali for their hospitality and kind help. I am
indebted to all of you.
And finally to those I did not mention, I also thank you for all your kind help and
support which I will always remember.
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DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to my former bosses and personal friends David Olson and
Linda Farley who have inspired me to understand and learn about the challenges
faced in the world of conservation. I will always remember everything you have both
taught me and most importantly to make me believe in myself as an indigenous that
can make a difference in conservation.
To my father and mother who have been patient with me all these years and whose
many dreams I will still continue to achieve while they are alive. And finally to my
grandmother Anaseini Raiyawa for her prayers which has been a strengthening
component of my life.
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List of Appendices
Appendix 1.0 Operators and Community Preliminary Visit Questionnaire
Appendix 2.0 Operators In-depth Interview Questionnaire
Appendix 3.0 Community Questionnaire
Appendix 4.0 Tourist Questionnaire
Appendix 5.0 List of Compiled Definitions of Ecotourism used for Operators
Interview
Appendix 6.0 Graphical Analysis and Discussion of Community Questionnaire
Appendix 7.0 Graphical Analysis and Discussion of Tourist Questionnaire
Appendix 8.0 List of Operators Interviewed
Appendix 9.0 List of Villages Interviewed
Appendix 10.0 Map of Nacula Fishing Boundary
Appendix 11.0 NTTA Coral Friendly Snorkeling Guidelines
Appendix 12.0 Oarsman’s Bay Ecotourism Activities Pamphlets
Appendix 13.0 Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation Program- Workshop
Notes
Appendix 14.0 Nacula Tikina Tourism Association (NTTA) Code of Conduct
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List of Tables
Table 3.1 Name and location of the tourism operators in the Yasawa Islands
Table 5.1 Analysis of definitions identified by individual operator interviewed.
Table 5.2 Frequency of operator selection of provided definitions as applicable
to their operation
Table 5.3 Summary of the responses made to Questions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the
Operators Questionnaire
Table 5.4 Summary of the responses made to Questions 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14
of the Operators Questionnaire
Table 5.5 Summary of the responses made to Questions 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23
and 24 of Operators Questionnaire
Table 5.6 The definitions of ecotourism as identified by the communities
Table 5.7 Summary of the responses made to Question 4 of the Communities
Questionnaire- Reasons why communities were Satisfied and
Dissatisfied at Operators for using Community’s fishing grounds
Table 5.8 Descriptive reasoning stated by respondents in regards to the benefit
hotel operators gain from using the community’s marine environment.
Table 5.9 Mean score on the ranking of different factors on importance of trip to
Nacula
Table 5.10 Mean score on the ranking of different factors of importance ‘why
tourists wish to return to Nacula in the future’
Table 5.11 Mean score on the ranking of different factors of importance ‘why
tourists wish to return to Nacula in the future’
Table 5.12 Mean scores on the rankings of different types of knowledge expressed
by tourists
Table 5.13 Mean score on the ranking of environmental information provided
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List of Figures
Figure 3.1 A summary map of the four districts in Yasawa
Figure 3.2 A summary map of hotel distribution in Nacula Tikina
Figure 5.1 Percentage distributions of the different areas defining ecotourism as
identified by communities
Figure 5.2 The reasons why there was no involvement between communities and
operators regarding how the local qoliqoli was utilized for tourism
activities
Figure 5.3 Reasons for community satisfaction with operators making use of
fishing sites
Figure 5.4 Reasons for community dissatisfaction
Figure 5.5 The types of pollution observed in the marine environment
Figure 5.6 The age groups of tourists interviewed
Figure 5.7 Reasons why tourists travel to Nacula
Figure 5.8 Types of activities tourists were engaged in while visiting Nacula
Figure 5.9 Factors tourists found interesting during their trip to Nacula
Figure 5.10 Tourists supporting monetary contribution towards conservation
TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i
Dedication ii
List of Appendices iii
List of Tables iv
List of Figures vi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
The Chapters 4
CHAPTER TWO: ECOTOURISM AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
Introduction 6
Tourism
a) Brief Background of the Tourism Industry 7
b) Impacts of Tourism on the Natural Environment: A Call for Ecotourism 8
Ecotourism
a) What is Ecotourism: Moving towards a Definition 10
b) The Nature of Ecotourism 14
c) Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Development 18
d) Ecotourism on a Global Scale: Opportunities, Challenges and Threats 19
e) Ecotourism as an Attractive Option for Island Communities 24
Ecotourism and Environmental Conservation
a) Ecotourism and Environmental Conservation: Can it Be Achieved? 27
Conclusion 33
CHAPTER THREE: THE RESEARCH CONTEXT-ECOTOURISM IN FIJI
Introduction 37
A Reflection of the Tourism Industry in Fiji 38
Fiji’s Tourism Product 39
The Legislative and Statutory Context of Ecotourism in Fiji 40
The Development and Adoption of Ecotourism 43
Other Current Initiatives In-Line to the Future Development of Ecotourism
a) The Proposed Return of Ownership Rights of the Usage of the Qoliqoli to the
Indigenous Fijians 46
b) The Environment Management Act 47
Tourism in Yasawa Islands: A Brief Background of the Study Area
a) Location 49
b) The Development and Involvement of Tourism within the Area 50
The Issues of Tourism Development in the Yasawa Islands 53
Nacula District as the Focus of the Study 54
Conclusion 56
CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY
Introduction 59
Justification of the Research Paradigm and Methodology
a) Qualitative Methodology 61
b) Quantitative Methodology 64
c) Methodological triangulation 65
d) The Research as a Case Study 66
The Research Methods 67
a) Interviews 68
b) Questionnaire Survey 70
c) Observation 72
The Sampling Design 73
a) Sampling Population
b) Sampling Method
Data Collection, Recording and Analysis 75
Limitations 76
Ethical Consideration 77
Summary 78
CHAPTER FIVE: THE FINDINGS
Introduction 80
The Operation of Ecotourism in Nacula Tikina
a) The Tourism Operators 81
i) Background
ii) Interpretation and Understanding of ‘Ecotourism’
iii) The use of the Marine Environment
iv) Environmental Education and Awareness Programs
v) Contribution to Conservation
vi) Business Set-up
vii) Experiences
b) The Communities 103
i) Background Summary
ii) Research Findings Made 106
Overview
Local understanding: Defining Ecotourism
Networking: Ecotourism Operators and Communities
Changes Observed in the Marine Environment
c) The Tourists 120
Research Findings Made
i) Demographic Features
ii) Travelling Preferences
iii) Activity Engagements
iv) Shared Experiences
v) Environmental Information
vi) Contribution to Conservation
Summary 129
CHAPTER SIX: THE DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE
FINDINGS
Introduction 132
What is Ecotourism? 134
a) The Interpretation of Ecotourism to Operators and Communities 136
Putting Ecotourism into Practice
a) The Practicality of Ecotourism for the Operators 139
b) The Involvement and Participation of Communities in Ecotourism 143
c) The Tourists as the Users of Ecotourism 146
d) Individual Efforts made Towards Conservation 148
Conclusion 152
CHAPTER SEVEN: RECOMMENDATIONS 161
For the Development of Ecotourism in Fiji
a) Recommendation to Government 162
b) Recommendation to Operators 163
c) Recommendation to Communities 164
REFERENCES 167
APPENDICES 180
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
For many years, tourism has projected itself as one of the greatest earners of
foreign exchange (WTO 1996, 1997, 2005) and it has also boosted many
economic developments at the local level. Because of this, tourism development
has always been continuously promoted worldwide and as a result, it has also
contributed to the increasing pressure on the use of the natural environment and
its resources (Inskeep 1991; Baumol and Oats 1979; Ondicho 2000; Hunter and
Green 1995). In many reported cases, tourism development has posed both
positive and negative impacts to the environment and this has been felt either
directly or indirectly (Madan and Rawat 2000; Swarbrooke 1999; Onchicho 2000;
Henry 1980; Visser and Njuguna 1995).
In many efforts to protect the environment but at the same time promote tourism
development, various alternative forms of tourism had emerged between the late
1970s and the early 1980s. Ecotourism was then identified as one of the options
that would help enhance benefits and reduce damage to the environment and most
importantly, to help maintain and protect the very interest of the environment and
its resources (Boo 1990; Stem et al. 2003; Brandon 1996; Wearing and Neil 1999;
Wood 2002). This would mean that in the practice of ecotourism the protection of
the natural environment is emphasized. Evidently, the development of ecotourism
over the years has provided some forms of associated benefits in not only
protecting the environment but it has also helped draw in economic profits at a
national level (ICT 1993; Lindberg et al. 1998; Wood 2002) and it has provided
economic benefits at community level (Wearing and Neil 1999; Ziffer 1989)
because of all these, the practice of ecotourism has been continuously encouraged
to local resource owners.
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The practice or operation of ecotourism follows a set of principle and if they are
not followed, a tourism operation simply cannot be identified that it is ecotourism.
There are cases where tourism practices have been focused on nature and so it has
been debated if they also can be identified as ecotourism. Some theorists say ‘yes’
while some say ‘no’. It is only reasonable that, for tourism to benefit from the
environment, it should also help return the benefit as a two-way process. If
tourism that is focused on nature is not managed well, the environment on which
it depends will be in danger. Tourism is known to dependent on the environment
and can therefore increase pressure on its use. In cases where local communities
recognize ecotourism only as an alternative form of easier cash flow, the interests
towards caring and protecting the very natural resources used and owned by locals
are often driven away. Because understanding the potential of ecotourism towards
environmental conservation can be sometimes unpredictable, the general goal of
this research therefore is to examine the operation of ecotourism in an area of Fiji
(as a case study) where ecotourism is, as claimed, actively practised. In this way,
the analysis would help build an understanding of the relationship between
ecotourism and its emphasis on environmental conservation.
Ecotourism in Fiji was introduced locally by government as a policy initiative.
Initially, it was introduced to help assist rural development in the undeveloped
rural areas that can play a role in helping host some of the nature-based activities
(Bricker 2003). The Fiji Government also saw it as an option that would prevent
further rural–urban migration, by means of which the benefits of tourism would
be spread more widely across Fiji rather than being confined to specific regions.
Most importantly according to Bricker (2002), it was the growing concern over
environmental degradation in Fiji that led the tourism industry to promote
sustainability in its entire sector so that the development of tourism was sensitive
to the environment and cultural aspects of the country. Ecotourism therefore in
this case was identified as one of best option forward. In 1999, the Ministry of
Tourism clarified the meaning of ecotourism and adopted it under the National
Ecotourism Policy as:
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A form of nature-based tourism which involves responsible travel to relatively
undeveloped areas to foster an appreciation of nature and local cultures, while conserving
the physical and social environment, respecting the aspiration and traditions of those
visited, and improving the welfare of the local people (Harrison 1999: 5).
The term, however, was also documented in the policy to refer to activities that:
ventures into operating on a small scale and with relatively low capital; caters for
tourists motivated by the desire to learn; is owned and operated by locals; is
village-based; and that it will have fewer ‘leakages’ than large-scale tourism
(Bricker 2003). Based on the benefits these activities would provide, Fiji
Government over the years has continuously encouraged locals to participate
actively in the development of tourism. As a result, the numbers of registered
local tourism operators within Fiji have continued to increase as well (Ministry of
Tourism 2004) with many of them especially using the term ‘ecotourism’ as an
icon for their operation, with little understanding of the true concepts associated
with ecotourism and its approaches, particularly in the area of environmental
conservation. Ecotourism means different things to different people and as a result
it is also practised differently, which we will learn more about in this study.
The increased use of the term ecotourism by many of these operators leaves us
with uncertainties of not knowing exactly how their operation emphasises
environmental conservation. Possibly, the word ‘ecotourism’ has been utilized as
a marketing ploy or as an ecotourism light. Therefore, in order to achieve the
general objective of learning and understanding more about the practices of
ecotourism in Fiji, four specific objectives have been highlighted in this research:
1. to examine the interpretation and understanding of ecotourism for both the
tourism operators and the communities
2. to examine the practical approach to ecotourism adopted by the tourism operators
relative to environmental conservation
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3. to examine community’s understanding of and participation and involvement in
the operation of ecotourism with regard to the use of the natural environment and
its resources
4. to examine the motives of travel for tourists travelling to the area studied and
further determine if they can be potential contributors towards future
environmental conservation.
To meet these objectives, this study has been approached as a case study focusing
on Nacula Tikina, which is a district within the Yasawa Islands that is located in
the western side of Viti Levu.
The Chapters…..
In Chapter 2, the literature is reviewed briefly in order to understand firstly the
link between ecotourism and the natural environment. Specifically, this chapter
critically analyzes the various definitions of ecotourism as highlighted by various
theorists. Because the study focuses on ecotourism and the conservation of the
environment, this chapter restricts its discussion to those definitions relating to
environmental conservation and has used them as guidelines to assess the
practicality of ecotourism in Fiji. This chapter also looks into ecotourism on a
global scale, to provide an understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and
threats realistically encountered in the ecotourism world. Most importantly, this
chapter also explores the possibilities of ecotourism and environmental
conservation–is it achievable?
Having established an understanding of ecotourism and environmental
conservation from a global perspective, the focus changes in Chapter 3, to
consider the case of ecotourism in Fiji. This chapter describes the process of how
ecotourism is developed, adopted and defined in Fiji’s context as a step towards
sustainable tourism development. Added to this, the chapter also addresses the
issues directly and indirectly relating to the long-term development of ecotourism.
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A summary on the background of the study site is also provided to give readers an
idea of its involvement in Fiji’s tourism industry.
Chapter 4 describes the different methodologies used to approach this research.
The chapter discusses theoretical justification of the different research
methodologies and methods used, the design of the sampling methods, the process
of data analysis, the ethics of the research and the various limitations encountered
while conducting the research.
Chapter 5 presents the findings made from the study and the discussion and
conclusion of these findings constitutes Chapter 6. The discussion and conclusion
of the findings are analyzed to the literature review of Chapter 2. Finally
recommendations have been made in Chapter 7 for the future development of
ecotourism in Fiji. This research acknowledges and recognizes that environmental
conservation is an important component that needs to be actively practised in the
operation of ecotourism. Discussion in the last three chapters (Chapter 5, 6 and 7)
explores the factors that have hindered the operation of ecotourism towards
environmental conservation in Fiji based on the case study of Nacula Tikina.
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CHAPTER TWO
ECOTOURISM AND THE NATURAL
ENVIRONMENT
INTRODUCTION
As the environment is tourism’s main resource, tourism and the environment are
to a large extent interdependent, and one would expect strong support from the
tourism industry to ensure preservation and protection of those resources. This
chapter addresses the relationship between ecotourism and the environment and
therefore provides a brief background of the tourism industry on a global scale. It
considers the impact tourism places on the environment in relation to its
development and how ecotourism has been called for to enhance the symbiotic
relationship of tourism and the environment. The definitions and philosophies of
ecotourism differ a lot in many areas and there has been considerable debate
around the issues that constitute ecotourism. An attempt is made to identify key
elements suitable to the component of this research by reviewing the concepts or
definitions highlighted by some literature on what ecotourism is all about and
should address. Also the opportunities, challenges and threats faced in the
operation of ecotourism are further elucidated to provide an overview of
situations happening in some countries around the world where the operation of
ecotourism has been addressed. We then consider how ecotourism can be an
attractive option to island communities such as Fiji. Because ecotourism in the
past has pushed its way to the forefront as one of the preferred tools for
community development and conservation in many island communities, further
discussion is also made on how ecotourism can achieve conservation goals.
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TOURISM
a) A Brief Background of the Tourism Industry
Tourism has played an important role in many economies today presenting the
first or second most important industry sector and generating a large portion of
the country’s domestic product (Chin et al. 2000). It is alone valued highly by
many countries and often holds a very prominent position in development
strategies. Because tourism has the potential to bolster foreign exchange earnings
and domestic product, it is therefore actively promoted.
The World Tourism Organization (WTO) predicts that by the year 2010,
international tourism will grow by approximately 4% per year (WTO 1996) and
that by the year 2020, it is estimated to reach at least 1.6 billion international
arrivals worldwide (WTO News 1997). In the late 1990s, the travel and tourism
industry topped the list of the world’s largest industries, reaping US$5.3 trillion in
export earnings in 1998 alone (WTO 2005), equivalent to 11% of the global gross
domestic product (GDP) (UNEP 1999) and accommodating more than 664
million international tourist arrivals in 1999 (this is over 10% of the world’s
population). A record made in 1996 showed that there were 594 million
international tourist arrivals generating a total of US$423 billion in tourist
receipts, representing an increase of 64% and 142% respectively since 1986
(WTO 1997). During the same period, arrivals in developing economies grew by
80%. Between 1992 and 2000, the number of international tourist arrivals
worldwide grew from 463 million to 689 million, a jump of nearly 50% (WTO
2005). Healy observed in 1989 that the revenues received from tourism receipts
had accounted for more than 10% of the value of gross domestic product in 47
developing countries and more than 50% of the comparable amount received from
export revenues in 17 countries. Three years back (2003), in Mauritius, a well-
known tourist destination, tourist arrivals in the first six months reached 335,306,
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a 3.9% increase on the same period in 2002, while in India a record increase of
42% during the first six months of 2003 was highlighted (IEU Views Wire 2003).
This not only indicates the great increase in tourism over the last 10 years but also
illustrates why revenue from tourism has captured the attention of many countries.
Because of the willingness to promote economic development in most places
around the world, tourism has pushed itself as a ‘high-speed highway’, to
prosperity (Nianyong and Zhuge 2001).
b) Impacts of Tourism on the Natural Environment: A Call for
Ecotourism
Over the last two decades, there has been growing concern about the relationship
between tourism and the environment (Mihalic 2003). Because of the rapid
increase in tourist travel, the number of studies on tourism and environment has
greatly increased. While the tourism industry no doubt represents a huge boon to
the global economy, it also has an enormous and a lasting impact on the natural
environment. As the tourism industry increases and develops over the years, the
dependency level on the use of the environment will also increase, because all
tourist attractions are to some extent environmentally based, linked either directly
or by association with a specific area or location and each appealing within the
context of that setting (Pigram 1989). In most cases, the physical and natural
environments of a destination are often the key attractions. Governments, having
heard about the potential economic returns from tourism jump into tourism
development wholeheartedly, with little analysis of the potential impact on their
economies, on their environment or on the people.
There is a complex relationship between tourism and the environment, which is
yet to be understood, but because there has been little study conducted to address
environmental management issues (Butler 1991) opinions on the environmental
implications of tourism has frequently tended towards a negative perspective.
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According to Puczko and Ratz (2000), the relationship between tourism and its
physical environment is not a one-way system, i.e. we cannot presume that the
physical environment would not influence tourism. Instead, the two are
interrelated. Environmental factors form the basic resource upon which the
tourism industry depends to thrive and grow, and threats to the environment can
affect the viability of the tourism industry. The natural environment is crucial to
the attractiveness of most tourist destinations and recreational areas, which serve
as a natural ‘backdrop’ for many tours and justify the need for natural resource
management (Farrell and Runyan 1991). There is no doubt that tourism and the
environment are interdependent; however, this has often been taken for granted.
Given its scale and global extent, tourism has important environmental impacts,
which are unavoidable when tourism development occurs (Inskeep 1991;
Mathieson and Wall 1982; Pigram 1996; Swarbrooke 1999). These impacts are
related to high levels of resource consumption, and the pollution and waste
generated by the development of tourism infrastructure and facilities, transport
and tourist activities, which can result in adverse environmental impacts
(Dimitrios and Westlake 2001). In many places around the world, these factors
have had great impact either directly or indirectly as reported by Madan and
Rawat (2000), Swarbrooke (1999), Ondicho (2000), Henry (1980), and Visser and
Njuguna (1995) and by many others.
In searching for ways to minimize tourism’s impact on the environment, many
alternative forms of tourism began to emerge in the early 1990s that embraced the
concept of sustainability (Charters 1993; Klemm 1992; Wheeller 1992; Valentine
1991; Wild 1994; Inskeep 1991). Prior to this, there was a broad consensus that it
was not easy to find clean green, industries that were truly environmentally
benign or had positive outcomes over the long haul. According to Wearing and
Neil (1999) this was especially true for developing countries where nature had its
stronghold but where short-term economic drivers often saw natural lands and
wildlife disappearing fast to satisfy both the needs for survival and resource
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industries. Even scientists and environmentalists began to notice that there was
little hope of saving these lands and wildlife unless some income was generated
from it to meet the needs of the people. It was then that the concept of ecotourism
became seen as an answer to all this. Ecotourism appeared to offer a sustainable
development option for countries, regions, and local communities, which would
provide an incentive to retain and manage wild lands and wildlife and hence the
crucial biodiversity of life (Blamey 1995; Boo 1990; Carter 1994; Charters 1996;
Hall and Wouters 1994; Lindberg et al. 1997). According to Hashimoto (1999),
trends of the tourism-environment relationship have shifted from more orthodox
concerns about the natural resource management and planning, environmental
features and recreational opportunities, to newer areas of ecotourism in which
tourism is regarded as a part of sustainable development.
ECOTOURISM
a) What is Ecotourism: Moving towards a definition….
Since ecotourism first appeared in the early 1980s, it has been defined in many
ways. Historically, the term ‘ecotourism’ was adopted by writers who began to
document the phenomenon of nature tourism but later focused on the attempt to
mitigate associated negative impacts (Wallace and Pierce 1996). The term was
frequently referred to as responsible, sustainable, conservation or low impact
tourism. Since its introduction, ecotourism was always considered mostly as a
form of tourism likely to achieve the potential benefits to the environment without
the negative impact (Australian Conservation Foundation 1994). In most cases,
ecotourism has been used synonymously with terms such as environmental,
responsive alternative, nature, soft, sustainable, gentle, appropriate, resource-
based, and green tourism (Ayala 1995). Regardless of this, an explicit comparison
based on their central dimension was still not available (Higgins 1996) and
therefore different researchers began to stress different dimensions in their
definition (e.g. Valentine 1991; Carter 1994; Ross and Wall 1999; Weaver 1999)
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to understand more of the term. To some point, the term ecotourism was applied
to all tourism activities that allowed the enjoyment and understanding of natural
and/or cultural heritage and at the same time, produced economic benefits and
actively promoted environmental conservation (Ayala 1995).
According to Beaumont (1998), ecotourism was generally accepted and defined
as a normative concept according to a number of principles, the key ones being
that it should be ecologically sustainable and that it includes some form of
environmental education or interpretation. The ‘eco’ as a prefix according to
Wearing and Neil (1999) was derived from the word ‘ecology’. Thus, to be
considered as ecotourism, the activity or experience offered must positively
contribute to the environment if the environment has not at least achieved a net
benefit towards its sustainability and ecological integrity (Butler 1992). However,
the ‘environment’ here was referred not only to the natural environment-flora,
fauna, landforms and atmospheric considerations-but also to the social, economic,
scientific, managerial and political elements.
Although the definitions of ecotourism had been widely debated over the last 20
years (Ceballos-Lascurain 1987; Godwin 1996; Lindberg and McKercher 1997;
Blamey 1997; Ross and Wall 1999; Weaver 1999; Black et al. 2001; The
International Ecotourism Society 2003) no consensus was ever reached as to what
the term really meant (Buckley 1994; Orams 1995).
One of the earliest definitions of ecotourism was introduced by Ceballos-
Lascurain in 1987 in which he defined it as traveling to a relatively undisturbed or
uncontaminated natural areas with the specific object to study, admire and enjoy
the scenery of its wild plants and animal together with any existing cultural
aspects found in these areas (cited in Honey 1999). The Ecotourism Association
of Australia (1992) also defined ecotourism as an ecologically sustainable tourism
fostering environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and
conservation. Valentine (1991, 1993) defined it as a kind of tourism based on
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relatively undisturbed natural areas; is non-damaging and non-degrading;
provides a direct contribution to the continued protection and management of
protected areas used; and is subject to an adequate and appropriate management
regime. Wood et al. (1991), also defined ecotourism as a purposeful traveling to
natural areas to understand the culture and natural history of the environment;
taking care not to alter the integrity of the ecosystem; and producing economic
opportunities that makes the conservation of the natural resources beneficial to the
local people.
Ross and Wall (1999) defined ecotourism as an activity that could contribute to
both conservation and development and promoting a positive synergistic
relationship between tourism, biodiversity and local people, facilitated by
appropriate management. Bjork (as cited in Bjork 2000) defined it as an activity
where the tourists were traveling to natural areas in order to admire, study and
enjoy the existing nature and culture in a way that does not exploit the resources,
but contributes to the conservation of the genuine environment. According to
Young (1992) ecotourism was defined as tourism to natural areas that fosters
environmental understanding, appreciation and conservation and sustains the
culture and well being of local communities. Scace (1993) also defined it as a
nature travel experience that contributes to conservation of the environment while
maintaining and enhancing the integrity of the natural and social-cultural
elements. Wight (1993) defined ecotourism as an enlightening nature-travel
experience that contributes to conservation of the ecosystem, while respecting the
integrity of host communities. Wearing and Neil (1999) defined ecotourism as a
tourism activity that could contribute to conservation by providing environmental
education or interpretation to participants, leading to awareness and understanding
of the natural environment and promoting pro-environment attitudes, support for
conservation and responsible environmental behaviour. For Valentine (1993), it
was a kind of tourism, based on relatively undisturbed natural areas; non-
damaging, non-degrading; a direct contributor to the continued protection and
management of the natural area used; and subject to adequate and appropriate
12
management regimes. To Boo (1990), it was an activity that could stimulate the
economy and generate direct funding for conservation, as well as provide
employment and entrepreneurial opportunities to justify conservation of the
natural areas and the protection of the assets upon which the industry depended
on.
Defining the term ecotourism did not end there; many more definitions were
being identified and modified over time in order to meet the increasing demands
of tourism on the use of the environment. Writings on ecotourism have diversely
interpreted its meaning and therefore different researchers have stressed different
dimensions in their definition. However, the majority of these definitions, as
expressed by various authors, seem to say much the same thing, with common
viewpoints that relate ecotourism to (1) travelling to undisturbed areas; (2) nature-
based; (3) education; and finally (4) environmental conservation or protection.
In the context of production and consumption, tourists and the environment are
symbiotically related. The environment acts as producer, providing the experience
for the tourists, who use (consume) the environment to gain and appreciate the
experience. Without the environment, there is no experience gained by the
tourists, and without the tourists there is no appreciation for the environment.
Ecotourism can serve as a bridge for the two and therefore needs each other to
function sustainably.
In this study, the definition of ecotourism used as a foundation to the
understanding of ecotourism is the one highlighted by Wearing and Neal (1999),
who identified ecotourism as an activity that could contribute to the conservation
of the natural environment and pro-environment attitudes and could provide
support for conservation and responsible environmental behaviour.
13
b) The Nature of Ecotourism
Ecotourism’s focus on the natural environment has, in recent years, facilitated its
evolution into a catchphrase that encompasses numerous tourism forms including
‘nature tourism, wilderness tourism, low-impact tourism and sustainable tourism,
among others. These diverse forms of tourism all focus on the natural
environment to some extent but although closely aligned with and related to
ecotourism, they need to be distinguished from ecotourism as there are a number
of dimensions of nature-tourism. Therefore, since the introduction of ecotourism,
many writers and researchers have subjected ecotourism to criticism as to what
the nature of ecotourism is (summarized below). Much discussion has been given
to the conceptualization and definition of ecotourism and to whether or not the
term should apply to nature tourism in general or to a more specific type
(Ceballos-Lascurain 1988; Fennell and Eagles 1990).
Wight (1993), Western (1993), Valentine (1993), Hawkes and Williams (1993)
and Mc Avov (1990) posit that what distinguishes ecotourism from nature,
cultural or adventure tourism is not its degree of specialization or how hard or soft
the mode of experiencing a place is (Ruschmann 1992), as much as the emphasis
on its ethical value and principles. Based on the definition of ecotourism proposed
by the Wood et al. (1991) as described earlier, he simply expressed that
ecotourism can be applied to subsets of natural, cultural or adventure tourism and
can reflect the evolution of an ethical overlay.
In some literature, ecotourism is identified as a form of alternative tourism to
mass tourism (Wearing and Neil 1999; Dimitrios and Westlake 2001; Wood
2002). This is because alternative tourism has features or key characteristics that
are consistent with those of ecotourism (Wearing and Neil 1999). These features
generally include tourism activities where: (1) the endorsement of infrastructure
improves the local condition and thus it is not destructive of, nor does it exceed
the carrying capacity, of the natural environment or the limits of the social
14
environment in such a way that the quality of community life is adversely
affected; (2) the impacts on the environment are minimized, are ecologically
sounds and avoids the negative impacts of many large-scale tourism
developments undertaken in areas that have not previously been developed; (3)
there is attempted preservation, protection and enhancement of the quality of the
resource base which is fundamental to tourism itself; (4) there is fostering and
active promotion of development in relation to additional visitor attractions and
infrastructure, with the roots in the specific locale and developed in ways that
complement local attributes.
Alternative tourism as broadly defined by Wearing and Neil (1999), includes
forms of tourism that are in sympathy with natural, social and community values
allowing both host and guest to enjoy positive and worthwhile interactions and
shared experiences. Ecotourism in its simplest sense can therefore be generally
described as low-key, minimal impact, interpretative tourism where conservation,
understanding and appreciation of the environment and cultures visited are
sought.
Ecotourism has also been defined as tourism that is not adventure or nature-based,
but is much more demanding than other forms of tourism. Adventure tourism,
according to Scace (1993), is a leisure activity that takes place in an unusual,
exotic, and remote or wilderness destination and tends to be associated with high
levels of activity by participants, most of which takes place outdoor. Therefore,
the adventure traveller expects to experience varying degrees of risk, excitement
and tranquillity and to be personally tested or stretched in some way.
There are a number of dimensions to nature-based tourism. Ecotourism does not
necessarily include all forms of travel to nature tourism but it provides a useful
step in differentiating nature-based tourism from ecotourism.
15
Goodwin, differentiates ecotourism from nature-based tourism, thus defining
nature tourism as:
a kind of travel for the purpose of enjoying undeveloped natural areas of wildlife
and so nature tourism includes mass tourism, adventure tourism, low impact tourism and
ecotourism. Goodwin (1996:287)
Ecotourism by contrast was defined as:
as a low–impact nature tourism with contribution to the maintenance of species
and habitats through conservation and community development. Goodwin (1996: 288)
Nature-based tourism is tourism in the natural environment with the focus on
experiences of nature-based products (Hemmi (as cited in Bjork 2000); Valkama
(as cited Bjork in 2000); Wearing and Neil 1999). In other words, nature-based
tourism is centered on activities or experiences that are dependent and enhanced
by nature in which the natural setting is incidental (Wearing & Neil 1999).
In adventure and nature-based tourism, as well as in ecotourism, nature is in focus
and all these three tourism forms are nature-based. The difference between
ecotourism on one hand and nature and adventure tourism on the other hand is
that ecotourism by definition has a built-in sustainable dimension and a multi-
focus approach in which all actors involved have to benefit in the long run (Bjork
2000). Basically, the fundamental concerns of ecotourism, as highlighted by
Wearing & Neil (1999), include environmental degradation, impact on local
communities, and the need for high quality tourism management for achievable
sustainability. Clearly the overall definition of nature-based tourism is not totally
appropriate in defining ecotourism.
The natural environment is central to ecotourism, which is focused on biological
and physical features. The conservation of natural areas and sustainable resource
management is therefore essential to the planning, development and management
16
of ecotourism. Therefore, an essential feature of ecotourism is sustainability but
according to Wearing and Neil (1999), without progressive planning and policy
frameworks, the principles of sustainability will be difficult to implement on a
broad scale.
Bjork (2000) in his analysis of his selected ecotourism definition he stated that:
ecotourism is a form of tourism that does not exceed the carrying capacity of an
area, but contributes to sustainable development and conservation. (Brojk 2000:194)
Wight (1993) also goes on to explain the close ties that ecotourism has with
sustainable development and how that often means favouring supply (resource
constraints and the needs of local people) over demand.
Butler (1991) defines environmentally sustainable tourism as: (1) a form of
tourism that supports ecological balance thus suggesting a working definition of
sustainable development in the context of tourism; a form of tourism which
develops and maintains an area (community and environment) in such a manner
and at such a scale that it remains viable over an indefinite period and does not
degrade or alter the environment. Wright (1994), on the other hand, defines
sustainable tourism as tourism that produces economic advantages, in addition to
maintaining environmental diversity and quality, thus ‘combining conservation
with economic development’. A primary means of maintaining sustainability is by
limiting tourist numbers and therefore the possibility for environmental
degradation (Inskeep 1991). In this way ecotourism is a supply-led approach that
involves determining visitor numbers based on the environment’s capacity (its
ability to support) rather than by the demand for it (Wearing and Neil 1999).
Achieving sustainable development in relation to ecotourism will therefore be
difficult because of the extraordinary expansion of demand for access to natural
areas. This is because ecotourism is more dependent on intact natural
environments and is concentrated in ecologically sensitive areas. Without
17
appropriate regulations, the problem of overexploitation, and in particular
ecological degradation, may be intensified with the development of ecotourism
(Mieczkowski 1995).
c) Ecotourism and Sustainable Tourism Development
The concept of sustainable tourism development, like ecotourism, has also been
interestingly debated by many authors over the years.
Butler (1992) argues that ‘sustainable tourism’ and ‘tourism in the context of
sustainable development’ are different from each other. This is because
‘sustainable tourism’ makes no implication about the environment or sustainable
development while ‘tourism in the context of sustainable development’
incorporates key features that are common to the implication of the term
sustainable development. These features are based on tourism development that
implies control and management, addressing the types and scale of tourism as
important factors, developing tourism on a ‘long-term horizon’, and finally
understanding that the impacts imposed by tourism on a destination area should
be at a level or of such a type that it does not prohibit either economic activities or
natural processes.
Hunter (1995) on the other hand, expressed ‘sustainable tourism development’ as
a tourism activity that protects the immediate resource base and allows the
development of tourism to be sustained. Goodall and Stabler (1999) identified
five principles of sustainable tourism development. These five principles deal
with generating real net benefits to society; treating the environment as natural
capital; acting with caution in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence; and
using resources that do not alter environmental equity. MacGregor (1993) also
listed six principles used as guidelines for sustainable tourism development.
Again these principles focus on carrying capacity; maintaining biodiversity and
minimizing depletion of resources; promoting development that maintains natural
18
wealth; equitable distribution of costs, benefits and management responsibilities;
allowing effective participation of local communities and other interest groups in
decision-making processes; and finally encouraging others to help promote
sustainability.
How then does ecotourism link itself to sustainable tourism development?
Ecotourism, done well, can be a sustainable and relatively simple alternative
(Whelan 1991). This is because ecotourism can provide income for local
communities and increase foreign exchange on a national, governmental level
while allowing the continued existence of the natural resource base. In fact,
ecotourism cannot survive unless the resource on which it is based is protected. It
can empower local communities, giving them a sense of pride in their natural
resources and control over their communities’ development. Ecotourism can
educate travellers about the importance of the ecosystem they visit and actively
involve them in conservation efforts. Overall, ecotourism has the potential to
maximize economic benefits and minimize environmental penalties. Basically, the
implication of ecotourism as an exemplar to sustainable tourism has stemmed
largely from its potential to generate various economic benefits (Lindberg et al.
1998). Providing visitor satisfaction with the ecotourism experience is essential to
the long-term viability of the ecotourism industry, which will further generate
revenue for the management of natural areas and at the same time create
employment opportunities for the local population.
d) Ecotourism on a Global Scale: Opportunities, Challenges and Threats
While difficult to measure at this time, ecotourism on a global scale within the
tourism industry has been identified as one of the fastest growing tourism
segments (Buckley 1994; Deardon and Harron 1993; Wild 1994; Eagles and
Demare 1995) and has therefore been identified as a growing niche market within
the larger travel industry, with the potential of being an important sustainable
development tool (Wood 2002). In 1998, the World Tourism Organization
19
estimated ecotourism to be worth some US$20 million a year and together with
nature-based tourism to account for 20% of the global international travel.
Estimates by Fillion et al. (1994) suggest that in 1988 there were between 157 and
236 million international ecotourists, generating economic impacts of $93 billion
to $233 billion. In Costa Rico, a country that has increasingly tailored its industry
to fit the ecotourism niche (Evans-Pritchard 1993), foreign exchange receipts
from tourism have surpassed those brought by traditional export products (coffee
and bananas) to become the country’s most important economic activity (ICT
1993). In the Asia-Pacific region, ecotourism has grown faster than tourism
generally (Lindberg et al. 1998) thus signifying an attractive investment
proportion. The contributing popular assumptions regarding the sector’s potential
economic, environmental and socio-cultural benefits have increased the
widespread interest in the engagement of ecotourism operators among tourism
planners and marketers (Weaver 1999). With billions of dollars in its annual sales,
ecotourism has been regarded as a real industry that seeks to take advantage of
market trends (Wood 2002) but at the same time, it has frequently operated quite
differently from other segments of the tourism industry. This is because
ecotourism has been defined by its sustainable development results relating to the
conservation of natural areas, educating visitors about sustainability and above all,
benefiting the local people.
The potential of ecotourism as a mean to protect some of the world’s most
endangered ecosystems has created an opportunity for communities with valuable
biological resources to develop sustainable strategies, instead of pursuing
environmentally damaging patterns of resource use (Lindsay 2003). The
description of ecotourism as having the financial potential to maximize economic
benefits and minimize environmental costs has identified ecotourism as a viable
economic alternative to the exploitation of the environment (Whelan 1991).
According to Ziffer (1989) the goal of ecotourism is to capture a portion of the
enormous global tourism market by attracting visitors to natural areas and using
the revenues to fund local conservation and fuel economic development.
20
There are intense economic pressures on the people to make use of their natural
resources, and in many countries today, protected areas have been established to
conserve biodiversity and to halt the large-scale loss of natural ecosystems. As
last reported by Wearing and Neil (1999), there are approximately 8500 protected
areas globally, which cover about 5.17% of the earth’s land surface (over 773
million ha). The concept of ecotourism according to Drumm and Moore (2002),
is best suited to partner with protected area management that has fairly strict
conservation objectives and in the less developed countries ecotourism has often
been promoted in association with protected areas (Stem et al. 2003). This is
because ecotourism is reliant on the natural phenomena in relatively undisturbed
sites such as protected areas. The establishment of such protected areas is
primarily intended to preserve some type of biophysical process or condition such
as wildlife population and habitats. Tourists visit these protected areas to
understand and appreciate the values for which the area was established and to
gain personal benefits. Basically, protected areas can provide attractions for
ecotourism and in return ecotourism can help facilitate the objectives of protected
areas and can therefore support biodiversity conservation (Bookfinder et al.
1998).
The demand on the use of protected areas for ecotourism is increasing and
because of this protected areas are now faced with a lot of challenges. The
potential of ecotourism as a means of generating money has meant that many
countries now regard ecotourism mainly as source of financial gain instead of as a
tool for supporting conservation. Viewed in this light, it can be seen that although
ecotourism offers many potential benefits, it can also create new threats to
conservation efforts.
In China the use of ecotourism illustrates the difficulty operators and communities
have in interpreting and defining ecotourism in ways satisfactory to both. For
example, ecotourism has rapidly increased in popularity in China for some time.
Some scenic sites and forest parks have specifically targeted tourists and many
21
nature reserves have also been pushed onto the market as tourism products. In
1999, as reported by Nianyong and Zhunge (2001), China possessed a total of
1146 nature reserves covering 8.8% of its territory, 97% of which were
established over the past 2 decades, as part of the rapid development of national
conservation efforts. Further to the authors’ findings, the operation of ecotourism
in the area has revealed that most nature reserve managers have dealt with the
concept of ecotourism on the basis of their own understanding that it literally to
means nature sightseeing, without associating it with conservation or other related
aspects. Although most nature reserves claimed that they were carrying out
ecotourism, field investigations revealed that only a few reserves had met the
requirements of real ecotourism. Ecotourism in these nature reserves, to a great
extent, had meant ‘nature tourism’ as in Goodwin’s (1996) definition of nature
tourism. Added to this, the present management planning system in the
development of China’s nature reserves actually keeps environmental protection
and tourism operation separate in terms of economic flow. This system has
therefore blocked necessary inputs into environmental protection and created an
irrational situation where the nature reserves are responsible for covering the cost
of environmental protection but other agencies obtain the profit through tourism
business in the reserves. In many of the reserves, where tourism revenues were
put back into environmental protection, the amount made available was far below
the real cost. Less than 5% of the income received was used for conservation
management, with most taken by other stakeholders. Local community
participation was not encouraged and thus the protection of the environment was
separated from the interest of the local communities and local economic
development. China’s definition of ecotourism in this case has been according to
the local cultures and socio-economic contexts and environments.
A common shortcoming of ecotourism projects is that the local people are not
given any role in the planning process or implementation, (Whelan 1991;
Campbell 1999; Stem et al. 2003) and in some cases, they are forced off areas that
are traditionally theirs to use (Whelan 1991). Not surprisingly, they become
22
resentful of the rich tourists who supplant them, but more importantly, economic
needs make it difficult for them not to overexploit the resources of an area that is
protected. In Costa Rico, according to Whelan (1991), the planning associated
with the country’s spectacular parks system took place on a national level, not a
local level. This caused people to move off their land, often without being
compensated, and occasionally they were discouraged from entering the parks at
all. In many cases important sources of income were no longer available. This, not
surprisingly, caused many Costa Ricans living near the national park to cause
problems within park boundaries.
Over the years, areas protected for the purpose of ecotourism undergo crisis
because insufficient funds are being dedicated to their management and
protection. This is because countries often focus their attention on purchasing
lands, but then fail to follow up with adequate funds for infrastructure and
management. This is true in Costa Rica, where spending for parks (excluding
acquisition) has remained at the same level for ten years and in Kenya, where
until recently only $7 million of the $300 million generated by parks was returned
to them (Whelan 1991). In China, seven out of fifteen reserves that earned annual
income over one million Yuan actually use less than 5% of the income for
conservation management (Nianyong and Zhuge 2001). Because tourism can be
the very thing that threatens the survival of a protected area, it is very important to
consider a limited and aesthetic carrying capacity of the area. The ecological
capacity is reached when the number and characteristics of visitors start to affect
the wildlife and degrade the ecosystem. The aesthetic carrying capacity, on the
other hand, is reached when tourists encounter so many other tourists, or sees the
impact of other visitors (e.g. litter, deforestation etc.) that their enjoyment of the
site is spoiled. The rapid increase in the number of ecotourists has overloaded
fragile areas. For example, Thailand observed an increase in the number of
tourists visiting national parks and protected areas from 5 million in 1985 to 11.5
million in 1994 (Hvenegaard and Dearden 1998). This was identified as an
apparent growth during the 1980s and 1990s. In Nepal, tourist numbers increased
23
fivefold from 45,000 in 1970 to 223,000 in 1986. Over the same period, the
number of ecotourists (trekkers mostly) almost tripled from 12,000 to 33,600.
This increase has resulted in the rapid emergence of more than 200 mountain
lodges and the clearing of large areas in order to supply firewood for lodgers and
trekkers (Whelan 1991).
Protected or conserved areas supporting ecotourism are often managed by a
number of agencies with conflicting goals and objectives. In Costa Rica, agencies
often have conflicting needs for natural areas, ranging from logging to the
generation of hydroelectricity. Conflicting goals and needs are not only the
province of governmental agencies and therefore government, but also of
conservationists, local communities, tour operators and development agencies, all
of whom need to resolve their differences and work together, if ecotourism is to
be sustainable.
Ecotourists are vital players in the success or failure of ecotourism. Previous
studies have also found that a high proportion of ecotourists join conservation
groups and contribute financially to conservation causes (Hvenegaard and
Dearden 1998). They visit protected areas to understand and appreciate their value
while furthering conservation, but may also unwittingly contribute to their
destruction. In the Caribbean, tourists buy jewellery made from black coral and
other rare reef marine life. In Monteverde, the nesting of Quetzals is sometimes
disrupted by tourists, who rap on their nests and then wait, camera in their hand,
to capture their flight. Trekkers in Nepal and elsewhere leave behind the litter
from food and other items they have carried in (Whelan 1991). It is therefore
important that ecotour operators must instil their clients a conservation ethic for
environmentally sensitive travel in their clients if they are going to continue to
bring in visitors to fragile sites.
In short, ecotourism if done well has the capacity to bring employment and
income to local communities and needed foreign exchange to national
24
governments, while allowing the continued existence of the natural resource base.
In fact, it cannot survive unless the resource on which it is based is protected
(Whelan 1991). It can empower local communities, giving them a sense of pride
in their natural resources and control over their communities’ development. It can
also educate travellers about the importance of the ecosystems they visit and
actively involve them in conservation efforts.
e) Ecotourism as an Attractive Option for Island Communities
Island communities have limited resources and capacity for economic
development, and therefore many are seeking various forms of development to
allow income flow into their economy. Ecotourism represents an attractive means
of generating revenue for four important reasons.
Firstly, ecotourism is often regarded as nature-based and many island
communities possess a rich variety of natural attractions that can potentially
attract ecotourists. Also, little investment is required to develop such attractions,
so start-up costs are relatively low. Secondly, ecotourism can reduce dependency
on a particular resource (mostly agricultural products) that an island traditionally
depends on for generating money and in the long run can prevent the collapse of
that particular resource.
Thirdly, ecotourism strongly encourages the involvement of local communities on
the island both through local employment or having more locals buy a stake in
tourism operations. Because of this, the possibility of leakages of revenue from
tourism is reduced. Finally, because island communities are extremely vulnerable
to external influences and pressure from all forms of economic activity (Butler
1992), ecotourism can help buffer the environment from detrimental influences.
By directly connecting sound environmental management with maintenance of
environmental capital, in theory, ecotourism should provide a viable economic
alternative to exploitation of the environment.
25
Even though ecotourism is an icon for sustainable development, ecotourism is not
automatically a sustainable option (Charters 1996). Human activities such as
ecotourism are dependent on the consumption of ecological resources, and
therefore cannot be sustained indefinitely unless an important principle underpins
its organization. Without adequate understanding of the underlying factors and
careful planning and management, ecotourism may compromise prospects for
sustainable development not only for tourism in particular, but also for the islands
in general, because some of the issues raised earlier are magnified in small island
states. Ecotourism therefore should involve collective responsibility and a holistic
approach that involves governments, tourists, tourism enterprises and destination
areas. Satisfying the basic needs of the local population should be the focus of
responsibility by incorporating them more fully into the planning, development,
and the running of any ecotourism operation occurring within island communities.
Planning in ecotourism enables developers and managers to foster tourism in such
a way that it will not only protect the natural environment but will also bring
about a greater understanding of it. Involving locals as key stakeholders in the
planning process of ecotourism embraces the interest and input made by all.
Ecotourism can be sustainable in small island communities but as Charters (1996)
highlights, it will only be sustainable if it is recognized that adequate
understanding and careful planning of ecotourism is necessary if it to be a
success.
26
ECOTOURISM AND ENVIRONMANTAL CONSERVATION
a) Ecotourism and Environmental Conservation: Can it be achieved?
Conservation issues are now at the forefront of public concerns. The decline of
natural rainforest, losses of endangered species, global warming and increasing
land degradation have galvanized public support for conservation. Conservation,
according to Dunster and Dunster (1996), basically involves the management or
control of human use of resources (biotic and abiotic) in an attempt to restore,
enhance, protect, and sustain the quality and quantity of a desired mix of species,
ecosystem conditions and processes for present and future generations.
Ecotourism therefore has been described as an answer to this because of its
potential for supporting conservation of natural ecosystems and promoting
sustainable local development (Boo 1990; Buckley 1994; Wallace and Pierce
1996; Lindberg et al. 1997). Natural resource conservation is thus necessary
because ecotourism is a form of nature-based tourism and, as such, depends on
the natural environment for its existence. Tourism can be important to natural
resource conservation because part of the income from tourism can be re-invested
into maintaining natural areas (Budowski 1977).
The growth of ecotourism as an environmentally sustainable and economically
viable conservation strategy, scholars and practitioners have expressed concern
that opportunistic tourism operators are capitalizing an ecotourism’s appeal to
promote activities with little or no true attention to environmental and social
responsibility (Boo 1990; Honey 1999; Wright 1994). There are some examples
of ecotourism that have advanced conservation objectives by raising awareness
and creating jobs, while other cases illustrate that it can also jeopardize
environmental goals through unintended side effects or the adoption of the term
‘ecotourism’ by those hoping to capitalize on it (Stem et al. 2003). An example of
this is ecotourism development in Costa Rica, where ecotourism became more
centered on making money, once it was identified as an economic benefit to the
27
country, than its initial purpose, which was conserving the forest from agricultural
and pastoral alterations (Honey 1999).
The role of ecotourism in environmental conservation has raised the interest of
many writers, who have tried to address the question of how they can complement
each other at a sustainable level. Ross and Wall (1999) designed a model in order
to describe how this was viewed by Wood (1991) and Ceballos-Lascurain (1996)
in which their perspectives on ecotourism were analyzed as a means of protecting
natural areas through the generation of revenue, environmental education and the
involvement of local people (in both decisions regarding appropriate
developments and associated benefits) and in such a way, both conservation and
development will be prompted in a sustainable form. Ecotourism basically can
offer great conservation and development potential when it is a significant force
in the local economy and when it offers widespread benefits without
compromising a community’s sole economic base (Stem et al. 2003).
Again, according to Wearing and Neil (1999), the success of an ecotourism site
reflects the extent to which it is able to protect natural resources and biodiversity,
generate money to finance conservation and contribute to local the economy,
educate visitors and members of local communities, thereby encouraging
environmental advocacy and involving local people in conservation and
development issues. Here we see that, not only can ecotourism address
conservation, but that it has to be approached holistically with the generation of
income to support conservation, environmental education awareness and
interpretation, and above all community involvement. Ecotourism is also unlikely
to be an effective conservation strategy if it operates only through occupying
community members’ time or creating economic incentives to make an
ecotourism site more valuable. It is also important to increase general
understanding of ecotourism because without attention to creating awareness
and/or reinforcing respect for nature, questions will still remain about people’s
commitment to conservation (Stem et al. 2003). The provision of environmental
28
education and interpretation of ecotourism will foster awareness and
understanding of the natural environment and consequently promote pro-
environmental attitudes and responsible environmental behaviour (Nianyong and
Zhuge 2001; Beamount 2001).
Goudberg et al. (1991) also suggest that ‘those who are informed are more likely
to support conservation of natural resources because they can appreciate the full
range of natural resource values and identify with the resource at risk’ (pp. 30).
Although financial concerns are likely to play a role in resource management,
higher levels of awareness or appreciation could ensure greater potential for
favourable conservation practices over the long term. Salasfsky et al. (1999), for
example, allude to the importance of education and awareness in helping
conservation-based enterprises achieve their environmental goals.
To return to some of the definitions of ecotourism identified earlier in the chapter,
even though conservation of the natural environment is greatly emphasized in
ecotourism, and is identified as one of its key elements, the success of ecotourism
depends on the objectives it sets out to achieve (Ross and Wall 1999). Valentine
(1991) draws attention to the ‘two-way interaction’ between ecotourism and the
environment upon which it depends, by suggesting that one characteristic of
ecotourism is that it contributes both to conservation and to enjoyment of nature.
That is, ecotourism involves a focus on nature as the primary motivation for
travel, to expand knowledge and awareness of nature. It also involves the notion
that the activity of ecotourism must positively contribute to conservation in the
destination area or host-community.
Added to this, the participation and involvement of local communities in
ecotourism projects is also an important factor. This has its advantages and
disadvantages. Some advantages expressed by Drake (1991) are: it can function as
an early warning system, helping managers to avoid, or revise, decisions that
might otherwise cause conflict with the local population; it allows local
29
communities to become more informed about the purpose and benefits of the
project, thereby increasing support for the effort; it can foster better planning and
decision making, thus allowing conflicts to be brought out into the open and
resolved during the planning process; local input also legitimizes the decision-
making process and most importantly, local involvements are secured.
Local participation, in this case, is defined as the ability of local communities to
influence the outcome of development projects (such as ecotourism) that will
have an impact on them. Ecotourism is based on the conservation of natural
resources, resources that are often utilized by the surrounding communities. In
order for an ecotourism project to be successful, communities must be made a part
of it, and can only benefit from ecotourism by playing a greater role in the tourism
process (Wearing and Neil 1999). They need to help preserve the natural
resources for the tourists and must see a benefit for themselves in doing so (Drake
1991). Also, because local communities are often resource owners, the interest
towards protecting or even using their very own environment should not be
divorced from them. It is therefore important that local communities be involved
in the complete tourism development process, from the planning stage to
implementation and management of the ecotourism project, through avenues of
consultation and partnership (Wearing and Neil 1999). Participation in the
planning process, according to Drake (1991), includes tasks such as identifying
problems, formulating alternatives, planning activities and allocating resources.
However, for the planning process to be useful, it needs to be accessible and easy
to understand if the local communities are to assume ownership and control of the
process (McDonald and Wearing 2003). Drake (1991) also emphasizes the
importance of participation in the implementation stage, which may include
actions such as managing and operating a project. Local participation should
result in management strategies being developed at the local level, in conjunction
with stakeholders who have a vested interest in the project. Planning and
management therefore should evolve from bottom up (McDonald and Wearing
2003).
30
The characteristics of communities, according to Ross and Wall (1999), will
influence the extent to which ecotourism affects attitudes towards tourism and
conservation. The contribution ecotourism can make to biodiversity and integrity
of natural areas is as important as the potentially positive effects on adjacent
communities. Based on the definition of ecotourism provided by Wood et al.
(1991) and Ceballos-Lascurain (1987), the authors simply suggested that, in
ecotourism, the natural areas and local populations are united in a symbiotic
relationship through the introduction of tourism. Ross and Wall (1999), also
proposed that in an ideal ecotourism situation, local residents, protected resources
and tourism may benefit the others in an interrelated symbiotic fashion. While
providing an enjoyable experience in nature, the fundamental functions of
ecotourism are protection of natural areas, production of revenue, education, and
local participation and capacity building (Pederson 1991). Each of these functions
is basic to the overall success of ecotourism and together they can lead to the
fulfilment of more specific objectives such as conservation of the natural
environment. Ross and Wall (1999) also emphasized that there are significant
links between people, natural resources, biodiversity protection, and tourism and
that these links need to be fostered because the strengths and weaknesses of any
one link can have implications for the other links.
While ecotourism has the potential to create positive environmental impact, it can
unfortunately be as damaging as mass tourism (Butler 1990; Wheeller 1993;
Nelson 1994) if not done properly (Wood 2002). Therefore, the planning and
management of ecotourism or the environment in which ecotourism will take
place should also be a focus of interest in conservation and must therefore be
addressed. The goals of ecotourism management strategies are to protect the
environment and to provide the tourist with a great ecotourism experience.
Moreover, ecotourism should take an active form so activities contribute to the
health and viability of the environment where they take place (Orams 1995).
31
Planning for ecotourism is based on resource limitations, as ecotourism
opportunities will be lost if the resilience of an area and the ability of its
communities to adopt change are exceeded, or if its biodiversity and physical
appearance are altered significantly. Coral reefs, for example, are a very fragile
ecosystem and therefore only a little pressure is sufficient to push them out of
equilibrium. Once this happens it is virtually impossible to arrest decline, while
still exploiting the reef as an ecotourism resource. The whole ecosystem can,
within a decade, be damaged beyond repair and may even disappear altogether,
because the ecosystem has low resistance to impact and is not bounded by any
capacity to return to its natural state. Once coral, the key structural component of
the system, dies the ecosystem is lost. This is well illustrated by the Diani Reef,
south of Mombassa, which has been so damaged by tourists trampling on the reef
and picking corals that it is now virtually dead (Taylor and Dangerfield 1999).
Here we see that ecotourism requires that an entire ecosystem, or at least the
biological diversity that it contains, should be managed in relation to the tourism
experience.
Ecotourism on its own will not save disappearing ecosystems or liberate
communities from poverty. In fact, unless it is planned to minimize environmental
damage, maximize economic outcome and involve local communities, then it may
actually harm the environment and local peoples. But if ecotourism is to be
planned as a tool for sustainable development, one should include various
measures such as local participation generation of funds to manage areas
conserved or protected, carrying capacity and addressing conflicting management
objectives and ecotourists as activist (Whelan 1991).
32
CONCLUSION
The global tourism industry has played an important role in generating large
portions of the domestic product of many developing countries. As a result, many
less developed and undeveloped countries elsewhere in the world have turned to
tourism to improve their economic performance, resulting in further growth in the
global tourism industry. Increased dependency on tourism over the years has
resulted in increased dependency on the use of the natural environment. This is
simply because all tourist attractions are to some extent linked either directly or
by association with the natural environment of a destination.
Tourism should ideally form a symbiotic relationship with the environment.
Basically, tourism needs the natural environment as its attraction and in return the
natural environment needs tourism to conserve and preserve it. However, in many
places around the world, the development of tourism has taken a detour around
maintaining such a relationship. Tourism development has posed great threats to
the natural environment, thus raising issues regarding its future impact. In
response to these, the concept of ‘ecotourism’, which became a phenomenon in
the 1990s, was introduced in order to solve the problem and enhance the
symbiotic relationship of the environment and tourism, thus providing
environmental benefits.
Since the introduction of ecotourism in the 1980s, the term has defined and
redefined by many theorists, thus resulting in the development of many debating
issues regarding what the concepts and principles of ecotourism are believed to be
or should achieve. In the continuous battle to define the meaning of ecotourism,
many theorists in the 1990s began to stress various dimensions of their definition
so as to understand its nature and concept better, in order to apply them
realistically. Even though many theorists were conveying similar ideas in their
definition of ecotourism, the commonality of perspective towards the definition
relates to four key components of ecotourism and what ecotourism should be.
33
Ecotourism, therefore, should (1) be about travelling to undisturbed areas; (2) be
nature-based; (3) be educational; (4) be primarily concerned with environmental
conservation or protection. The normative nature of the debate, as described by
many of the theorists, which this case study has taken into account of, are based
on the fact that ecotourism be environmentally educative, meaning that the
environment used should provide a learning experience to the users. It should be
sustainably managed meaning that tourism activities should be well managed and
maintained so that that they it do not alter the well being of the local people and
the way in which they use their resources. Also ecotourism should be
conservation led, meaning that it should contribute to the protection of the natural
environment in order to foster conservation of natural resources by informing
local communities about the importance of their natural resources. In the long run,
not only should the environment benefit from ecotourism, but communities
should also be able to use it as an opportunity to draw economic benefits from a
tourist attraction. Overall, the most important priority of ecotourism is that it
should safeguard the environment used. All of these factors are incorporated into
the four key components of ecotourism as have described above.
In many developing countries today, ecotourism is adopted simply because it is an
alternative form of tourism focused on environmentally sound practices that
contribute to the protection and conservation of the environment as tourism takes
its course towards development at the expense of the environment. Ecotourism’s
potential to create sustainable tourism development has also encouraged its
adoption. Adoption of ecotourism is also attractive because it maximizes
economic benefits and minimizes environmental cost on both a local and a
national level, although this is only achievable with careful planning and
management.
The practice of ecotourism globally creates many opportunities, challenges and
threats as it develops rapidly within the tourism industry. The experience of China
illustrates the difficulty of defining and interpreting ecotourism, as they have
34
provided myriad interpretations according to local cultures and socio-economic
contexts and environments. For many other developing countries, ecotourism can
be a salvation of endangered ecosystems and wildlife and creates the opportunity
for many that possess biological resources to develop them sustainably rather than
damaging such assets. Because of the concept of protected areas and their benefit
towards biodiversity and ecosystem protection, ecotourism in protected areas
therefore should be carefully managed. In other words, they should simply
complements each other meaning, that as protected areas provide the attraction for
ecotourism, ecotourism in return should facilitate the objectives of the protected
area and can therefore support biodiversity. The driven attention and interest of
ecotourism as a source of revenue for many countries can divert and manipulate
the core concepts of what ecotourism should be achieving in the context of
supporting conservation. Ecotourism, essentially, should encourage community
involvement in the planning and implementation of ecotourism projects but in
many cases, this very involvement has been ignored and has therefore resulted in
failure. The provision of education and awareness to tourists should be heavily
emphasized in the concept of ecotourism, as tourists play a vital role in its success
and failure. It is sad however, that some tourists may in fact contribute to the
continuous damage of the environment.
Because of limited availability of resources and the capacity for economic
development experienced by many island communities, ecotourism can be an
attractive option for many reasons. Also developing ecotourism attractions is
often inexpensive because the attractions are nature-based and island communities
are commonly rich with these. Additionally, ecotourism can reduce the
dependency on sales of a particular product that an island has specialized in for
many years. Ecotourism can also allow the involvement of local people within
islands and can therefore create greater employment opportunities and human
resource management thus reducing leakages. Last but not least, ecotourism can
help safeguard the environment from detrimental impacts, as island communities
35
are very vulnerable to outside pressure concerning economic activities that
depend on the environment.
Finally, planning and implementation process of ecotourism should be
approached holistically. This would naturally involve local communities, various
tourism stakeholders and governments. Prior to this, the objectives of ecotourism
should be clearly defined because not only should ecotourism be a form of
generating economic benefit but also it should protect and conserve the
environment that its success depends on.
Fiji is an island state with limited resources and capacity for economic
development and has therefore used its natural resources for ecotourism as a
viable option for generating income flow into its economy. But because Fiji’s
natural environment may be put at risk as a result of growing tourism, ecotourism
at this point stands as an alternative option that would provide greater benefits
locally and at the same time maintain the integrity of the country’s environment.
However, before any further plans are made to promote ecotourism, it is prudent
at this point in time to build an understanding of the strengths and weakness of
ecotourism at a local level. For this reason, this research has been undertaken to
observe the existing ecotourism operation in Fiji as its case study.
36
CHAPTER THREE
THE RESEARCH CONTEXT: ECOTOURISM IN FIJI
INTRODUCTION
The growth of mass international tourism over the last 50 years represents one of
the pivotal changes in recent human history. Fiji has been increasingly involved in
this mass movement of people across national boundaries. Tourism in Fiji has
been encouraged because of its potential as a foreign exchange earner, the
multiplier effects of infrastructure development and the growth of other
industries. This chapter provides an insight in to the development of tourism and
ecotourism in Fiji over recent years.
To begin with, this chapter provides a reflection on the contribution of the tourism
industry to Fiji’s economy. Because of the increase in demand for the use of the
environment for tourism development, this chapter also describes how ecotourism
has been developed, adapted and defined in Fiji’s context towards sustainable
development. We then highlight some of the criteria used for assessing a tourism
project as ecotourism. Also discussed in this chapter are some of the issues that
may directly or indirectly affect the development of ecotourism for Fiji in the
future.
A background of the Yasawa Islands is also given to illustrate the rationale for its
selection as a study site.
37
A REFLECTION ON THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN FIJI
Fiji stands out among Pacific island economies in terms of the size of its natural
resources endowment and its level of economic and social development. It has a
relatively well-educated population, a well developed entrepreneurial class, and
good physical infrastructure, and it is the commercial capital for much of the
Pacific islands economic activity, as well as being the focal point for much of the
Pacific islands trade.
Fiji has a population of 778,000 (1996 census) of diverse ethnic origins
comprising indigenous Fijian (50%), people of Indian origin (44.8%), European,
Chinese and others (5.2%).
Tourism and the sugar industry are the two mainstays of Fiji’s economy. Tourism
has been one of the largest sources of economic growth in comparison to other
industries such as fisheries, garment manufacture and forestry. As an economic
mainstay of the country, tourism has since 1989, reduced the previous heavy
dependence on sugar for foreign exchange earnings.
From 1963 to 1990, it was reported by Ulak (1993) that the gross tourism receipts
rose from F$3.6 million to F$336 million. In the same period, the industry’s
contribution to Fiji’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose from less than 4% in
1963 to over 12% (the exchange rate was US$1 = FJ$1.54 in 1993) in 1984. Also
Ulak (1993) reported an increase in number of visitors from just over 18,000 in
1962 to over one quarter of a million in 1986, the year before the two 1987 coups.
These coups caused an outflow of revenue, emigration of Indo-Fijians and a
decline in tourism. The coups negatively impacted the tourism trade so that in
1988 the number of visitors declined to 208,000; however, by 1990 tourism again
was on the rise and by 1992, the number of tourists had reached almost 280,000
(Ministry of Tourism 2004). In 1990, the recorded employment number in Fiji’s
tourism industry rose to over 5,300 people (Bureau of Statistics 2005). Fiji made
around $F430 million dollars from tourism in 1996, making the industry a
38
contender for the number one spot (Keith-Reid, 2003) compared to other money
generating industries. A similar trend of a rapid decline and then again an increase
occurred in relation to the coup of 2000. Visitor arrivals in 2001 were 348,014,
compared with a record 409,955 in 1999, but recovered to 397,859 in 2002
(Ministry of Tourism 2004). In 2001, Fiji had earned FJ$521 million dollars
(Tuqiri 2002) from its tourism sector.
In the latest record, for 2003, tourism receipts totalled around FJ$639 million
(Bureau of Statistics 2005) almost doubling the amount earned a decade ago,
representing around 15% of GDP. Since the late 1990s tourism has been
identified as having directly and indirectly provided employment to over 45,000
people (Bricker 2003). Earlier predictions are that by 2005, there will be around
265,000 new jobs created within tourism (Tourism Forum of 2004).
FIJI’S TOURISM PRODUCT
The success of tourism in a country like Fiji is greatly dependent on the marketing
of a clean, friendly, relaxing environment together with a variety of natural
attractions even though it is centrally located on the main sea and air routes
between the US, Australia and New Zealand. In terms of its tourism product, Fiji
offers all of the attributes associated with a tropical island destination: sun, sea,
sand and surf along with a reputation for friendly service and affordability. Fiji
over the years has become famous for its natural, cultural and historical resources
as the trademarks for tourist attractions. It is a country of rich biodiversity and
natural attributes. Added to this, Fiji has also been well marketed as an untouched
or untapped paradise with many of its flora and fauna still intact even though at
some stage there has been continuous alteration of the natural environment in
order to accommodate tourism facilities and infrastructure. An example of Fiji’s
untouched natural environment potential to the tourist industry as an attraction is
the Sovi Basin. This is an area that contains 11 forest types, 32 forest bird species
(19 of which are endemic to Fiji) and a vibrant marine life with some unidentified
fish species and vegetation that is increasingly pristine as one heads further inland
39
and higher. Some of the natural resources of Fiji used as tourist attractions are
oceans, vegetation, rivers, sand dunes and waterfalls. Nature-based tourism in Fiji
is vast with the sea and marine environment becoming the major attractions. Most
importantly, their value lies in their beauty, scarcity in the global market and the
presumption that they are pristine. The marine environment of Fiji is exceptional
because its reef system has about 390 coral species, 1200 varieties of fish, and 5
out of 7 species of marine turtles found globally, and possibly most importantly,
hosts the third-longest reef in the world. Tourists during their stay in Fiji are often
encouraged to visit remote beaches, snorkel and dive incredible reefs that
accommodate many diverse marine fauna. Many dive sites of Fiji are known to be
rich with many different corals and an impressive collection of charismatic, large,
pelagic species such as grouper, tuna, barracuda, shark and many more.
The cultural and historical resources also contribute to Fiji’s tourism attractions.
These include historical buildings, e.g. Fiji Museum, Orchid Island, traditional
ceremonies, cuisine, markets and many more attractions. Traditionally, Fiji has
traded on the idyllic South Pacific paradise tourist image with its happy smiling
indigenous faces, though this picture cracked with the May 2000 coup. The coup
basically resulted in a sudden decrease of tourist arrivals in 2000 by 28.3% from
the recorded arrival figure of 1999, although it later picked up again from 2001,
thus recording an 18.3% increase, which was continuing to rise in 2003 (Ministry
of Tourism 2004).
THE LEGISLATIVE AND STATUTORY CONTEXT OF ECOTOURISM
IN FIJI
Based on a recent survey conducted in 2002, there are 22 currently licensed
ecotourism operators in Fiji (Parliamentary Paper 2002) and this has increased
over the years till 2005 (including the unlicensed operators). The majority of these
ecotourism operators (licensed or not) are based in the Western side of Viti Levu,
with a few in other parts of Fiji including Kadavu, Vanua Levu (mostly in
40
Taveuni and Savusavu) and one in Vanuabalavu in Lau. Most of these operators
are indigenous Fijians running either as community-based or as local individuals
marketing their product to ecotourists on the basis of natural and cultural
experiences.
The criteria probably used to categories these tourism operators as ecotourism
were those provided by the Fiji Ministry of Tourism (2004). These criteria are
based on the WTO guidelines relating to the five principles of sustainable
ecotourism, which are: the principles of complementarity; the principle of
environmental conservation; the principle of social co-operation; the principle of
centralized information; and the principle of strong and effective institutions
(Harrison 1999). According to an interview with Mr. Tagivetaua (2005, pers.
comm., 6 June), the assessments of a viable ecotourism project are made on
location, profitability, marketability, availability of skills, availability of capital
and potential growth. This means that the location of the ecotourism site should
be accessible, the operation should show some evidence of having the capacity to
make profits, it should also have staffs that are skillful, the project itself should
also be marketable to the outside and above all, the project should be able to have
capitals available with indication of potential growth.
In 2003, the Ministry of Tourism introduced the criteria of Green Globe 21 for
assessing an ecotourism operation, based on the Agenda 21 principles for
Sustainable Development, which was to be reviewed later in 2004. Under these
criteria, for a tourism project or operation to achieve Ecotourism Certification, it
must be first benchmarked against all the Green Globe 21 Benchmarking
Ecotourism Indicators. These indicators identify ecotourism in a sense that the
operation should be naturally focused, should provide some form of interpretation
and education, should have infrastructure that is ecologically compatible, should
have ecologically sustainable practices, should contribute towards conservation,
should provide benefits to the local communities, should respect the culture as
well as being sensitive towards it, should provide customer satisfaction, should
41
provide responsible marketing and finally, should provide a code of conduct that
minimizes impact. Even though such benchmarking has been achieved in some
cases, for bigger resort operators such as Bounty, Turtle Island, Castaway etc.,
various issues were still raised as to how village-based or small scale tourism
projects could meet the required standards and how exactly they could also
interpret and apply these standards at a local level.
Following a review in 2004, it was disappointingly discovered that many of the
small-scaled local operators that wanted to be benchmarked or certified as
ecotourism could not simply keep up to the standards set by Green Globe 21 due
to the facts that it was difficult to achieve, it was costly, and that the criteria
identified were too advance or too international for a local intervention. This had
then resulted in the Ministry of Tourism having to remodel criteria that were more
workable at a local level. In 2005, after many consultations, a document on a
Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation Program was endorsed by cabinet
for approval and implementation. This program aligns itself with the Green Globe
21 approach but it has incorporated only accreditation levels believed to be more
applicable in the local context (Appendix 14.0).
Apart from Green Fiji, other guidelines have also been made available to meet
local operators’ standards, which also acknowledge sustainable environmental
practices. An example of this is ‘Making Small Hotels and Resorts
Environmentally Sustainable: A Simple Checklist for Fiji Operators’ (Fiji
Integrated Coastal Management Project 2003).
Regardless of the various ecotourism accreditations identified above, the one fear
that stands at this point is learning how ecotourism is actually interpreted and
implemented by those involved. It is true that accreditation is an effective
instrument for policy enforcement; however, it can be biased in its
implementation as it operates on only one level in terms of managing quality. The
real question therefore that emerges later in this study is how exactly ecotourism
42
is understood or interpreted and practised by communities and other stakeholders,
so that at the end of the day, ecotourism really does provide an incentive to
conserve and protect the natural environment.
THE DEVELOPMENT AND ADOPTION OF ECOTOURISM
The use of the natural environment in attracting tourists to Fiji has been
recognized for many years now, apart from the common promotion caption of
‘the sun, sand and sea’. As the interest in how Fiji has been benefiting from
tourism grew, many concerns have also been raised on the possible impacts it
would have on the natural or physical environment. According to Harrison and
Brandt (2002), only after providing many consultations regarding the impact of
tourism on the environment did Fiji government begin to develop a National
Tourism Development Plan for the period 1998– 2005. The consultations were in
related to the various issues such as: the risk of environmental damage caused by
the use of the natural and cultural environment for visitors to Fiji; the need to
conserve the natural environment; the importance of the physical environment to
Fiji’s tourism industry; and the need for controls in tourism and other forms of
development if unsightly and extensive damage to Fiji’s natural attractions were
to be avoided. The National Tourism Development Plan was developed to
recognize the links between tourism and the environment, warn the dangers of
pollution of the coastal zone by tourism and (more) by other economic sectors,
and recommend an integrated management scheme whereby pollutions could be
contained and effects mitigated. As a result, the idea of nature tourism and
community-based tourism were then introduced in the Tourism Development Plan
for adoption. Community-based tourism activities were referred to as ecotourism
and nature tourism (Ministry of Tourism and Transport et al. 1998).
Ecotourism in Fiji was encouraged as an initiative towards sustainable tourism.
Francis (1997) in his research on ecotourism in Fiji highlighted three key areas
where ecotourism possibly would provide great benefits to and these are: (1) in
43
local communities because it would allow employment opportunities to locals in
the fields such as natural and cultural site restoration, research, interpretation and
small business management; (2) in the tourism industry itself because it would
level out some of the peak and troughs prevalent in visitor arrival and on the
environment; and (3) in the environment because it could assist in the sustainable
development and the conservation of the natural resources.
Ecotourism in Fiji had been long blended with other tourism activities, primary or
secondary, and therefore has received very little attention in past tourism
development plans. Recently, it has surfaced and has contributed greatly to the
development of a niche markets for those environmentally conscious and
educated travelers.
As a signatory to the biodiversity strategy introduced at the Rio Summit in 1992,
Fiji obligated itself to develop an ecotourism policy (Bricker 2002). In February
1999, a National Ecotourism Policy (NEP) was adopted, titled Ecotourism and
Village-based Tourism: a Policy and Strategy for Fiji. One of the main focuses of
the NEP was to allow opportunities for resource owners to establish and run their
own business, especially in the rural areas, and be hosts to many of the nature
based tourism activities, also referred to as ecotourism. With that, the NEP also
had to branch its focus to other areas such as involving proper planning and
management of resources to encourage the promotion of positive economic and
social impact; reducing leakages of tourism investments; promoting
environmental awareness; encouraging the supply of traditional arts and craft; and
encouraging the maximum involvement of local communities. According to
Malani (1998) ecotourism was identified as an ingredient that would bring
indigenous communities into the tourism industry while providing them with a
positive outlook.
Even after the adoption of a National Ecotourism Policy, the definition of
ecotourism was still unclear to many (Bricker 2003). Almost any operator that
44
took a tourist into the outdoors or to a village considered itself as an ecotourism
operator. Ecotourism in Fiji was then defined as:
A form of nature-based tourism which involves responsible travel to relatively
undeveloped areas to foster an appreciation of nature and local cultures, while conserving
the physical and social environment, respecting the aspirations and traditions of those
who are visited and improving the welfare of the local people. (Harrison 1999:5)
Basically this definition has allowed the NEP to recognize and address some key
areas such as: the importance of including several stakeholders (government,
statutory bodies, international bodies, landowners, the tourism industry and the
general public); the issues concerning conservation of the natural and cultural
environment, prioritizing the increasing awareness of its importance; the concern
for rural development and enhancement of the quality of life for villagers in more
remote regions; and finally, the importance of developing a central register for all
ecotourism endeavours.
Part of understanding the interpretation on the definition of ecotourism is still an
issue in the development of ecotourism in Fiji today. According to Thaman
(2001:52), ‘the most critical role at this stage for Fiji Ecotourism Association is to
help clearly define what ecotourism is and can be in order to help set standards
and create awareness of the critical role that ecotourism can play in promoting
sustainable tourism development so that ecotourism itself, will survive’.
Sustainable tourism is about protecting the immediate resource base, which will
allow tourism development to be sustained (Hunter 1995). Ecotourism can allow
the continual existence of the natural resources on which the development of
tourism depends. However, if ecotourism is not properly managed, it may just
destroy the very resources on which it depends.
45
OTHER CURRENT INITIATIVES IN-LINE TO THE FUTURE
DEVELOPMENT OF ECOTOURISM
Fiji apart from being a small island country is also vulnerable to a lot of external
forces and therefore it has been critical for the Government to approach tourism
development from the requirements of sustainable development. In regard to this,
there have been certain issues looming on the horizon regarding the need for
cooperation and integration amongst all stakeholders, especially the private
sector.
Two pieces of legislation have been highlighted as making a direct contribution
towards the development of ecotourism. Currently, one has been proposed while
the other has been enacted. These are:
a) The Proposed Return of the i qoliqoli (Customary Fishing Grounds) -
Rights of the Usage of the Sea to the Indigenous Fijians
The return of the ownership rights of the i qoliqoli to the indigenous people is
under consideration by government. This proposed legislation embarks on the
transfer of legal right to indigenous Fijians on the use and ownership of the
coastal resources (Customary Fisheries Act 2004). This would therefore
encourage and allow local communities to take the opportunity of using their own
natural resources to generate economic benefits, especially in the tourism
industry. However, the bill also states the reservation of the customary fishing
areas (Section 5) meaning that once the Bill is enacted, the customary fishing
areas automatically become reserved for sustenance to resource owners. Any
development relating to the use of customary fishing areas should be applied
through the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB). This is an issue still being
addressed at community level as it limits their rights to develop their own
resources. It is, however, the fear of many foreign hotel operators or investors that
once the communities take full authority and ownership with the rights for
46
development, this may possibly affect their individual businesses because they
will no longer have control or the right of access to coastal areas. This is already
happening in some areas around Fiji where many communities are already
thinking that the bill has been enacted.
At the moment, Fiji government is looking for possible ways with which to
manage such a situation. Efforts have also been made to raise awareness among
resource owners in order to maintain a balance between a vision for improving the
quality of life versus avoiding the degradation of the environment.
b) The Environment Management Act
The Environmental Management Act (2005) is a comprehensive environmental
management framework for Fiji. The Act has significant components that are
critical to the management of natural resources in Fiji and they are as follows:
• The establishment of a National Council for Sustainable Development to
coordinate policy development and delivery, devise environmental strategy,
prioritise programs and procedures, advise on institutional structure, and the
general operation of the legislation (Part 2, Section 8)
• Each government ministry will be required to create its own environmental
management unit to formulate the policy statement; a natural resource
inventory and resource management plan for resources under its jurisdiction;
and conduct internal environmental audits (Part 2, Section 13)
• A formal legal framework for Environmental Impact Assessment. The
system hinges on development not being allowed until approval has been
granted following an EIA (Part 4)
• Any commercial or industry class of facility must adopt the Code of
Environmental Practice and submit environmental audits to demonstrate
compliance to environmental inspectors appointed to enforce codes and
requirements (Part 2, Section 19)
47
• An Environmental Trust Fund would be created to support the payment of
debt for natural protected areas, biodiversity programs, studies and plans
(Part 7, Section 55)
• An Environmental Register will be published, public notices and codes of
environmental practice (Part 2, Section 17)
• Coastal resources management would be featured in documents that would
be formulated, such as the National State of Environment, overall National
Environment Strategy and a Natural Resources Management Plan.
The Sections within the Act were formulated in a careful manner so as to
complement the Tourism Development Plan and moreover, the development of
ecotourism in Fiji. The purpose of the act is clearly stated as the development,
management, sustainable use and protection of Fiji’s natural environment and
resources. Ecotourism emphasizes the protection and conservation of the natural
environment therefore the sections highlighted above serve as strategies to
facilitate conservation and the protection of the natural environment.
Ecotourism is oriented to the principles of protecting the environment, involving
local communities and providing return benefits both to the environment used and
to the local community. Fiji’s definition of ecotourism at the policy level has
hoped also to address these principles but instead it has exercised the definition by
only focusing more on the socio-economic benefits to local communities likely to
be provided by ecotourism, rather than on the interest of protecting or conserving
the physical environment.
48
TOURISM IN THE YASAWA ISLANDS: A BRIEF BACKGROUND OF
THE STUDY AREA
a) Location
The Yasawa Islands better known as the Yasawa Groups are a group of elongated,
narrow volcanic islands lying to the west and northwest of Fiji Islands. These
islands are the remains of a chain of volcanoes, which emerged 6–8 million years
ago. They rise from parts of the huge Yasawa-Mamanuca lagoon, which is
boarded on the east by Viti Levu and on the west by a barrier reef, which is 10–
30km west of all Yasawa Islands (Nunn 1994).
These groups of islands lie on the driest part of Viti Levu. The Yasawa group
consists of at least 21 groups of small islands of which 7 are larger islands:
WayaSewa, Waya, Naviti, Yaqeta, Matacawalevu, Nacula and Yasawa.
Most of the settlements in the Yasawa are on the coasts containing wide fringing
reefs and most of the locals depend heavily on near-shore marine resources for
subsistence (Nunn 1994). In general as part of an island state, the group is
characterized by its dependency on the sea, vulnerability to changes related to the
marine environment, a limited resource base, localized carrying capacities and
interrelated and often fragile ecosystems (Levette and McNally 2003).
There are four tikina or districts located within the Yasawa Groups called Waya,
Naviti, Nacula and Yasawa with different communities falling into each of these
Tikina (see figure 3.1). The total number of people in all of the Yasawa is yet to
be determined but according to the only information available from the Bureau of
Statistics, in the year 2004, the total population was 2,346, which was accounted
from only 15 villages out of the listed 28 in the whole Yasawa Group.
49
Figure 3.1: The four Tikina of Yasawa Island (from to top to bottom: Nacula, Naviti
and Waya and Yasawa). Source: NLFC 2004
b) The Development and Involvement of Tourism within the Area
The development of tourism in the Yasawa evidentially has been very rapid over
the years and because of this, it has become a famous tourist destination across
Fiji. At a national level, the Yasawa has been identified as a key area for potential,
high revenue generation for Fiji’s economy. It has supported a handful of resorts
and has also been a popular stopover for small cruise ships and sailing vessels. To
this day, there are three cruise-ship companies operating within the area. On a
daily basis, the Yasawa Flyer cruise ship travels to and from the Yasawa group
transporting tourists who wish to spend their vacation in the area. Not only does it
transport tourists but locals as well who are from various islands of the Yasawa.
Added to this are other cruise ships owned by Blue Lagoon and Captain Cook sail
the Yasawa waters for a week or so making stops of 2–3 days for village visits to
50
various communities, and day trips or picnics to deserted islands. There are four
cruise ships owned by Blue Lagoon and six by Captain Cook Cruises.
The Fiji Government has perceived the development of tourism in the Yasawa as
having positive impacts on local communities. It has increased resource owners’
participation in the tourism industry by providing them with employment
opportunities and it has also increased the retention of tourist dollars with very
little leakage. According to an interview with Koyamaibole (2004, pers. comm.,
18 April), the tourism sector in the Yasawa employs around 87% locals while the
remaining 13% are foreigners and other races from outside the local community.
Such employment has greatly helped the local communities in terms of generating
money and to some level provided human resource development in the tourism
industry to many participating villagers from within the area.
The total tourist arrivals in the Yasawa have been undocumented over the years
and in an unpublished report (Ministry of Tourism), 13,240 visitors were recorded
from verified data of only 9 operators out of the total of 36 operators that exist in
the entire island of Yasawa. Currently, there are at least 13 islands that
accommodate tourist resorts employing a majority of local employees.
51
Table 3.1 Location and Name of Tourism Operators in Yasawa (out of 36 hotels)
Location No. of Hotels Name of Tourism Operators
*Nacula 7 Al’s Paradise, Melbravo Beach Resort, Nabua
Lodge, Nalova Bay, Nanuya North, Oarsman Bay,
Safe Landing
**Naviti 5 Botaira, Coconut Bay resort, Korovou, Qereqere
Cross, Rays Tail
***Wayasewa 5 Adi’s Backpacker, Waya Island, Sunset Beach,
Bayside, Backpackers Paradise
*Tavewa 4 Coral View Island, David’s Place, Kingfisher,
Otto’s and Fanny’s
*Nanuya
Lailai
4 GoldCoast, Sunrise Lagoon, Sea Spray, Kim’s Place
***Waya
Levu
2 Octopus Resort, Eagles Nests-Saints Retreat
**Drawaqa 2 Drawaqa Resort, Manta Ray
*Matacawalev
u
2 Crimson Tierra, Long Beach
*Nanuya Levu 1 Turtle Island
*Navotua 1 Pleasuring Backpackers
***Kuata 1 Kuata Natural Resort
*Yaqeta 1 Yageta Backpackers
****Yasawa 1 Yasawa Island Resort
TOTAL 36
(* Nacula District; **Naviti District; ***Waya District, ****Yasawa District. (Source: MoT 2004))
The Native Land Trust Board can specifically identify the types of hotel
ownership, but the majority of the ecotourism projects and backpackers are
locally owned. Out of the 36 hotels, 32 are ecotourism related projects, 22 were
initially funded by the Ministry of Tourism, while the remaining 14 were
privately funded and owned
52
THE ISSUES OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN THE YASAWA
ISLANDS
Most of the islands in Fiji have a narrow economic base and are heavily
dependent on one or two income earning commodities. Likewise, the Yasawa
group of islands suffers from diseconomies of small scale and is highly
susceptible to natural disasters as it is usually in the path of seasonal cyclones.
Many in Fiji and in the Yasawa eagerly seek income earned from tourism and it
has become a major form of creating employment and income for the local
entrepreneurs and overseas investors.
Many tourists frequently visit the Yasawa once a month from the main islands via
various routes including Turtle Island seaplanes and the Yasawa Flyer cruise ship.
Not all of the economic impacts are beneficial, in particular the minimal retention
of the tourism dollar in the local economy.
The socio-cultural impacts of tourism in the Yasawa are mixed. Although
employment, income, education and training, mobility, and affluence may be
enhanced for some groups, there remain dubious impacts. Some of the least
advantageous socio-cultural impacts of tourism have occurred where the type of
tourism, the type of tourist attracted, the pace of change and growth, the degree of
interaction between indigenous people and the visitors, and the capacity of the
cultures and societies to cope with inquisitive visitors have not been carefully
managed. In addition, some of the tensions evident in the Yasawa such as inter-
and intra- conflicts between villages, have detracted from tourism development.
The population of the Yasawa islands is small so mass tourism may pose
problems of balance between visitor and resident numbers, and this may be a
source of irritation among the indigenous population, particularly where there are
vastly different values and behavioural systems between the local
hotels/backpackers and overseas investors operations.
53
The pressure of the cash economy also introduces changes in the traditional
family structure. It may be that the strength of the traditional cultures with the
overlay of religious and community organizations, as suggested in one of the
2003 Tourism Resource Owners Conference resolutions will prevent the level of
seriousness, which these pathologies have attained in the tourism experiences
elsewhere. There is one potential problem that needs very careful management
and that is the commercialization of traditional crafts and customs, as such
practices may undermine the authenticity of local practices across Fiji.
The natural environment is one of the chief attractions of the Yasawa. The
resources of sun, sand, blue lagoons, palm trees and most tropical settings in the
Yasawa have dominated the image of Fiji as a whole in the minds of most
tourists. It has always been reported that these features are among the primary
attractions of Fiji.
NACULA DISTRICT AS THE FOCUS OF THE STUDY
Nacula District was initially selected for this study because the area
accommodates the majority of the tourism activities occurring in the Yasawa and
also in other places around Fiji. These tourism activities include the operation of
cruise ships, dive operation, resorts and hotels, and most importantly the
concentration of a number of operators, all of which have identified themselves as
‘ecotourism’.
Also another reason for selecting Nacula was because of its history in tourism
development over the years and that many locals were taking the initiative to
develop and run their own tourism operations. Operators located in Nacula
accommodate a good representative of the types of ownership or management of
which it was also important to look into and identify what level of influence they
would have towards the set up of the tourism operators as ‘ecotourism’. Also, it
was the direct exposures of the tourism activities to the communities that could
54
allow this study to obtain more information regarding ecotourism, the
communities and their environment (refer to map below).
Figure 3.2: Tourism activity in Nacula Tikina (yellow—hotel operators; green—
community; red—cruise ship anchoring sites)
Another important reason for selecting Nacula as a case study was the existence
of a code of conduct regarding responsible tourism practices implemented in the
area, which enables this study to observe the effect the code can have on the way
ecotourism operates. Currently there is an association that exists within the area
known as the Nacula Tikina Tourism Association (NTTA) and it is involves
people from tourism operators, community members of Nacula district and even
at the provincial level. Turtle Island has played a leading role in this association.
The NTTA greatly emphasizes waste management, fijian culture, protection of
ecology and environment, guest safety and care, education and training,
communication, and self-improvement. Also they have published a coral-friendly
snorkeling brochure emphasizing the importance of good marine behaviour.
55
CONCLUSION
Tourism indeed has greatly contributed to the economic development of Fiji,
while at the same time; it has placed great emphasis on the use of the natural
environment, from terrestrial to marine, as its potential attractions or tourism
product. The increasing interest in tourism has raised many concerns about the
possible negative impacts it would have on the natural environment. Fiji has
always cared for its environment and the fact that it was becoming more and more
popular as a final holiday destination prompted more formal action in regard to
the protection of the country’s natural resources. This resulted in the development
of a Tourism Development Plan encouraging nature tourism as an activity linking
tourism with the environment.
In Fiji’s move towards sustainable tourism development, ecotourism was
introduced as a strategy with much potential not only for the economy but also for
the environmental management of tourism. Primarily a policy of Fiji’s ecotourism
(NEP) was introduced and adopted because of the need to increase economic
retention from the Fiji tourism product and to spread the benefits of tourism
throughout the country, particularly in the rural sector. The policy also responded
to other areas relating to the need for integrating traditional art and craft into the
tourism industry, the need for further developing local people in line with their
own wishes and the need for minimizing negative impacts of tourism
development and again the emphasis on the need for promoting conservation and
environmental awareness in the tourism industry.
On a vague understanding of the term ‘ecotourism’ by many tourism operators in
Fiji, the Ministry of Tourism defined it as a form of tourism that was nature-
based, with travel undertaken to a relatively undeveloped area that fosters an
appreciation of nature and local cultures. At the same time the physical and social
environment is conserved, thus respecting the aspirations and traditions of those
who are visited and improving the welfare of the local people.
56
Following on from the definition of ecotourism, the Ministry of Tourism also had
to identify criteria for categorizing tourism projects or operations as ecotourism.
Apart from the five principles highlighted in the Ecotourism and Village-Based
Tourism: A Policy and Strategy for Fiji, the criteria of Green Globe 21 have also
been implemented for benchmarking ecotourism projects. But these criteria were
found to be difficult to implement at the local level and in 2005 the Ministry of
Tourism introduced its Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation Program.
This program, although its criteria align with those of Green Globe 21 (2003), is
intended to be applicable at a level more applicable to Fiji.
Two initiatives that will possibly affect ecotourism development in the long run
are ownership transfer of sea usage to indigenous Fijians and the Environmental
Management Act. The transfer of ownership will result to increase local
participation in using of natural resources for tourism attraction, as an incentive of
generating income for many local communities. There is a fear that this may
restrict foreign investors or foreign resort owners from using the key environment
(marine environment) that has helped them to attract many tourists over the years.
The Environmental Management Act, however, is promising for ecotourism
development in the long run. This is because a lot of emphasis is also placed on
the management and protection of the environment in relation to tourism
development.
Tourism development in the Yasawa has been rapidly increasing over years and
therefore selecting Nacula District, located in the Yasawa, as the study site for
this research has been very challenging. This is because Nacula accommodates
the majority of the tourism activity happening around the Yasawa islands and
therefore would give a good representation of the operation of ecotourism on the
outer islands.
57
CHAPTER FOUR
THE METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In any research, it is important to consider the kind of information that is relevant
and required for the study and the how appropriate each method would be to
collect them. When selecting a research method, it is important to consider the
nature of the setting being studied, or the questions asked as well as the possible
limitations of the study such as time and resources (Silverman 2001).
This chapter provides an understanding of how the research was conducted. The
first part of this chapter describes the types of research paradigm used looking
into details of the qualitative and quantitative methodologies and how they merge
to form the methodology used in the study.
The Chapter then moves on to describe the different types of research methods
used to collect both qualitative and quantitative information needed such as
interviews, questionnaire survey and observation. An overview of the research, as
a case study, is also discussed together with the sampling design used to collect
the types of information required.
Finally, the chapter provides a brief discussion on the types of limitation
encountered and ethical issues considered while conducting the overall research.
58
JUSTIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH PARADIGM AND
METHODOLOGY
A paradigm is a worldview—a way of thinking about and making sense of the
complexities of the real world. It is a fundamental model or frame that is used to
organize observations and reasoning about the nature of reality. According to
Barbie (2001:43), the paradigms of social sciences offer a variety of views, each
of which offers insights that others lack, while ignoring aspects of social life that
others reveal. As such, paradigms are deeply embedded in the socialization of
adherents and practitioners (Patton 2002) and therefore tell us what is important,
legitimate, and reasonable. They are also normative, informing practitioners what
to do without the necessity of long existential or epistemological consideration.
On the paradigm of constructing theoretical knowledge for illuminating
fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality, this research has been
conducted in order to obtain knowledge of a given environment, and at the same
time search for an explanation of events, phenomena, relationships and causes. As
an empirical study, the research employed both the qualitative and quantitative
methods. In effect, this mean that what is happening in the world has been
experienced and observed directly, rather than, theorizing, reasoning, or arguing
from first principles (Punch 2000).
In empirical research, data can be quantitative, qualitative or both and therefore
when gathering data, it is important to first understand that our assumptions,
interests and purposes shape the methodology we chose. According to Taylor and
Bogdan (1984:1), when these factors are ‘stripped to their essentials, debates over
methodology are debates over assumptions and purposes, over theory and
perceptions’. Methodology is about how one approaches a problem and seeks to
find the answers to it.
59
a) Qualitative Methodology
Qualitative methodology is associated with the holistic inductive paradigms
(interpretive social sciences, critical theory, feminist perspectives and post-
modern paradigm) (Jennings 2001). These paradigms may be clustered together
and described as the holistic–inductive paradigm. According to Patton (1990),
they are holistic because the paradigm studies the whole phenomenon and all its
complexity, rather than breaking the phenomenon into component parts and
studying discrete variables and causal relationships.
Rist (cited in Taylor and Bogdan 1984) points out, that qualitative methodology,
like quantitative methodology, is more than a set of data gathering techniques and
again, it is a way of approaching the empirical. This is because qualitative
research is inductive. In other word, a researcher develops concepts, insights and
understanding from patterns in the data, rather than collecting data to test
preconceived models, hypotheses or theories. Settings and people are looked at
holistically, meaning that people, settings or groups are not reduced to variables
but are viewed as a whole. As described by Hakim (2000), qualitative research is
concerned with individuals’ own account of their attitudes, motivations and
behaviours. It offers richly descriptive reports of individuals’ perceptions,
attitudes, beliefs, views and feelings, the meaning and interpretations given to
events and things, as well as their behaviours, discarding a researcher’s own
beliefs, perspectives and predispositions and displaying how these are put
together, more or less coherently and consciously, into a framework that makes
sense of their experiences, and illuminating the motivation that connects attitude
and behaviour, the discontinuities, or even contradictions between attitudes and
behaviour, or how conflicting attitudes and motivation are resolved and particular
choices made.
Qualitative methods are humanistic and are therefore non-statistical. Again,
according to Taylor and Bogdan (1984:7) the ‘methods by which we study people
60
of necessity affect how we view them’. When we reduce people’s words and
actions to statistical equations, we lose sight of the human side of life. When we
study people qualitatively, we get to know them personally and experience what
they experience in their daily life in a society.
The phenomenon of qualitative research, according to van Manen (1990), aims to
gain a deeper understanding of the nature or meaning of our everyday
experiences. It allows a researcher to understand people from their own frame of
reference (Taylor and Bogdan 1984) or understand social phenomena from a
person’s own perspective. This means that the focus is about exploring how
human beings make sense of experiences into consciousness, both individually
and as shared meanings. Human behaviours of what they say and do are viewed
as a product of how people define their world. This requires a methodology that
carefully and thoroughly captures and describes how people experience some
phenomena—how they perceive them, describe them, feel about them, judge
them, make sense of them and talk about them with others. The methodology is to
capture these processes and be able to interpret them but focusing to other
people’s point of view. To gather such data, one must undertake an in-depth
interview with people who have directly experienced the phenomena of interest,
that is, they have lived the experiences as opposed to second-hand experience
(Patton 2002).
The type of qualitative research method selected for this study is the ‘interview’
in order to facilitate the study of various issues in depth. Questions used were less
focused on the factual status of particular instances but were more interested in
the ‘nature of the experiences’ in order to make sense of the world and be able to
develop a worldview. There is no separate reality for people; however, the
subjective experience incorporates the objective and becomes a person’s reality,
thus the focus on meaning, makes the essence of human experience (Patton 2002).
In order to build an understanding of how people make sense of their everyday
61
activities so as to behave in socially acceptable ways, the role of
ethnomethodology was employed in the study.
Ethnomethodology studies the social order ‘by combining a phenomenological
sensibility with a paramount concern for everyday social practice’ (Gubrium and
Holstein 2002:490). Ethnomethodology obtains norms, understandings and
assumptions that are taken for granted by people in a setting, because people don’t
even think about why they do what they do. According to Barbie (2004:290),
ethnomethodology studies ‘social life that focuses on the discovery of implicit,
unusually spoken assumptions and agreements’ In this study, as a researcher, I
have taken special interest in observing naturally occurring situations where
people are thrust into new or unexpected situations that require them to make
sense of what is happening. Also, I have suspended my own beliefs in reality to
study the reality of the everyday life of those studied (Taylor and Bogdan 1984).
One of the great strengths of using qualitative research is that it allows the
gathering of valid data (Hakim 2000) and only with tremendous caution.
Individuals are interviewed in sufficient detail for the results to be taken as true,
correct, complete and believable as reports of their views and experiences and,
according to Boas (cited in Jennings 2001), the whole analysis of their experience
must be based on their concept and not of ours. But this has its drawbacks at an
ontological level because a small number of respondents cannot be taken as
representative of the total population even if great care is taken to choose a fair
cross-section of the type of people who are the subject of the study (Hakim 2000).
In this case, the data collection and analysis of Nacula district may not be
representative of what other outer islands may experience towards ecotourism.
Depending on the size of the sample, it may not even represent the whole district
either.
62
b) Quantitative Methodology
Quantitative methodology is associated with the paradigm of positivism and chaos
theory (Jennings 2001). On the paradigm of positivism, data gathered from
interviews allows a researcher to have the access to ‘facts’ about the world
(Silverman 2001) and to be able to establish causal relationship of cause and
effects. This, however, should be based on an explanation framework, which
assumes a realistic ontology; that is, that reality consists of a world of objectively
defined facts (Davidson and Tolich 1999; Henwood and Pidgeon 1993).
According to Silverman (2001), quantitative methods require the use of
standardized measures so that the varying perspectives and experiences of people
can fit into a limited number of predetermined response categories to which
numbers are assigned. This will allow the quantification of information gathered.
Quantifying information gathered, according to Patton (2002), allows the
possibility of measuring the reactions of a great number of people to a limited set
of questions, thus facilitating comparison and statistical aggregation of the data,
which thus gives a broad generalized set of findings presented succinctly and
parsimoniously. Henwood and Pidgeon (1993:15) supported this by stating that
‘quantification (the sum of standardization, measurements and number) is crucial
to the natural science approach because it renders the concepts embedded in
theoretical schemes or hypotheses observable, manipulated and tested’. They
further explained that ‘quantification is also taken as a necessary (if not always
sufficient) condition for the findings of research to be replicable and
generelizable, and for predictions upon the basis of observed regularities to be
made’.
When looking at the two different methodologies one can identify that they are
located at opposite ends of a continuum regarding world views that is in an
ontological position. For this reason, the present study has adopted a mixture of
63
qualitative and quantitative methods, or ‘methodological triangulation’ also
known as the mixed-method approach (Fielding and Fielding 1986).
c) Methodological Triangulation
Triangulation, according to Blaikie (1993), is not used merely to correct any bias
or to improve validity. It is used because ‘no single method ever adequately
solves the problem of rival causal factors, because each method reveals different
aspects of empirical reality, multiple methods of observations must be employed’
(Denzin 1978:28). In application to a researcher, triangulation plays a role in
increasing a researcher’s confidence so that findings may be better imparted to the
audience and to lessen recourse to the assertion of privileged insight. In other
words, it puts a researcher into a frame of mind to regard his or her own material
critically, to test it, identify its weaknesses and, to identify where to test further
doing something different (Fielding and Fielding 1986).
In Denzin’s systematic description of the types of triangulation, the
‘methodological triangulation’ was identified as consisting of two variants, the
‘within-methods’ and ‘between methods’. I have used the ‘within-methods’
triangulation whereby one method (interview) was applied to the collection of
data in the overall research but using multiple strategies (in-depth, semi-
structured, and unstructured) to increase reliability. This is a process that includes
borrowing and combining parts from pure methodological approaches (either
qualitative or quantitative), thus, creating mixed methodological strategies (Patton
1990).
Qualitative and quantitative methodologies could have been used individually;
instead, this research has approached it in a manner that has allowed the two
methodologies to complement each other. Fielding and Fielding (1986) argue that
qualitative work can assist quantitative work in providing a theoretical
framework, validating survey data, interpreting statistical relationships and
64
deciphering puzzling responses, selecting surveys to construct indices and
offering case-study illustration. Most social science research supporters,
according to Jennings (2001:133) have suggested that ‘mixing methods enables
the deficiency of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to be
overcome’. It is, however, important to consider when adopting a mixed-method
approach the differences between methods and the reasons for using each, the
focal point of the study, the key paradigm informing the study and the practical
research process (Greene et al. cited in Jennings 2001).
d) The Research as a Case Study
According to Yin (1994:13), a case study is ‘an empirical inquiry that investigates
a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the
boundaries between phenomena and context are not clearly evident’. Stake
(1995:xi), on the other hand, defines a case study as ‘the study of the particularity
and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within the
important circumstances’.
The case study is but one of several ways of doing social science research. Rather
than just obtaining people’s own accounts of situations and events, with reporting
of their own perspectives and feelings, a case study is concerned with obtaining a
rounded picture of a persons life, a situation, or events from the perspectives of all
the persons’ involved, usually by using a variety of methods and sources of
information (Hakim 2000).
Generally, case studies are ‘preferred strategies when ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions
are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and when the
focus is on contemporary phenomena within some real-life context’ (Yin
1994:14). The main reason for approaching the research as a case study is because
case studies are designed to achieve experimental isolation of selected social
65
factors or processes within a real-life context, so as to provide a strong test of
prevailing explanations and ideas (Hakim 2000).
Case studies use both exploratory and descriptive separately or at the same time.
This research overlaps the two into a single study (Lein cited in Hakim 2000). At
the beginning of the process of data collection, exploratory research was
emphasized because little was known about the area being studied. The fieldwork
was approached with a certain outlook including flexibility in looking for data and
open-mindedness about where to find it (Shaffir and Stebbins 1991). Flexibility
and open-mindedness are important when exploring a phenomenon under study,
about which, relatively little is known. Once enough information was gathered,
the research approach began to move into ‘descriptive’.
This case study has taken as its subjects the organization (ecotourism operators),
the community, and the social group (tourists) all of whom they have been studied
using a variety of data collection techniques. These subjects have been used as
sources of information that can provide evidence on the issues being studied with
reference to the experience of ecotourism. According to Hakim (2000:61),
‘whether a case study is descriptive or exploratory or is concerned with rigorous
tests of received ideas, the use of multiple sources of evidence and very often,
multiple investigators, makes a case study one of the most powerful research
designs’.
One of the drawbacks that a case study has for this research is that findings made
are specific only to the area of focus of the case study. Added to this, findings
cannot be generalized to other cases and may lead to hypothesis generalization.
THE RESEARCH METHODS
Both qualitative and quantitative methods have been used to collect data relevant
to the objectives of the overall research. The methods have been applied
66
differently according to the subjects selected for this study (tourists, communities,
and ecotourism operators).
In December 2004 (1st— 14th) a preliminary visit was made to the district of
Nacula in which two weeks was spent interviewing both the operators and
communities. All information gathered during this time was used as references to
develop the final questions for the interviews and questionnaires survey for the
actual visit in January 2005 (9th — 23rd) which also lasted two weeks. There were
eleven tourism operators and six villages surveyed located close to each other.
Questionnaires for the tourists were distributed during the actual visit in January
2005.
a) Interviews
Interviews are widely used in many contexts of social research and there have
been many different types identified by social researchers. An interview is a
research method that typically involves a researcher asking questions and
receiving answers from the people who are being interviewed. Of the three most
commonly used interview techniques, semi-structured was selected for qualitative
while structured (used in the interviewer-administered questionnaire survey) was
selected for quantitative.
i) Semi-structured Interviews
The semi-structure interview was selected as appropriate for this study because
the focus was the operation of ecotourism and how it is linked to environmental
conservation. Ecotourism by definition covers a whole range of environments
from cultural, social, and economic to the natural environment and because this
study has chosen to focus on the natural environment, predetermined questions
had to be used. These predetermined questions were rigidly structured in order to
avoid diversion to other issues regarding the operation of ecotourism that may not
67
necessarily be related to the objective of the research. The structure of the
questions was followed with every person interviewed thus allowing control
throughout the whole interviewing process (Powney and Watts 1987). A semi-
structured interview also had predetermined questions, but the order in which they
are used was modified upon the interviewer’s perception of what seems most
appropriate (Robson 2002).
Interviews were conducted personally on a face-face basis with either the
manager or the owner of the hotel, during both the preliminary and final visits. A
total of eleven operators were interviewed. Interviews were conducted by
appointments for each operator at their respective location lasting up to an hour. A
schedule was prepared beforehand and all questions were addressed during the
interview. The scope of interview was limited to predetermined themes
(ecotourism understanding—definition of ecotourism, ecotourism product, waste
management, agriculture, resource use, education and awareness programs,
contribution to conservation, planning process, challenges) in which the key
questions were developed in advance. The wordings used in the interview were
changed and explanations were given as to what each question meant. Some
questions that seemed to be inappropriate were omitted, while some new ones
were included during the process of the interview. Because not all interviewees
were comfortable using English, some of the interviews were conducted using the
common Fijian dialect (‘Bauan’) and were later transcribed by myself.
Field noting was made during the interview regarding the conversation and it was
also tape recorded in full. The tape recorder has allowed me, as an interviewer, to
capture so much more than I could obtain from the field notes or from
memorizing what was discussed. All tapes used were later transcribed while the
field notes were kept as record for referencing points that were not clear while
compiling the data.
Included in the interview was an introduction to what the research was all about
and why it was being conducted in the district of Nacula. This was often used as
68
an icebreaker at the beginning of every interview in order to give the person
interviewed an understanding of the research while at the same time start to build
a comfortable environment for him or her to be able to express his or herself
freely. Again at the end of every interview, interviewees were also given the
chance to ask any questions they wanted to in relation to the research.
The disadvantage of using this method was that it was time consuming and
difficult. This was because not every manager and owner of the operation was
available during the time set for the interview so visits to a site for a day had to be
rescheduled. Also, because the interview was conducted in Fijian for the local
operators, translating the questions used for the interview from English to Fijian
and than back to English was time consuming partly because of limitations in
Fijian vocabulary, making some words difficult to translate directly.
b) Questionnaire Survey
A survey research according to Bryman (1989:104) ‘entails the collection of data
on a number of units and usually at a single juncture in time, with a view to
collecting, systematically, a body of quantifiable data in respect of a number of
variables which are then examined to discern patterns of association’.
Two different types of questionnaire survey were used on the tourists and
communities.
i) Self-Administered Questionnaires
Self-administered questionnaires are also known as self-completion
questionnaires, and as the term suggests, are completed by the respondents.
Surveys that use self-completion questionnaires engage the participants (who in
this case were the tourists) in responding to and recording responses on the
questionnaire (Bouma and Ling 2004).
69
The questionnaire was structured as a mixture of closed, ranking and open-ended
questions format and was distributed to tourists who were spending their holidays
in Nacula by their hosting hotel. Questionnaires were placed on the help desk of
the hotels that participated in the study for tourists to voluntarily fill and return
after completion at anytime of the day. Most of the questionnaires were collected
personally by myself from the operators after the first week of January 2005 of
which I was visiting communities in Nacula while some were later mailed 1–2
weeks after I had left for Viti Levu. An introductory statement was placed at the
top of the first page of the question sheet and questions of demographic features
were grouped together with questions regarding individual engagement and
participation in ecotourism offered by the operators in Nacula.
Few weaknesses encountered in using self administered questionnaire were that
the distribution of the self-completion questionnaire to tourists was not monitored
and therefore I, as the interviewer, had no control over their return. Also, tourists
filling out the questionnaire did so at their own pace and time and some may not
have intended to hand it in even after completion. This resulted in a 57% (57 out
of 110) response rate rather than 100% as expected. In questionnaires that were
returned, some of the questions asked were unanswered and there was no way in
which they could be further clarified.
ii) Interviewer-Administered Questionnaires
These were conducted on-site with community members in their respective
residing villages. Each interview lasted at least an hour on an individual basis.
The questionnaire used was structured as open-ended, involving a face-to-face
interview with me as interviewer. Face-to-face interviews allow the interviewer to
ask questions in the presence of the respondents and at the same time to complete
the questionnaires (Robson 2002). All questions were written beforehand and
asked in the same order to all respondents. Questions used were different from
those used for the tourist survey. The questions asked were generally closed
70
questions in order to remove answers that may drift away from the focus of the
study. This meant that the respondents were allowed to answer the question from
any angle but that the issue should only be relevant to the study (ecotourism and
the natural environment). This is because some of the respondents diverted some
of their response to the political issues regarding the tourism operation within the
area of study, which I felt was not important to my research.
Each interview began with a self-introduction followed by an introduction of the
research and its intentions. Each question was read out to individuals interviewed
and they were given time to answer them. Also, time was given for the
respondents to ask questions at the end of the interview. Interviews were
conducted both in English and in Fijian for non-English speaking. A local
translator was available for translating the dialect of Yasawan to Baun and vice-
versa for people who could not speak Bauan. All Fijian information gathered and
recorded was translated into English for analysis. The use of the term
‘ecotourism’ was used directly as an English term in all interviews while the term
‘conservation’ was translated into Fijian as ‘na taqomaki ni yaubula’.
c) Observation
Observation was conducted more in the exploratory phase and according to
Robson (2002) such an exploratory phase is typically an unstructured form of
observation that seeks to find out what is going on in a situation as a precursor to
subsequent testing out of the insights obtained. Therefore observation in this study
was merely as a supportive method to collecting data and would complement
information already obtained earlier through the interview and survey.
Observation was also used as a form of collecting data that could not be obtained
from the other methods.
General observations were made on hotel operation set-up, the community’s
activities towards the use of their marine environment, evidence of environmental
71
displacement and tourism activities within the study site. The observations were
conducted during on- site visits throughout the two weeks of the survey in
January 2005.
The Sampling Design
An important factor in conducting this or any research was to identify and design
the best sampling methods, which would provide a good representative picture of
issues that may occur in regard to the operation of ecotourism in other parts of
Fiji.
a) Sampling Population
The population or study subjects selected for the study were drawn from within
the district of Nacula, which includes hotel operators, community members and
tourists.
The decision on the numbers to be sampled for operators and communities was
made after a preliminary visit was conducted to the study site. Currently, there are
at least 21 operators, in total, located within Nacula district and an average
number of 56 households in each of the community surveyed. The average
number of tourists received in a day by most of the operators around the area
(during the off-peak seasons) is around 15.
b) Sampling Method
A non-random purposive sampling method was used for both the operators’
interview and the selection of the community to be surveyed.
Of the 21 hotel operators that existed within the district of Nacula, only 11 were
selected for the interview. Two criteria were identified beforehand for the
72
operators in the sample. The first one, and most important, was that, the operator
interviewed should fully acknowledge and identify their operation as ecotourism.
If so, the operators must be operating as an ecotourism for more than 3 years.
This, I believe, is a reasonable time frame for operators to be able to share their
experiences on the progress of their operation as an ecotourism operator. A short
interview was carried out with all of the 21 operators in Nacula during the
preliminary visit in December 2004 (Appendix 1.0). Only operators that
acknowledged that they were ecotourism and were in operation for more than 3
years were short-listed for further investigation. No other criteria was used
because the focus of the study was to investigate how practical each operation
was as an ecotourism towards environmental conservation and so it was only
important at that time for an operator to agree that it was ecotourism and be able
to make an evaluation thereafter.
There are at least 10 communities within the district of Nacula and out of these, 6
were selected. The locations of these 6 communities were directly exposed to the
tourism activities that were happening within that area. Questionnaires were made
available to at least 10 people from each community. Also certain criteria were
identified for each respondent to identify if they were eligible for sampling. These
criteria were based on the age (at least 30 years and over) and the number of years
that they had spent in the community (should be at least more than 10) together
with their status as a ‘legal’ villager from that particular area. The age and
settlement criteria identified for the respondents has helped provide a more solid
source of information on the experiences of community members with respect to
environmental changes occurring within Nacula district before and after the
tourism operation began. Because of the limited number of people that were
available during the day of the survey, 10 people from each village were the
maximum I could encounter within a day. The sampling technique used to obtain
the 10 community members was the non-random snowball technique in which the
first two respondents sampled were asked to nominate others that they knew
would fit my criteria and then the list would go on until a total number of 10 were
73
reached. The snowball technique was used because I had little information on the
people (name and age) that I wanted and could sample prior to my visit and so I
had to depend on community members who knew each other better than I did.
As for the tourist survey, questionnaires were made available to the operators
interviewed and each operator was requested to distribute them voluntarily to
house guests. There were no criteria set out for those tourists who wanted to fill
the questionnaires but that any questionnaire filled should be returned to the hotel
help desk. Each operator was provided 10 questionnaires for distribution and of
the total 100 provided; only 55 were filled and returned. There was only one
operator that did not allow questionnaires to be distributed to their house guests.
The Data Collection, Recording and Analysis
All data were recorded using note taking of every interviews conducted and the
use of audio recording device. In each interview and questionnaire forms, spaces
were provided for writing responses or answers obtained.
Data collected were quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. For quantitative
analysis, data were first categorised to summarise the raw data. Data were then
coded and sorted into the categories identified. Each questionnaire received or
filled was assigned a number and, each response on the questionnaire was
assigned a numeric code (Caputi and Balvanves 2001; Robson 2002; Barbie
2001). This was applied to tourist survey and to some of the community
interviews that required a quantitative analysis. There were some variables in the
tourist survey that were already in numeric forms (ranking, age group, duration of
stay, contribution to conservation) but for those variables that were not, numeric
coding was assigned. There were some variables that were clustered together, as
accounting for each variable would be space consuming on the database, for
example diving and snorkelling, Q10 (Appendix 4.0) were combined and assigned
a number; coral reefs and marine life in Q11 (Appendix 4.0) were combined and
74
assigned a title as marine environment; while sandy beach and coastal vegetation
were also grouped as coastal environment and assigned a number. The numeric
coding given to each response ranged mostly from 1–5 and this would increase
depending on the number of different answers obtained from various questions.
Answers from the open-ended questions (tourist and community questionnaires)
were first categorized into the most common responses and were then assigned a
number next to it as its’ code. For example, community questionnaire - Q12
(Appendix 3.0), common answers obtained were litter, sewage, oil slicks,
damaged reefs and algae growth and for each of this answer, they were assigned a
number from 1 to 5 as their code. Each key answer was tallied as to how many
individuals responded to it.
Once all the coding was done, data were then entered into an excel spreadsheet. A
basic statistical analysis (averages, mean, and percentages) was carried out
conclusions were presented visually as bar graph and pie charts as presented in
the finding chapter and as appendix.
A descriptive framework analysis also known as ‘descriptive accounts of
situation’ was used in the case of operators and community. Interviews were
descriptively analysed to give account for each situation investigated. Added to
this, various patterns, processes, commonalities and differences were identified
and tabulated. Generalizations were also made in order to explain various themes
and relationships identified in the data gathered.
LIMITATIONS
All methods have limitations. For this study some of the common limitations
encountered were:
• An average response rate (55% - 55 out of 100 questionnaires distributed),
combined with the fact that some questions were not answered, provided a limited
base for generalization
75
• Finding the right vocabulary to translate the question from English into Fijian, as
Fijian was sometimes limited with respect to the jargon. Added to this, the
common dialect spoken among community members is Yasawan, making the
questioning and understanding the response difficult and time consuming as I had
little knowledge of their dialect
• Finding the time for me as a researcher to get back to those that could not be
interviewed or surveyed during a day’s schedule
• Determining the availability of people for the interview and survey, as I did not
want my visit to alter or disturb a person’s normal activity day.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Allowing ethical balance in all research permits a researcher to balance their
obligations to promote intellectual freedom and contribution to knowledge with
fair treatment of the people to whom these obligations are owed and to whom the
knowledge is to be distributed (Jennings 2001).
In conducting this research various ethical issues were considered before, during
and after collecting the data. Before making the visits to the study sites,
permission was obtained from those involved (the hotel owners, the Tui Drola and
the Turaga ni Yavusa of each of the community surveyed) in the interview and
questionnaire survey. Written letters were initially sent out to the hotel operators
prior to visits, while a traditional ‘sevusevu’ was conducted to the Tui Drola and
also to the Turaga ni Yavusa of every communities surveyed, in accordance with
Fijian traditional protocol.
During the process of collecting data, voluntary participation was encouraged by
those who wanted to participate in the interview or questionnaire surveys.
Participants from communities and operators were reminded that they were free to
withdraw at any time without penalty, as the focus was not to pressure them to
76
participate. Tourists, on the other hand, were free to make their choices before
filling in their questionnaires.
On all grounds, the confidentiality of ‘who said what’ was taken into account and
respected in the community survey, because most respondents felt that their
response to a question could be indecent towards somebody else (within
communities and operators) as this was one of the strategies to avoid respondents
becoming less forthcoming or open. The privacy of individuals was respected and
therefore names were not put on to any of the survey forms.
Interviews conducted with the hotel operators were treated with anonymity, so
that a response made cannot be identified to a given respondent. Added to this,
findings made in this report will be submitted to hotel operators and also
communities in Nacula district.
SUMMARY
After evaluating both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the triangulation
method (or the combination of both) was selected as the most productive
methodology for this study. Qualitative work can help assist quantitative work in
providing a theoretical framework, validating survey data, interpreting statistical
relationships and decoding puzzling responses, selecting surveys to construct
indices and offering case study illustration (Fielding and Fielding 1986).
Regardless of this, there were still a few limitations encountered during the
process of the collection of data because one cannot control the ontological world.
The case study and data were collected using interviews (semi-structured),
questionnaire surveys (self-administered and interview administered), and
observation. Each of these techniques had some degree of weakness. Three
populations were selected and sampled (tourist, community and resort operators)
using different sampling methods. Non-random purposive sampling was used for
77
both hotel operators’ interview and the selection of the community to survey.
With the community, the sampling of community members was conducted using
non-random snowball sampling. The sampling of tourists was more random.
Data analysis was carried out using the numeric coding system and percentage
analysis for quantitative data (tourist and community survey) while descriptive
framework analysis was used for qualitative data (operators’ interview).
Three areas where this research ethics were considered related to the consent of
those involved; voluntary participation, confidentiality and anonymity.
Because not all research is perfect, this study therefore allows the opportunity for
recommendation on how the study could have been better approached or could be
later conducted elsewhere in any other outer islands of Fiji where tourism is
actively engaged. Conducting the study only within the district of Nacula may not
be 100% representative of the engagement of communities towards the
development of ecotourism but it is designed to help provide an indicative insight
into the perceptions and practices of ecotourism in Fiji.
78
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FINDINGS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the findings made in the overall research, which is discussed
further in the next chapter. The findings are presented under specific headings
with some graphical illustrations.
In order to study and understand the experiences of ecotourism in Nacula and to
identify the emphasis placed on environmental conservation, four key questions
are highlighted in the presentation of the findings, which has helped construct a
clear understanding of the specific objectives raised for the purpose of this
research. They are:
1. how do tourism operators interpret the practice of ecotourism?
2. how do members of villages within the Nacula Tikina District interpret
ecotourism?
3. how do both the tourism operators and communities actually put ecotourism
into practice, based on the practical approach of operators and the
involvement of communities as a whole to the development of ecotourism
within the area?
4. how are tourists engaged and involved themselves as ecotourists?
5. what is the contribution of the tourism operators, community and tourists to
ecotourism in the context of environmental conservation?
To build an understanding of these questions, other key issues are highlighted and
discussed as part of the findings in this chapter.
79
THE OPERATION OF ECOTOURISM IN NACULA DISTRICT
a) THE TOURISM OPERATORS
i) Background of the Operators
The title ecotourism has been adopted by many of the tourism operators in Nacula
district over the last 3–5 years. Most operators existing in Nacula have been in
operation over 5 years but it was only until recently that some of them had
converted their operation from just a backpacking operation to an ecotourism
operation.
Of the total 21 operators existing within Nacula, 11 stated in the interview that
they were ecotourism for many reasons. Six of the operators were identified as
locally owned and managed (Otto’s and Fanny’s, Coral View Resort, Nabua
Lodge, Gold Coast, Sunrise Lagoon, Melbravo); 2 were foreign owned and
managed (Turtle Island, Tavewa Dive Operator, Seaspray) while 2 even though
was locally owned, it was foreign managed (Safe Landing and Oarsman’s Bay).
All of these operators offer basic accommodation facilities like other hotels,
except the dive operator, to backpackers or visiting tourists and of which they also
offer outdoor activities such as: snorkelling (manta ray watching, dolphin safari),
fishing trip or game fishing, island and reef hopping, cave visit, Blue Lagoon
visit, and mountain hiking. To these operators such activities are highlighted as
ecotourism because they believe that it offers tourists an experience with nature.
Most of the operators interviewed were active members of the NTTA when it was
first established but in the last three years, only at least four were still considered
as active members (Turtle Island, Safe Landing, Oarsman’s Bay, Coral View,
Tavewa Dive Operator) while the rest have not been involved to a great extend.
80
ii) The Interpretation or Understanding of ‘Ecotourism’
Operators were individually interviewed so as to obtain information regarding
their understanding of the term ecotourism. They were therefore asked to define
ecotourism in their own words or else describe what they felt or thought was
suppose to be the meaning of the term (Q1– Appendix 2.0).
Most definitions described were common to each other but with emphasis on
different aspects of the term. A few of the examples are listed:
Example One: Operator 1
‘I understand that ecotourism is about showing tourists our culture for them to learn and
respect and when tourists come into communities, they provide them some form of
appreciation in which Fijians will then value their culture more and maintain it…..also
ecotourism is about looking after the environment and all activities practiced by any
operation is environment friendly’
Example Two: Operator 4
‘ecotourism to me, means looking after our culture and protecting our environment and
when we bring in more tourists to see them, we should be sure that the culture or the
environment is not affected…..an ecotourism operation must also be offering
accommodations made from natural resources around us so that we don’t cause a lot of
pollutions to the environment if we used other kinds of materials and the same time we
are also providing tourists to share an experience in living in the kind of houses that
locals live in’
Example Three: Operator 5
‘ecotourism is about protecting and respecting your culture and allowing the chance for
tourist to see it and also managing your rubbish well’
81
Example Four: Operator 9
‘ecotourism means educating the locals to protect and look after their environment and in
that way they will be able to manage their rubbish and not dump it into the sea’
Example Five: Operator 11
‘ecotourism I think means looking after the interest of your environment and that
whatever tourism practices one performs should be friendly to the environment instead of
increasing pollution’
These definitions, together with those identified by some other operators not
identified as example, were grouped to provide the common characteristics found
in each definition and they are summarized in Table 5.1.
The analysis showed that the definitive characteristics of ecotourism were related
to: culture (selected by 4 operators); the conservation of natural environment
(selected by 4 operators); the educational component placed on the environment
(selected by 3 operators); the management of litter (selected by 3 operators);
economic gain of communities from operators (selected by 2 operators);
environment-friendly practices (selected by 7 operators); and finally as a form
sustainable tourism (selected by 2 operators) (see Table 5.1). The environmental
friendly practices identified by the operators were referred to as: a tourism
operation that does not intend to pose any environmental threats, such as
pollution, to the people around the area; using the environment as naturally as
possible to entertain tourists; and building accommodations that uses natural
resources, which also reflects the originality of the types of houses that locals live
in.
82
Operators were later asked to identify a definition that they could relate to their operation or business set-up using a list of
definitions that was provided to them (Q2–Appendix 2.0), just to see if it was any different to how they generally understood
what ecotourism meant.
83
Operator Number
Characteristics 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Cultural √ √ √ √
Conservation of
natural environment
√ √ √ √
Educational √ √ √
Management of
Litter
√ √ √ √
Community benefits √ √
Environment-
friendly practices
√ √ √ √ √ √ √
Sustainable tourism √ √
Table 5.1: Analysis of definitions identified by individual operator interviewed.
Table 5.2 Ecotourism definition selected by operators as applicable to their
operation
Definition Number Choosing
Queensland Government (1997) 0
The International Ecotourism
Society (2003)
2
Ceballos–Lascurain (1987) 1
Thaman (2001) 3
Honey (1999) 0
Evans-Pritchard and Salazar
(1992)
0
Ross and Wall (1999) 0
Australian Conservation
Foundation (1994)
0
Boo (1990) 1
Wearing and Neil (1999) 0
Valentine (1993) 0
Harrison (1999) 4
Ecotourism Australia (2003) 0
From the list of definitions provided by different authors, five were selected as
described below:
a) Purposeful travel to maintained areas, to understand the culture and natural
history of the environment, taking care not to alter the integrity of the
ecosystem, while at the same time producing opportunities that make the
conservation of natural resources beneficial to local people (The International
Ecotourism Society 2003).
b) Tourism that consists of travelling to undisturbed or uncontaminated natural
areas with the specific objective of studying, admiring and enjoying the
scenery and its wild plants and animals, as well as any existing cultural
manifestations.
84
(Ceballos–Lascurain, 1987).
c) A form of tourism activity that gains for a country, a tourist enterprise and
local communities, cash income, foreign exchange or other assistance required
to make life safer, healthier, more productive and more enjoyable while at the
same time focusing on the uniqueness, beauty and knowledge of the natural
and cultural environment and the links that local communities have to the
environment as a central tourist attraction or beneficial learning experience
and as a resource that should be protected, restored and used sustainably for
the benefit of future generations (Thaman 2001).
d) An activity that can stimulate the economy and generate direct funding for
conservation, as well as provide employment and entrepreneurial
opportunities that justifies the conservation of natural areas and the protection
of assets upon which the industry depends (Boo 1990).
e) A form of nature-based tourism which involves responsible travel to relatively
undeveloped areas to foster an appreciation of nature and local cultures, while
conserving the physical and social environment, respecting the aspirations and
traditions of those visited, and improving the welfare of the local people
(Harrison 1999).
The definitions of ecotourism selected above, to indicate the practicality of the
operators, are quite similar to the definitions generally described earlier. Those
operators that selected the definitions (a) and (b) felt that it was practical to them
because they were offering activities believed to be focused on: learning about the
culture of the local people in Yasawa; and how natural the physical environment
was for tourists to enjoy while visiting.
For example in an interview with one of the operators, he stated that:
‘my operation I would say is ecotourism because it offers activities such as village visits
which allows a chance for tourists to learn about our culture…during village visits, ladies
85
perform traditional dances which tourists can see and learn about…also we take them out
for snorkelling and cave visits so they could enjoy the natural environment we are
providing them with’
Operators that selected definition (b) and (c) on the other hand felt that these
definition was practical to them because their operation was allowing the
opportunity to bring in more tourists and in that way they were providing more
employment to the locals especially and also a chance to protect the environment.
For example, an operator interviewed stated that:
‘my operation over the years has provided job opportunities to many young males and
female from Nacula…I believe my operation is ecotourism because it is providing
employment to the young locals and because of this, it has helped encouraged them to
learn about how tourists look after the environment while they are here to use it and they
would then take what they have learnt from tourists and deliver it back to their own
community’
The majority of the operation that selected definition (e) felt it was practical to
them because their operation was allowing tourists to travel to an area that was
pristine with white sandy beaches and a very tropical environment with very little
development made and nature was the only source of attraction in the area. Added
to this, it was also because they were providing activities that were involved in
experiencing the local culture.
For example in the interview of one of the operator:
‘my operation is practical to this definition because tourists come and stay in Nacula to
enjoy the natural sandy beaches and climate and this is what we provide to them…I have
activities offered such as snorkelling and reef hoping or island hoping where tourists
would just go out to have picnics on the beach and enjoy the sun…using our natural
resources is the only thing we have….also we send tourists out on village visits to learn
about how locals here live… For one thing when tourists go and visit these sites (the
beach and community) it gives them a feeling of appreciation and in that way they will
end up wanting to protect it’
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In summary, eight operators had sites allocated for the type of water activities
they offer, while two did not have any, and one had no idea at all, (even though
they had also offered water activities such as snorkelling or fishing trips to their
guests) (Q4). The project or activity sites mentioned here were referred to those
sites allocated or marked by operators mostly for snorkelling or fishing (Q3).
Most of these sites are located either at Blue Lagoon Island or along the reefs
adjacent to their hotel location. There was no baseline inventory assessment
conducted at any of the project sites used as indicated by the operators (Q5). This
was similar to the question on whether the use of the sites was ever monitored
over the years when it was initially identified and used as an activity site.
Nevertheless, some operators (marked as * in Table 5.3) use general observations
rather than a formal monitoring process to notice the changes made within and
around a site.
In order to understand how each operator was using the marine environment to
accommodate the types of ecotourism activities they offer to their guests, they
were asked to identify the following areas summarized in Table 5.3.
iii) The Use of the Marine Environment
Overall, the definitions later selected have been focused on learning the culture,
travelling to a natural environment, conserving the cultural and physical
environment and providing benefits to local communities. Because the focus of
the study is on the emphasis of conservation in ecotourism, only a set of key
factors have been used to investigate how operators have adopted or approached
them individually as suppose to an ecotourism operator. These factors are
described later in this section and they include the types of tourism products
offered, environmental and awareness programs offered, contribution towards
conservation, and an evaluation how each business have been set-up.
87
Table 5.3: Summary of the responses made to Questions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (Appendix 2.0). The numbering order of the operators provided
in this table is not similar to that of Table 5.1.
Operator Do you have a
project or activity
site
Activity types
offered
Activity site location Any baseline
inventory
assessment
conducted prior to
site use
Are sites
used
monitored
How are the sites used Are there any
written
regulations or
code of conduct
applied
1
Yes: 3
Snorkelling
Fish feeding
Yanitu Reef
Blue Lagoon
Reefs outside resort
None
*None
Shared-operators
Open use and
number
No: but verbal
reminder
2
No: but have sites
for water activities
Snorkelling
Blue Lagoon
Reefs outside resort
None
*None
Shared-operators
Open use and
number
No: but verbal
reminder
3
Yes: 1
Snorkelling for
manta ray and
sharks
Game fishing
Reef adjacent to resort
Outside reefs
None
None
Number limitation
(Max. 6 guests per trip per day)
Zoning Shared-operators
No: but verbal
advice
4
No idea
Fishing trip
No idea
None
None
Open use No: but verbal
advice
89
Table 5.3 Continue
Operator Do you have a
project or activity
site
Activity
types offered
Activity site
location
Any baseline
inventory
assessment
conducted prior
to site use
Are sites
used
monitored
How are the sites used Are there any written
regulations or code of
conduct applied
5
Yes: 4
Snorkelling
2- Tavewa Reef
1- Nanuya Lailai
1- Yanuyanu Lala
None
*None
Rotational use
Number limitation
Shared-operators
No: but verbal
briefing
6 Yes: 1 Snorkelling Blue Lagoon None None Open use Nothing at all
7
Yes: 3
Snorkelling-
Reef
hopping
Blue Lagoon
Reefs outside
resort
None
None
Rotational use
Open number
Shared-operators
Yes: Snorkelling
guidelines provided
(NTTA snorkelling
guideline-pamphlets)
8
Yes: 3
Snorkelling-
Reef
hopping
Cabbage Reef-
outside resort
Blue Lagoon
None
None
Open use and number
Shared-operators
Yes: Snorkelling
guidelines provided
(NTTA snorkelling
guideline pamphlets)
9
No: but have sites
for water activities
Snorkelling
Nearshore reef
outside resort
None
None
Open use and number
Shared-operators &
communities
No: but verbally
reminder
90
Operator Do you have a
project or activity
site
Activity types
offered
Activity site location Any baseline
inventory
assessment
conducted prior to
site use
Are sites
used
monitored
How are the
sites used
Are there any written
regulations or code of
conduct applied
10
Yes: 1
Mangrove Walk
Island Tour
Near lodge premises None None No answer Yes: Snorkelling
guidelines provided in
handbook
11 Yes: 30+ Diving Reefs all around
Nacula
None None Rotational
use
No: but verbal reminder
91
Table 5.3 Continue
92
It was common for most operators to share and use a similar site over time while some
practiced rotational use (Q6) or zoning system. Seven of the operators indicated that,
they allow either open-use or open-number to their sites, meaning that there were no
kinds of restrictions imposed on the use of any of these sites so tourists or other
operators were allowed to use any of the sites at any given time.
Rotational use was practised by only two operators overall, meaning that the use of a
site was rotated every week. A site used today won’t be again used the next day for
snorkelling or for any other types of activities. There was only one operator that
practiced the zoning system. Zoning, in this case, referred to the allocation of a site to
facilitate only one type of activity throughout instead of having all activities
concentrated at that one site. For example, a site used for game fishing was different
from a site used for snorkelling.
The majority of the operators interviewed did not have any written regulation or code
of conduct made available to their guests (Q7), although, guests were often verbally
reminded of the do’s and don’ts before any snorkelling, diving or upon arrival at the
resort as part of their briefing program. These do’s and don’ts, similar for every
operator, are simply, ‘do observe but do not touch anything (mostly corals) while
snorkelling or diving’. Two operators were using similar guidelines and code of
conduct for snorkelling, which was part of the NTTA’s (Nacula Tikina Tourism
Association) code of responsible tourism practice. There was, however, only one
operator that had developed their very own snorkelling guidebook, which they made
available to their guests, in the hope that they will read it prior to a snorkelling trip.
iv) Environmental Education and Awareness Programs
The level of environmental knowledge (Q9) expressed by individual operators ranged
from having-no knowledge at all, to being-fully knowledgeable. Environmental
knowledge, in this case, was based on how operators felt was their understanding of the
93
interaction between what occurs on land and its impact on the marine environment.
From the interview, eight operators felt that they were slightly knowledgeable, one was
fully knowledgeable, and one admitted knowing nothing at all. The five operators that
felt they were slightly knowledgeable mostly related their knowledge to the effects of
littering the marine environment, and the effects of land alteration for development.
Two of the operators (marked as * in Table 5.4) on the other hand, even though they
stated that they were slightly knowledgeable, could not identify any information of
what they knew because they felt that they still had a lot to learn.
The one operator (operator 10) that claimed to be fully knowledgeable simply described
in the interview that:
‘I feel that the Management and the Supervisors of our resort fully understand the impacts of
unfriendly land-based environment practices and how it affects the marine environment,
particularly solid waste management. The staffs are well versed as well: it is a matter of
ignorance from their part, which I believe requires the need for more awareness and training,’
Table 5.4: Summary of the responses made to Questions 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 (Appendix 2.0)
Operator Level of
Environmental
Knowledge
Staff Training and
Awareness Programs
Personnel Training of
Tourist Guides
Education in Environmental
Conservation to Tourists
Education in Environmental
Conservation to Communities
1 Slightly
knowledgeable
None No * Yes: introductory briefing No
2 Slightly
knowledgeable
None No No No
3 Slightly
knowledgeable
Yes No * Yes: introductory briefing No
4 *Slightly
knowledgeable
None No No No
5 Slightly
knowledgeable
None No * Yes: but in briefing No
6 Slightly
knowledgeable
None No * Yes: but in briefing No
7 None None No * Yes: basic briefing No
8 *Slightly
knowledgeable
None No No No
9 Slightly
knowledgeable
None No No No
95
Operator Level of
Environmental
Knowledge
Staff Training and
Awareness Programs
Personnel Training of
Tourist Guides
Education in Environmental
Conservation to Tourists
Education in
Environmental
Conservation to
Communities
10 Fully knowledgeable Still in the process No Yes No
11 Question was not
applied
None Yes * Yes: but in briefing prior to a
trip
No
96
Table 5.4 Continue
There was no environmental training or education provided to any staff (Q10)
because, as identified by one of the operators, most of their staffs are local and
they already have some form of traditional knowledge about their environment
and how they can protect it. For the one operator that did provide some form of
staff training and awareness program, it was often conducted very briefly during
their staff meetings.
For example, in an interview:
‘Yes, I try and do that every morning in my staff meeting. I would normally meet on
staff’s movement of the day and then I would try and find space to give little tips on some
environmental issues. I don’t conduct it as a big classroom learning or training, but I offer
it on a small basis. The staff training covers bits and pieces of some friendly
environmental practices like litter especially’ (Operator 3)
Almost all operators, except one, indicated that they provided no personnel
training of tourist guide (Q11). The only operator that did provide some form of
training simply stated that:
‘Our staffs are taught of the things taught to our guests . . .we basically train our staff to
identify various marine animals that tourists would like to know. Because our workers are
not so well informed themselves, we have only gone to the level of knowing the general
names of these species’ (Operator 11)
There were only seven operators that indicated to have provided education to
tourists on environmental conservation (Q12), while to communities (Q13) this
was not practised at all. Education was only provided to tourists while arriving at
the hotels. From an observation, the contents of the information provided, as
education, did not consider any ecological and biological processes that occur in
the environment. The information was more of how tourists should practice safe
and responsible snorkelling (operators with * in Table 5.4). Four of the operators
that provided no environmental education at all (operator 2, 4, 8, and 9), felt that
tourists already had better knowledge on environmental conservation than they
97
did and so there was no need to educate them. There was only one operator that
described the outfit’s education content as:
‘during the island tour, guests are told how we value our natural environment,
particularly the conservation of our trees, plants and marine life, and they are educated as
to how they could use and treat it. When I take the island tour, I briefly explain to tourists
the ecological importance of various important plants around us especially for mangroves
when our guests go for a mangrove boardwalk’ (Operator 10)
The reason why some of the operators could not provide education to
communities was because they were not informed well enough about
environmental conservation to be able to pass on the information to others.
v) Contribution to Conservation
Taking an active role in contributing to the conservation of the marine
environment around Nacula district (Q14) is an initiative that all operators have
expressed great interest and support in. However, they feel that there is a need
first to build the knowledge of the operators and the communities about the
concepts of conservation, and how both parties can work together. Education is a
component that is lacked by both operators and communities. Despite this,
operators feel that their support and effort could be used in terms of: help form an
organization that can help look after the marine environment; conducting
monitoring activities related to the use of the marine environment, especially for
water traffic; donating funds that can help facilitate conservation programs such
as raising awareness and environmental education for both tourists and
communities; advocating community involvement and networking among all
stakeholders (operators, communities and tourists); and finally, helping formulate
conservation strategies that all operators can adopt in their operation.
98
99
Most of the operators have indicated that taking an active role in conservation is
promising and challenging. There are interests expressed by operators regarding
monetary contribution towards conservation, and a majority feels that the money
handling responsibility should be bestowed to communities, while some feel that
it should go to the operators. Money obtained should be allocated to community
projects, education, management and enforcement of marine protected areas.
vi) Business Set-Up
There was no planning process involved in the initial physical set-up of individual
operations (Q16). For each operator, the physical set-up or layouts on the number
and location of buildings, were made according to the following: tourist
preferences and demand on accommodation view (e.g. backyard view, seaview,
garden view, privacy); availability of space to extend buildings; and finally the
ideas and recommendations made from families and friends regarding building
set-up.
Operators interviewed were all aware of the environmental damages that could
result from mismanagement practices (Q17), but, only one operator had a
contingency plan that ‘states in detail all risk incurred with all activities on island
and the plan of action to take should something happen’ (quoted from interview).
Table 5.5: The summary of the responses made to Questions 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23 and 24 (Appendix 2.0)
Operator Planning Process Availability of
Contingency Plans
Conservation
Strategies in
Place
Rubbish Disposal Agriculture Resource Use from
the Marine
Environment
1 None None None Compost, Recycle, Burn & Bury Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
Coral extraction
2 None None None Reuse, Compost, Bury Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
Rock extraction
3 None None None Bury, Recycle, Compost Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
Seaweed manure
4 None None None Compost, Burn, Mainland
Delivery
Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
Seaweed manure
5 None None None Reuse, Compost Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
6 None None None Compost, Recycle, Burn & Bury Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
7 None None None Compost, Bury, Mainland
Delivery, Recycle
Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
100
Operator Planning Process Availability of
Contingency Plans
Conservation
Strategies in
Place
Rubbish Disposal Agriculture Resource Use from
the Marine
Environment
8 None None None Compost, Bury & Burn Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
9 None None None Compost, Burn & Bury,
Mainland Delivery
Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
Coral extraction
Rock extraction
10 No answer Yes: Environment
Management Plan and
Sustainability (EMP)
Yes: Incorporated
into EMP
Environment
friendly
Sand extraction
11 Not applicable Not applicable None Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable
101
Table 5.5 Continued
The response made by other operators on why there was no contingency plan
available was because they did not see any evidence of environmental damage to
allow them to establish a plan. This was also a reason as to why none of operators
had any conservation strategies in place (Q18).
Three of the most common rubbish disposal methods practised (Q19) by all
operators since establishment are burn and bury, compost, recycle and reuse. The
types of rubbish burnt or buried consist of plastic bags, plastic bottles and glass
bottles. Many plastic bottles are distributed to communities for water storage,
while some are transported back to factories in the mainland. Those that are
transported back to mainland are often packed in large plastic bags and a person
conducting a supply run would deliver these bags mostly to factories in Lautoka
where they are purchased and recycled. This is only done in the interest of
individual operators. It is a similar case for can-drinks. Food wastes are often
composted.
The agricultural activities practised by all operators are described as environment
friendly because no artificial fertilizer is used for the maintenance of food or
flower gardens. Most of the operators extract to use various resources from the
marine environment such as sand, corals, rocks, and seaweed for different
purposes. Sand extraction was identified common to all operators. This is because
sand was always used for construction such as the cementing of walls and floors.
It was also used as sand flooring for most accommodation units. Corals (in dead
forms) were mostly used as absorbers of wastewater in toilet septic tanks while
rocks or stone on the other hand has been used for sea wall construction.
vii) Experiences
For operators who choose to follow the ecotourism path, some of the challenges
and opportunities (Q25–Appendix 2.0) are:
• Finding financial support from the government for business expansion
• Working with other operators to improve the use of the marine environment
and reducing it’s negative impacts
• Networking amongst operators on best practices and guidelines
• Managing litter or rubbish, as this has been a major problem within the area
• Expanding the business and encouraging tourism
• Communication amongst ecotourism operators on different areas of interest
in order to expand operation
• Communicating conservation to communities and gaining their support
• Building an understanding of how to be better ecotourism operators and the
involvement that comes with it.
b) THE COMMUNITIES
i) Background Summary
Under the Traditional Fishing Rights Act (1992), local indigenous Fijians are
identified as the custodians of their respective fishing grounds. The distribution of
fishing grounds among many local communities of Fiji is a very complex issue.
For example, the fishing ground of one district belongs only to villages that come
under that district meaning other villages of the same province do not have any
rights in the fishing grounds. The fishing grounds of a local community (known as
i qoliqoli) are distributed according to the district (tikina) they exist. Within a
district, each community has its own fishing area known as i kanakana.
In the case of Nacula, each of the communities surveyed was aware of the district
fishing boundary (from casual conversation with communities) but many were not
familiar with the boundary for each individual community (Q2–Appendix 3.0). It
was generally understood and respected that the ownership of the fishing grounds
within Nacula was used and shared largely by everybody within the whole
district. Any community within the district has the right and is entitled to use any
103
part of the reef located within Nacula even if it was in the vicinity of another
community’s fishing ground.
The total number of well-known marine sites used for tourism activities, as
reported by communities, is more than 10 and this is likely to increase as the
development of tourism around the area progresses. These sites are often used by
tourist operators such as cruise ships and resort operators for various day trip
activities (diving, snorkelling, kayaking, and many water-related activities). Aside
from this, the majority of these sites are also used by local communities for
subsistence purposes (Q4–Appendix 3.0).
How communities use the marine environment
Apart from the dependency on the marine environment for sustenance, the
harvesting of ornamental marine products has also been one of the major activities
commonly practised more by many communities over the last 15–20 years. These
products are mostly shells yega (Lambis lambis), davui (Triton sp), bulibuli
(Cypraea sp), vasua (Tridacna sp), turtle shells and corals, which are often sold to
tourists during a community market day (Q9–Appendix 3.0). Community market
day is a popular event, whereby tourists come into the village for a day visit while
community members would display their handicrafts for sale. The visit is often
frequented in turns by cruise ships (Captain Cook and Blue Lagoon) and hotel
operators.
From discussions with communities, it seems that this activity has been identified
as one of the major income source for many households (apart from employment
opportunities offered by local hotel operators). Communities target ornamental
marine products because they find that tourists are fascinated by them. Cash
income made from this is often spent on food, education, travelling, household
necessities and most importantly, community expenses (church donation) as
104
stated by 98% of the households questioned during the pre-visit (Q5–Appendix
1.0).
Most marine ornamental products are harvested by hand on reef flats during reef
gleaning, Metal rods are used to break corals in situations were shells are located
deep within coral heads or are hard to reach (Q9–Appendix 3.0). Most commonly,
when a person goes out fishing, he or she looks forward to coming back with lots
of shells even though no intention was made for harvesting on a day’s fishing trip.
Most of the catch is live. Many reefs that are being targeted, have been used for
many years as fishing sites for communities, and became extensively used for
harvesting shells when cruise ships arrived at the Yasawa Islands in the late
1970s. These reefs are mostly located close to communities (300–400 metres
walking distance).
Community Initiatives towards Environmental Conservation
Currently no local environmental conservation practices developed or are in place
within communities, regarding either the marine or terrestrial environment (Q10–
Appendix 3.0) even though the NTTA was established to look after the safe and
sound practices of Nacula tourism operation toward communities and their
environment. Management of litter has been emphasized to a great extent by the
NTTA to both operators and communities but there has been no monitoring or
enforcement of this at community level because communities were still
complaining of litter around Nacula. The use of dynamite (a destructive fishing
method often reported in the Yasawa) has been banned in all communities while
the use of duva (a common used poisonous plant fiber and compressor for
catching fish) has been discouraged but not enforced. At certain times, tradition,
such as the death of chiefs, has caused restrictions on the use of the marine
environment for a period of time.
No future plans have been identified for any conservation efforts in relation to the
tourist and community use of the marine environment (Q11–Appendix 3.0).
105
Communities have not felt the importance to talk with each other about the
current state of their qoliqoli, how to begin managing its use, or even to
implement ideas regarding environmental conservation.
Generally, if a conservation issue was identified, communities felt that it would be
important to involve the individuals within the community, as everybody should
be accountable for their own practices. From observation, imposing conservation
activities in the community would be difficult because the level of education and
awareness amongst the communities is very low. In addition, many community
members interviewed have very little knowledge and understanding of how their
qoliqoli could be affected by their individual practices. The majority of people
believe that as long as money was coming into the community conservation was
not a priority. There was very little networking and communication between
communities and the operators concerning the protection of the environment (Q6–
Q8 –Appendix 3.0).
ii) Research Findings from the Communities
Overview
A total of sixty community members were interviewed (10 from each community-
5 male and 5 female) from the six communities visited. All those selected for the
interview do not hold any customary titles in communities and neither do they
hold a hotel ownership or shares. Fifty-two percent of those interviewed were of
the age 30-35 while forty percent were between 36 and 40 and eight percent were
between 41 and 45. All community members interviewed are subsistence
fishermen or fisherwomen and were not involved in any form of hotel
employment.
106
All responses were written out in statements as obtained from each interview and
in each statement, commonalities were highlighted and were then tabulated under
various titles to provide an overall summary. Under each title, how many
respondents in their own respective community stated their definition as such and
this was calculated in percentages.
When approaching this question to community members, about 64.9% of the
respondents stated that they had heard the term ‘ecotourism’ (Q1–Appendix 3.0)
at some point mentioned within the community by hotel operators or by tourists,
and of this number 23.0% stated that they did not know what the term meant at all
while the others (41.9%) who thought that they knew of the definition described it
as summarized in table 5.6 below.
Local Understanding: Defining ‘Ecotourism’
107
Definition
Community
Tourism-related
activities %
Tourism
development %
Conservation of the natural
environment %
Respecting and learning the cultural
environment %
Community
development %
1 33.3 33.3 0 0 33.3
2 0.0 40.0 40.0 60.0 60.0
3 0.0 33.3 33.3 33.3 33.3
4 20.0 50.0 30.0 40.0 70.0
5 20.0 50.0 30.0 50.0 80.0
6 25.0 62.5 0.0 50.0 62.5
Total 98.3 269.1 133.3 233.3 339.1
Table 5.6: The definitions of ecotourism identified from the survey by respondents and the numbers choosing them, displayed in
percentages.
Figure 5.1 Percentage distributions of the different areas defining ecotourism as
identified by communities.
9%
27%
12%22%
30%
Tourism relatedactivities
Tourismdevelopment
Conservationn ofthe naturalenvironmentRespecting &learning culture
Communitydevelopment
‘Tourism-related activities’ were defined as activities tourists engaged in while
visiting the area, such as diving, snorkelling, island picnics, boat cruising, game
fishing, and kayaking. ‘Tourism development’ was defined as anything that
respondents described as expanding the tourism industry in order to attract more
tourists. ‘Conservation of the natural environment’ was defined as the protection
of the marine (coral and fish) and terrestrial environment (plants) while
‘community development’ was defined as the development that tourists brought
into the community from a social and economic perspective. The ‘cultural
environment’ mentioned in one of the definitions identified in the Table 5.6, was
defined as the community’s way of living. Social development were related to
factors such as the improvement of social infrastructure such as community hall
and church while economic development were those factors such as employment
and other financial contribution given to communities.
Some of the common responses summarized in Fig 5.1 are quoted as.
Example One: Community respondent 1
‘ecotourism means bringing tourists into the village so they can see and learn about the
way that we live and in doing so, the tourists should respect it…. this is why tourists are
often advised to be very careful in the way they dress as they enter the village…I
believed that, by allowing tourists to enter the village, we can encourage them to donate
some of money that can help improve the community hall or church’
Example Two: Community respondent 2
‘ecotourism means tourists coming into the Yasawa to dive, snorkel, visit the cave and
most importantly, to enjoy the white sandy beaches…bringing in more tourists to use the
marine environment will bring in more money for the community because tourists and
cruise ships pay to use communities’ fishing grounds… The money obtained is used to
develop the community’s infrastructure such as houses and the church… Some of the
money also goes into community fund-raising.’
Example Three: Community respondent 3
‘ecotourism means tourists teaching the community to look after their marine
environment and avoiding the disposal of rubbish in the sea… It’s because when tourists
see locals dumping wastes in the sea, they advise them that such an activity will harm the
fish and coral and can also affect the environment in the long run… Also tourists would
advise the locals not to sell shells collected from the marine environment as we are
killing them in the process.’
Networking of Ecotourism Operators and Communities
The use of the marine environment for tourism related activities
From the survey, 72% of the respondents stated that their community had not at
any stage involved the hotel operators in any decision making regarding how their
qoliqoli was utilized for tourism- related activities, while 28% of the respondents
agreed to some level of involvement. Of this group 98% showed that the level of
110
involvement was very low (Q6–Appendix 3.0). The involvement was practically
on the discussion of fees for the use of the qoliqoli. The discussions were only
involved with the operators and community members that had some form of
customary status. This has much to do with the Fijian traditional protocol within a
society, where only the people with significant status in society are given
recognition in decision-making.
The reasons why there was no involvement between hotel operators and
communities, as identified above by 72% of the respondents (Q6–Appendix 3.0),
were:
• No form of communication was encouraged by either party (lower-level
people in communities and hotel operators) regarding the number of sites used
and how they were being used by operators. Any communication made
usually involved people with high community status and the tour operators for
their consent.
• The communities’ found no obvious environmental damage caused by
operators and therefore didn’t consider liaising over the controversy.
• Local operators using the marine environment also had rights to the area in
which they ran their businesses and therefore did not need to consult other
community members in regards to heir activities apart from prior
arrangements made with only the community elders.
111
Figure 5.2: The reasons why there was no involvement between communities and
operators regarding how the local qoliqoli was utilized for tourism activities
44%
19%
37%No communication
No environmentaldamage observed
Individual rights oflocal operators
Communities’ Common Fishing Sites…
From casual discussion with various community members, it seems that no
arrangements were made between the operators and communities in regard to the
use of a community’s common fishing site as a tourist activity site. Despite this,
the use of many of these sites by the communities was restricted out of respect for
the tourists and therefore 87% of the total number of respondents stated that they
did not use any of their fishing sites while in the presence of tourists (Q4–
Appendix 3.0).
When questioned on how each respondent felt about tourism operators (cruise
ships and hotel operators) using their fishing grounds (Q4–Appendix 3.0), 50%
stated that they were not satisfied at all while the other 50% felt satisfied. The
common reasons are summarized in table 5.7 according to how some of the
community members had responded.
112
Table 5.7: Reasons stated by respondents about how thy felt about the use of their
marine environment by both tourism operators and the communities.
Reasons
Satisfied
• Because tourists do not extract or take anything from the
marine environment while using it for their enjoyment and so there
are no negative impacts imposed
• Exchange Benefits: We allow tourism operators to use our
marine environment for their enjoyment and in return they pay for the
use of these sites, which brings monetary benefits to the communities
Not
Satisfied
• Environmental disturbance: The increase of tourism operators
within the area will result to more boats running in the marine
environment and therefore increasing water traffic which as a result
leads to the disturbances of the marine environment
• Disappointing practices: Cruise ships throw anchors onto
reefs and damage the corals and as a result destroys the habitats of the
marine life, especially the fish, whose numbers have reduced in recent
years.
Hotel Operators Having an Influence on Communities with Environmental
Conservation
From the survey, 83% of respondents stated, that they were not influenced by
operators regarding any environmental conservation of the marine environment,
apart from a waste management program that was implemented but with very
little monitoring and enforcement (Q7–Appendix 3.0). This waste management
program was introduced through the NTTA in which all communities have tried
to adopt over the years. The weaknesses however as expressed by the
communities is the monitoring and enforcement of this program because evidence
of rubbish in the marine environment was still observed.
113
One of the reasons to the establishment of the NTTA in Nacula was to also look
after the welfare of communities but in the interviews conducted there was no
sign from community response to indicate that they were collectively involved
with the NTTA network of which would have encouraged them to take part in
some form of environmental conservation. The existence of the NTTA to
community members has been perceived as an organization that was established
to involve the interest of the tourism operators and their operation within Nacula
district.
Even if there was some form of influence, this was not through the operators but
instead through the behaviour of tourists. For example, one community member
interviewed stated that it was not the operators, but the tourists who came to use
and enjoy the marine environment that had influenced them a lot. This is because
tourists often gave advice as a form of education to community members, who
sell marine ornaments (especially shells) during a community market day. In such
a case, tourists would end up refusing to buy the products displayed.
The remaining respondents (17%) who identified that they were at some level
influenced on environmental conservation came from a few communities that
were exposed to some environmental education provided by one of the hotel
operators within the area in partnership with an environmental conservation group
known as Coral Cay, which was working in Nacula during the period of the
fieldwork.
The Benefits gained by Hotel Operators in the Use of Community Fishing
Grounds
The use of the community’s marine environment, especially their fishing grounds,
as sites for the hotel operators to conduct various water activities for their guests
have raised questions in the mind of community members. From the survey, when
community members were asked to identify how they felt about how hotel
114
operators are gaining benefits by using the marine environment within the area
(Q8–Appendix 3.0), 35% stated that they were satisfied while 65% were not
satisfied at all (see Figure 5.3 and Table 5.8). The 35% that felt ‘satisfied’ stated
that the use of their marine environment by operators will: allow the opportunity
to bring in more tourist to Nacula which in return would then allow more financial
support coming in to communities (100.0%); minimize the use of destructive
fishing methods practised by locals (23.8%); and finally teach communities to
look after their marine environment (14.3%).
Figure 5.3: Reasons for community satisfaction with operators making use of fishing
sites
73%
17%
10% More financialsupport tocommunitiesMinimiseddestructive fishingpractices by localsEnvironmnetallearning experience
Those, on the other hand, that were ‘not satisfied’ identified their reasons as
follows: there was no communication with community members (87.2%);
individual resource use privileges were denied (77.4%); and that the monetary
benefits were gained from operators were inadequate (30.8%) (see Figure 5.4 and
Table 5.8).
115
Figure 5.4: Reasons for community dissatisfaction
45%
39%
16%
No communication
Resource usepriviledge deniedLess monetary gain
Table 5.8: Descriptive reasoning stated by respondents in regard to the benefit hotel
operators gain from using the community’s marine environment.
Reasons
Satisfied Hotel operators using the marine environment or a community’s
fishing ground will bring in more tourists, which will result to the
following:
More financial support for communities
More tourists creates more opportunities for hotel operators to
donate money to communities
Minimization of destructive fishing practices of the locals
The presence of more tourists will reduce the damage caused by
locals on the reef particularly destructive fishing methods. Tourists
are always keeping a look out for community members that practise
such methods especially the use of dynamite.
Learning experience
Tourists will help teach communities how to look after their marine
environment especially with respect to litter and damaging coral
116
Reasons
Not
Satisfied
No communication
Community members are never informed or consulted by operators
on the use of marine environment in terms of the number and
locations of sites used for guest activities such as snorkelling,
diving, and sports fishing, alteration made to the coastal areas for
accommodation; and the number of boats operating within the area.
Resource use privileges denied
Respondents feel that the right to use their marine environment is
denied in some areas because operators have forbidden the locals to
fish or glean in areas right outside their hotels, despite the fact that
locals depend on this marine environment for their livelihood
Less monetary gain
Not all operators return the full monetary benefits to the
communities. This is because tourists come to the Yasawa
especially for the marine environment (white sandy beaches, reefs)
and the majority of the money earned is paid to operators and only
a fraction of the money is donated to the communities.
Changes Observed Over-Time to the Marine Environment
At Present
The development of tourism can have a positive impact on the natural
environment but it can also be negative if not properly managed.
When discussing the impact of tourism on the marine environment, both operators
and tourist activities were collectively described as tourism.
Some of the common statements identified by 72% of the respondents described
the impact of tourist behaviour as ‘good’ (or positive) related only to the tourists’
behaviours and these were described as:
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Example One:
‘Tourists do not impose any negative impact because while out snorkelling or diving they
do not touch or remove anything from the marine environment. They are there only to
enjoy it and not impose any harm.
Example Two:
‘Tourists’ presence at a site has helped communities to look after their marine
environment in terms of littering, catching fewer fish and minimizing the use of
destructive fishing methods (especially dynamite). Tourists have helped keep out
poachers from illegally fishing various community fishing grounds.
Other statements that were identified and commonly recognized as ‘bad’ (or
negative) by 83% of the respondents were related to the everyday practices of the
operators. These were:
Example One:
‘Pollution such as fuel discharge and litter from cruise ships. Oil slicks are often found
floating on the surface of the water and communities have believed cruise ships to be the
main source of this.
Example Two:
‘The extensive water traffic (boat movement) within the area (cruise ships, hotel boats,
community boats, sea plane, and other tourist water transports e.g. Yasawa Flyer) has
caused a lot of disturbance to the marine environment.
Pre and Post Development by the Tourism Operators
According to those interviewed, the status of the marine environment had shown
no improvement over what it was before the rapid development of tourism
operation in Nacula. The common use of dynamite for fishing by community
members and outsiders 10 years ago had adversely affected the reef conditions,
which according to those interviewed, is still evident today. Some of these
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methods had caused the decline in the fish catch numbers and sizes, the decline in
seashell harvest and the high percentage of dead reefs. Sixty eight percent of those
interviewed stated that there had observed no significant changes to the conditions
of the marine environment in the last ten years.
However, 32% of the respondents were of the opinion that changes had been
observed and that these changes were basically the continuous increase of
pollution in the marine environment (Q12 & 13–Appendix 2.0). The pollution
was described as litter, sewage and oil slicks especially from cruise ships and
hotel operators around the area Figure 5.5). Respondents had observed a lot of
smashed coral on reef flats, which they believed to have been caused by boat
anchorage in recent years. One very distinctive observation that the majority of
the respondents made without explanation was the excessive growth of algae
(sargassum species) on shore near reefs. The algae often washed up onto the
beach and the occurrence has gradually increased over the years.
Figure 5.5 The types of pollution observed in the marine environment
22%
12%
20%
22%
24%
LitterSewageOil SlicksDamaged ReefsAlgae Growth
According to respondents, operators within the area have done nothing to address
most of the problems identified.
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c) THE TOURISTS
Research Findings Concerning Tourists
i) Respondents’ Demographics
Of the 55 tourists who returned the questionnaires, from the 100 questionnaires
distributed, 43.6% were males while 56.4% were females. The majority of these
respondents were from the UK (36%) and Mainland Europe (27.3%) followed by
Australia (20%) and then New Zealand (9.1%) with America as the lowest
(7.3%). The level of education of the respondents varied from no form of
education (1.8%) to as high as university degrees (61.8%).
Figure 5.6: The age groups of tourists interviewed
40%
36%
15%
7%
0%
2%
15-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
As demonstrated by the figure 5.6, the majority of the respondents were relatively
young in the age category 15–34. There were none from the age category 55–64
but a few over 65.
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ii) Respondents’ Travelling Preferences
Majority of the respondents were travelling in pairs (87.3%) as compared to those
travelling alone (7.3%) or in families (5.5%). Many of these respondents have
stayed in Nacula for at least 4 to 7 days (58.2%) followed by those who have
spent less than 3 days (27.3%) and finally those that had stayed more than a week
(14.5%).
Figure 5.7: Reasons why tourists travel to Nacula
Relaxation59%
Honeymoon2%
Business2%
Culture19%
Adventure0%
Nature16%
Others2%
From the pie-chart (figure 5.7), it appears that the highest proportion of
respondents are visiting Nacula (Q8-Appendix 4.0) for relaxation (59%) followed
by those who wanted to experience a new culture (19%) and finally those that
wanted to enjoy the natural environment (16%). Prior to making the decision to
travel to Nacula, factors identified by respondents as extremely important to the
trip (Q9-Appendix 4.0) were the beach (47%), the people (47%) and the culture
(40%) while factors that were ranked as slightly above important were the coral
reefs (42%), the marine life (42%), food (31%) and the cheap accommodation
(33%).
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Table 5.9 Mean score on the ranking of different factors on importance of trip to
Nacula
Factors Mean Score
Beach 4.27
People 4.25
Culture 3.96
Coral Reefs 3.71
Marine Life 3.78
Food 3.69
Cheap Accommodation 3.76
iii) Respondent’s Activity Engagements
The number of activities most respondents were engaged in while visiting Nacula
(Q10-Appendix 4.0) were diving and snorkelling (71%) figure 5.8). Other
activities included kayaking and surfing (6%), game fishing (3%), boat cruise
(4%), cultural tour (7%), cave visit (6%) and others (3%). Snorkelling was often
conducted during beach picnics, island and reef hopping. From the overall listed
activities offered by operators, most were water-based activities. This is because
there was always a high expectation of tourist wanting to spend more time on
activities associated with the marine environment than land.
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Figure 5.8: Types of activities tourists were engaged in while visiting Nacula
Diving & Snorkeling
71%
Kayaking & Surfing
6%
Game Fishing3%
Boat Cruise4%
Cultural Tours7%
Cave Visit6%
Others3%
When respondents were asked to identify factors that they found interesting in the
trip, (Q11–Appendix 4.0) many stated the people and the culture (26%), the
natural environment (coastal environment, 23%; the marine environment, 24%)
and the climate (12%) (Figure 5.9). The major reason was that, most of the
respondents wanted to experience and learn about a new environment holistically
in terms of it’s culture and people, to enjoy the scenery of nature, and most
importantly, to relax in a tropical climate.
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Figure 5.9: Factors tourists found interesting during their trip to Nacula
People and culture26%
Accomodation7%
Marine environment (reef,
marine life)24%
Climate12%
Food7%
Coastal environment
(Sandy beach, coastal vegetation)
23%
Others1%
If these respondents were to return to Nacula in the future (Q15–Appendix 4.0),
factors that they ranked as extremely important were to enjoy the climate (40%)
and learn of a new culture (36%) apart from theirs. Factors that were ranked as
slightly above important were based on the scenery/nature of the area (45%), the
marine environment (40%) and the quality of accommodation provided (44%).
Table 5.10 Mean score on the ranking of different factors of importance ‘why
tourists wish to return to Nacula in the future’
Factors Mean Score
Climate 4.09
Learning a new culture 3.91
Scenery of nature 4.09
Marine environment 3.69
Quality of accommodation 3.65
Food 3.38
Learning experience 3.6
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iv) Respondents’ Sharing their Experiences
Some of the disappointing experiences respondents expressed having encountered
during their visit to Nacula (Q13 & Q14–Appendix 4.0) were related mostly to the
amount of litter and rubbish (65.5%) either floating in the sea or washed on to
shores. Rubbish came in many forms-tins, plastics, glass, paper, dead seaweed on
the beach and those that floating in the water during high tide being most evident
around resorts and villages. Some respondents were also disappointed with the
beach (29.1%), because of litter and because they had expected Nacula to have
more white sandy beaches. Moreover, some respondents were disappointed with
the condition of the marine environment because of damaged corals, dead reefs
(27.3%) and little evidence of marine life like vertebrates and invertebrates
(10.9%).
Table 5.11 Mean score on the ranking of different factors of importance ‘why
tourists wish to return to Nacula in the future’
Factors Mean Score
Climate 4.09
Learning a new culture 3.91
Scenery of nature 4.09
Marine environment 3.69
Quality of accommodation 3.65
Food 3.38
Learning experience 3.6
The level of understanding on environmental functions (ecological and biological
functions of the marine environment) (Q16–Appendix 4.0) as expressed by
respondents was selected between 1 to 5 (with 5 being extremely knowledgeable
and 1 as no knowledge at all). From the survey, the majority of the respondents
(41.9%) ranked their understanding as 3 (being knowledgeable) while 25.5%
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ranked them 2 (slightly knowledgeable). Only 3.6% of the respondents had a very
comprehensive knowledge of environmental functions.
Table 5.12 Mean scores on the rankings of different types of knowledge expressed
by tourists
Type of knowledge Mean Score
Environmental knowledge 2.82
Conservation knowledge 2.60
Respondents’ knowledge regarding environmental conservation (Q17–Appendix
4.0) was also ranked from 1 to 5. The majority of rankings were from 2 to 4 (from
slightly knowledgeable to slightly above knowledgeable). Of the total
respondents, 38.2% ranked them slightly knowledgeable, 27.3% ranked them
knowledgeable and 20% ranked them very knowledgeable. There was a low
percentage ranking for extremely knowledgeable (1.8%). Some of the
conservation practices identified by respondent as sought of important or
significant in protecting the marine environment were mostly involved with
managing litter; limiting access of tourists; controlling water traffic, providing a
code of conduct for everybody using the marine environment; provision of more
monitoring and enforcement of environmental–friendly practices, and the
distribution of tourist numbers and tourist activities so that they are not
concentrated in any one site all the time.
v) Environmental Information
The great majority of respondents claimed that during the period of their stay in
Nacula, operators provided them with no information at all regarding how, as
tourists, they could behave responsibly with respect to environmental
conservation (Q18-Appendix 4.0) and neither did they gain any new information
(30.9%) (Q21–Appendix 4.0). From those respondents that were provided with
environmental information (slightly informed 21% and informed 20%), 29.1%
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stated that they were not satisfied (Q19–Appendix 4.0) at all with what was
provided, while 23.6% were only slightly satisfied, a mere 25.5% expressed
satisfaction. Some of the information that respondents highlighted would be of
importance to operators in encouraging tourists to be more responsible while
using the marine environment include codes of conduct for tourists or basic rules,
‘do not touch lists,’ information on how to interact with the environment and
areas of where to and not to snorkel to be made available through brochures or
information leaflets. Other things that respondents felt were important for
operators to provide were learning booklets on local reefs and the marine life
associated with them, tips on what to look for while snorkelling, and information
on how to care for the environment. If operators did enforce a code of conduct on
tourists (Q20–Appendix 4.0), the majority of the respondents felt that the level of
compliance would be very high (72.7%).
Table 5.13 Mean score on the ranking of environmental information provided
Environmental information Mean Score
Level of information provided 1.96
Satisfied with the information provided
by the operators
2.44
Level of compliance to the information
provided
4.64
Some things that respondents decided were important for them to learn during
their stay at Nacula were biological and ecological information about the marine
ecosystem, such as the types of fish and corals present locally, coral life and
ecology, seasonal fish and spawning period, food web or marine life, growth of
corals, inter-relationships of the marine environment and the functions of various
ecosystems.
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vi) Tourist’s Contribution towards Conservation
A low percentage of respondents expressed support for conservation (Q23 & 24-
Appendix 4.0) in terms of monetary contribution (7.3%). More respondents stated
slight support (32.7%) and (32.7%) showed some support. There were a small
number of respondents who showed no support at all (18.2%) to monetary
contribution. For those that did show some level of support, 52% were not willing
to contribute anything at all while 36% were willing to donate at least $10–49,
followed by those that were willing to donate $50–99 and 5% to more than
$100.00 (figure 5.10).
Figure 5.10: Tourists supporting monetary contribution towards conservation
52%
36%
7%5%
$0.00
$10-49
$50-99
$100+
Money obtained for conservation, according to respondents, should be distributed
to various key stakeholders such as government that look after the environment or
NGOs that are conservation oriented. Another area identified was the formation of
an education committee that can raise awareness and create education programs
for operators, communities and tourists. Also money could be spent on setting up
marine parks for future conservation work and ecotourism. Some even felt that
part of the money should be distributed to communities and the operators.
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SUMMARY
There have been a number of findings made in this chapter regarding the
operation of ecotourism and how each of the stakeholders (operators,
communities and tourists) has contributed towards it. No interpretations have
been made in these findings.
Operators
1. The definitions of ecotourism were more strongly focused on environment
friendly practises. Operators also felt that the definition was also related to
culture, the conservation of the natural environment and the management of litter.
The five ecotourism definitions that the operators related their operations to were
selected from: The International Ecotourism Society (2003); Ceballos–Lascurain
1987; Boo (1990) and Ministry of Tourism-Fiji (2002).
2. All operators interviewed mainly used the marine environment as activity sites for
guests during their stay. Most of these operators had between 1 and 4 sites for
various water activities at any given time, while one operator had more than 30
sites. At each of these sites, no baseline inventories were conducted prior to its
use and neither was they’re monitoring over time to understand the environmental
changes encountered within the after mentioned sites. There were no forms of
control in place regarding the number of operators using a site at any one time so
most of the sites used were shared amongst the operators. Lastly there was no
code of conduct regarding responsible environmental behaviour when using a site.
3. In regard to environmental education and awareness programs as an ecotourism
component, operators expressed very poor understanding of basic environmental
information regarding activities on land and their impact on the marine
environment. Added to this, all except one provided no training or environmental
awareness programs to its staff, and neither was there any personnel training of
tour guides. Some operators provided some forms of education to tourists
regarding environmental conservation but this was conducted only during guests’
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check-in briefings. None of the operators interviewed had provided any
environmental education to the local communities.
4. Operators have expressed interest in the support and monitory their contribution
to conservation effort but feel that there is a great need to make them understand
what the underlying component and principle of ecotourism is in addressing
environmental conservation.
5. The physical set-up for most of the operators did not involve any planning
process. Also, no operators except one had in place contingency plans of any
kind, should an environmental crisis occur. Also, no operator except one had
conservation strategies in place. Rubbish disposal was generally recycled, burn,
bury, and compost. Most agricultural practises were environment friendly because
no artificial fertilizer materials were used. The operators continuously practiced
the extraction of natural resources from the marine environment for building
purposes.
Communities
1. The term ‘ecotourism’ was used amongst communities within Nacula without a
clear understanding of what it meant. Ecotourism for those who felt that they
understood the term related it more to community development, tourism
development and culture.
2. There was poor networking between communities and operators in regard to the
use of communities’ qoliqoli for tourism activities. Communities felt that they
were seldom involved in the planning of the tourism activities occurring locally.
Three main reasons for this were the lack of active communication between
operators and communities. Communities did not monitor environmental damage
that would identify the operators as the source and because most operations were
locally owned, so the operators felt they had the right to use the environment.
3. Many community members felt that the operators had not in any way influenced
them to protect or conserve the environment through their practises, as contrary to
what an ecotourism is expected to do. They have however been more influenced
by the tourists rather than the operators.
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4. The majority of community members felt unsatisfied with the local operators
while others felt satisfied. The communities that felt satisfied related their reasons
to the fact that operators would be able to help provide communities with
financial support by bringing in more tourists to use their natural environment.
For those who were not satisfied, the main reason was the lack of communication
between operators and communities regarding the use of the communities’ marine
environment. Also some felt that the use of certain areas within their fishing
grounds was denied to them and some that they were not getting enough monetary
benefits.
5. Most community members interviewed identified no changes in the environment
in regard to tourism development. Those community members that had observed
changes however, related them to increased pollution such as litter, sewage, oil
slicks, damaged reefs and excessive algae growth.
Tourists
1. Tourists visiting Nacula were predominantly there to relax and enjoy the
environment and what it had to offer in terms of white sandy beaches, sun and
sea.
2. Not all tourists visiting Nacula were fully knowledgeable about the environment
and related conservation issues.
3. As one might, perhaps, expect, tourists were not fully supportive of the idea that
they should make monetary contributions towards conservation efforts.
One of the issues derived from the factors identified, is that, the concept of
ecotourism was never addressed well enough, by both the communities and
operators which has inhibited the understanding of ecotourism as a holistic
approach, which recognizes the input of communities, operators, tourists, includes
education and awareness and most importantly, it promotes good tourism
practises, which safeguards the interest of the environment.
Further discussions of these findings are presented in chapter 6.
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CHAPTER SIX
THE DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE
FINDINGS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses the findings made in Chapter 5, regarding the definition of
ecotourism and how it has been approached in Nacula to address environmental
conservation. This chapter is intended to help build an understanding of the
various issues addressed and highlighted in the objectives of the overall study.
After further analysis of the four key components described in Chapter 2, seven
characteristics have been highlighted and used to investigate the definition of
ecotourism as described by the operators and communities. These characteristics
identify ecotourism as an activity that should: provide environmental
understanding and appreciation; minimize the impacts on the environment;
provide economic benefits for the conservation of natural environment; provide
benefits to local communities; contribute to environmental conservation; provide
appropriate management; and most importantly be nature-based or oriented.
Apart from uncovering the definition of ecotourism as expressed by operators and
communities, this chapter has examined the practical approach of ecotourism
taken by three important stakeholders (operators, communities and tourists), all of
which are believed to play an important role in the success of ecotourism.
Because the focus of the study was ‘Ecotourism and Environmental
Conservation’, only the features of ecotourism linking or relating to
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environmental conservation had been used to investigate the practice of
ecotourism for the three key players. Operators were examined based on the
following three factors: (1) the nature and setting of the tourism product offered
by the operators; (2) the active management strategies adopted and implemented;
and (3) the environmental education components advocated by the operators
towards promoting the protection or conservation of the environment. These
factors are believed to complement the conservation component of ecotourism.
Communities, on the other hand, were examined on the basis of their involvement
and participation in the entire ecotourism approach. Discussions relating to this
were based on factors such as: (1) involvement of community members in
decision-making regarding resource use and (2) community participation in the
planning process of tourism development. Understanding the behaviours of
communities towards such matter as resource use can help identify the influential
effect of ecotourism on conservation. Communities are recognized as resource
owners; therefore, decisions on resource use should not be separated from them.
Forming a close working relationship between communities and the tourism
industry is essential to supporting conservation. Finally, the tourists were
examined only as users of ecotourism because of their influence, through their
presence or behaviour, which may have some effect on communities and
operators towards conservation. Discussions for tourists were based on motives
for travelling and most importantly the attitudes expressed towards environmental
education and conservation.
This chapter has also examined how each stakeholder has contributed towards
environmental conservation. Discussions have been made regarding: (1)
conservation plans, resource use, and agricultural practices of operators; (2) the
understanding of conservation among communities and operators; and finally (3)
the monetary contribution tourists can make towards conservation.
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WHAT IS ECOTOURISM?
The analysis of different theorists of ecotourism in Chapter 2 has helped to
describe what ecotourism is and should be about. It highlights seven major
characteristics, which are shown to coincide with characteristics of a ‘real’
ecotourism operation, as discussed by Honey (1999:22-24). These characteristics
have been employed in this study to assist in the investigation of how the Nacula
operators and communities define ecotourism.
They are:
1. Nature-based or -oriented (Wood et al. 1991; Bjork 1996; Young 1992;
Scace 1993; Wight 1993; Valentine 1993)
Ecotourism is often described as nature-based or nature-oriented, meaning, that
the destinations visited are often remote and undisturbed, whether inhabited or
uninhabited, and are usually under some kind of environmental protection (Honey
1999). Since nature is a primary motivator for tourists, ecotourists should be able
to experience a truly intact ecosystem and compare them with areas that have
been disturbed (Ceballos-Lascurain 1988).
2. Providing environmental understanding and appreciation (Ceballos-
Lascurain 1987; Ecotourism Association of Australia 1992; Wood et al. 1991;
Bjork 1996; Young 1992; Wight 1993; Wearing and Neil 1999).
Ecotourism provides an understanding of the environment visited. This allows a
tourist visiting to express his or her appreciation of that environment with a high
level of respect. Basically, there is an authentic two-way interaction experienced
between the tourists and the local residents (Wallace 1991; Williams 1991). As
Honey (1999) describes it, ecotourism is culturally respectful and has minimal
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effects on both the natural environment and the human population of a host
country.
3. Minimizing impacts to the environment (Valentine 1991; Valentine 1993;
Wood et al. 1991).
Historically, the term ‘ecotourism’ was adopted by writers who began to
document the phenomena of nature tourism but later focused on the attempt to
mitigate associated negative impacts. Ever since then, there has been a consensus
that ecotourism should strive to minimize adverse effects that appear to alter the
integrity of the environment visited thus encouraging non-damaging and non-
degrading tourism practices. At an operational level of ecotourism, Honey
(1999:22) relates minimizing the adverse effects to such practices as ‘of hotels,
trails and other infrastructure by using either recycling or plentifully available
local building materials, renewable sources of energy, recycling and safe disposal
of waste and garbage, and environmentally and culturally sensitive architecture’.
Honey also states that minimization of impact requires that the numbers and mode
of behaviours of tourists be regulated to ensure limited damage to the ecosystem.
4. Providing economic benefits directed to the conservation of the natural
environment (Wood et al. 1991; Scace 1993; Boo 1990).
Ecotourism can provide monetary benefit to the locals in return for the use of their
resources. Most importantly, it allows the opportunity for raising funds that could
be directed to the conservation and protection of the natural environment on
which the tourism activities are dependent.
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5. Providing benefits to local communities (Wood et al. 1991; Young 1992;
Scace 1993; Boo 1990; Wearing and Neil 1999).
Ecotourism provides not only monetary benefits but also the empowerment of the
locals to protect and conserve their natural resources, allowing for benefits in the
long run. Empowerment can also maximize the initial and long-term participation
of the local people. Honey (1999), believes that local communities must be
involved with and receive income and other tangible benefits from the
conservation area and its tourist facilities.
6. Contributing to environmental conservation (Ecotourism Association of
Australia 1992; Ross and Wall 1999; Bjork 1996; Scace 1993; Wight 1993;
Wearing and Neil 1999; Boo 1990).
Ecotourism allows the conservation of both the natural and cultural environments.
Therefore, tourism in an area should contribute to the protection of the natural
environment in order to foster conservation of the resources available and at the
same time increase people’s awareness of the importance of their resources.
7. Providing appropriate management (Ross and Wall 1999; Valentine 1993;
Wearing and Neil 1999).
Where possible, ecotourism should allow the use of appropriate management of
the resources. This means that tourism activities should be well managed and
maintained so that they do not alter the well being of the local people and the way
in which they use their resources. This would also contribute greatly to
conservation.
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a) The Interpretation of Ecotourism to Operators and Communities
The understanding or interpretation of ecotourism to many of the operators as
described in the previous chapter is summarized into four key areas: (1) the
environment-friendly practices of the tourism operations; (2) the culture; (3) the
conservation of the natural environment; and (4) the management of litter. Of all
these, the environment-friendly practices were highlighted the most in the
interviews.
The environment-friendly practices is the first of these key areas commonly
referred to operations that: (1) had no intention of imposing any environmental
damages such as pollution; (2) were using the environment with minimal impact
as natural as possible for tourists to enjoy; and (3) build accommodations that
uses natural resources, which also reflects the originality of the types of houses
that locals live in thus giving tourists an experience of living in a traditional Fijian
home. The culture identified as the second key area was referred to tourists
travelling to a destination with an intention to learn, understand and experience
the way of living of the locals. For the third area, the conservation of the natural
environment was referred to the operational set-up of tourism that was focused on
protecting the environment. This meant that operators’ physical set-up should
pose no harm or damage to the environment at all. Tourists, most importantly,
should visit an area without causing any pollution or any other form of
disturbance to its natural setting. Litter management, as the final key area, was
referred to the safe and proper disposal of litter or any other form of rubbish.
Ecotourism, for operators, can be summarized into two distinctive definitions.
Firstly, it was described as an activity that was expected to provide environmental
protection or conservations, and secondly, to appreciate the local culture.
Matching these to the seven characteristics earlier discussed, operators in overall
had the expectation that ecotourism was to display characteristics that would:
provide environmental understanding and appreciation (definition 2); minimize
environmental impact (definition 3); and contribute to environmental conservation
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(definition 6). Operators, most importantly, felt that ecotourism should minimize
environmental impact through the management of litter and environment-friendly
practices (definition 3). They also felt that it should provide environmental
understanding (definition 2) but most importantly to the cultural environment.
There was little interest expressed towards ecotourism and environmental
conservation (definition 6) but there were no further intentions regarding any
further conservation of the local resources or the promotion of increased
awareness.
Ecotourism, for communities, was defined more commonly to three different key
areas:
(1) Community development—the operation of tourism within the area should
provide benefits to local communities, either socially or economically.
(2) Tourism development—tourism business and operation should be developed
in order to allow more tourists to visit the area. This is related to the first
factor because in the perception that as more tourists come into the area, the
more opportunities there will be available for community development.
(3) Respecting and learning about the cultural environment— visiting tourists
should learn, understand, appreciate and experience the locals’ way of living.
Added to this, tourists should respect and follow traditional protocols of a
community.
Ecotourism, in communities, concern providing benefits for the well being of the
locals and the preservation of their culture. Relating these to the seven
characteristics, ecotourism was expected to display characteristics of the
definitions 2 and 5. Communities felt that ecotourism was about providing
environmental understanding and appreciation (definition 2). The environment, as
in the operators’ descriptions, was mostly used to refer to a cultural environment.
138
Providing benefits to the local communities (definition 5) was related to monetary
gain from tourism development within the area that intends to improve the locals’
economic way of living. However, the provision of benefits was not recognized to
provide any empowerment to locals in ecotourism in the long run.
PUTTING ECOTOURISM INTO PRACTICE………..
a) The Practicality of Ecotourism for the Operators
The practical definitions of ecotourism identified by the operators as best
describing their operation emphasized: 1) educational and experiential factors
(Ceballos-Lascurain 1987); 2) protection and conservation of the natural
environment and its resources (The International Ecotourism Society 2003; Boo
1990); 3) provision of benefits to local communities (Thaman 2001; Harrison
1999; The International Ecotourism Society 2003); and 4) provision of benefits to
the environment (Harrison 1999).
As with the characteristics of ecotourism previously discussed, Wearing and Neil
(1999) also add that, the success of an ecotourism site reflects the extent to which
it is able to protect natural resources and biodiversity, generate money to finance
conservation and contribute to the local economy, whilst educating visitors and
members of local communities, and thereby, encourage environmental advocacy,
and the involvement of people in conservation and development issues. The
central focus of this study was to look into ‘Ecotourism and Environmental
Conservation’, therefore, only certain characteristics of ecotourism that address
environmental conservation, as discussed by various theorists, were used to
examine the practicality of ecotourism. These characteristics were based on three
factors: (1) the nature or setting of the tourism product offered by the operators;
(2) the active management strategies adopted and implemented to reduce negative
impacts to the environment while using it; and (3) the environmental education
139
components advocated by operators for promoting the protection or conservation
of the environment used.
The findings indicate that, many of the products or activities offered by operators
for tourists were nature based and were concentrated mostly in the marine
environment. The environment used to facilitate these products had no active
management practice in place. Active management simply requires the control of
human use of resources in an attempt to restore, enhance, protect and sustain the
quality and quantity of a desired ecosystem (Dunster and Dunster 1996). The
control of human use could include the regulation of open access to the
environment used. Most operators share similar water activity sites, with no
limitation set on the number of tourists using the sites at any one time, or the
number of times an operator wishes to use the site in a week. In this case,
operators did not consider the natural carrying capacity of an area used. Carrying
capacity, according to Battan (2000), is the degree to which the ecosystem used
(which in this case is the marine environment) is able to tolerate human
interference while its natural function is maintained. Altering the carrying
capacity of an environment can generally worsens the situation of what an
environment is capable of coping with. In addition, many of the operators did not
have written regulations or codes of conduct provided to tourists regarding
friendly use of the environment. Instead, upon arrival as part of their briefing,
they were verbally reminded of the ‘dos’ and ‘donts’. The failure to provide a
standard protocol or a code of conduct could result in the tourists having less
respect towards the environment, but on the other hand, regulations and
restrictions cannot necessarily change a tourist’s behaviour or attitude towards the
environment (Eagles et al. 1992). This could be similar to local communities
unless environment awareness and education have been fully addressed to them.
A study conducted by Obua and Harding (1997) found that a greater impact is
dependent not only on an increase in visitor numbers but also, in part, on tourist
behaviour.
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Orams (1995) suggests that, ecotourism should be managed towards a more active
form so that the activities can contribute to the health and viability of the
environment where they take place, rather than destroying it. Management,
therefore, should include monitoring and inventory assessments of the use made
of the environment. No monitoring of the environment used was ever conducted
over time by any of the operators; therefore the understanding of various changes
to the environment encountered over time were poorly recognized and
understood. Most of the operators expressed vague knowledge about essential
issues such as the level of negative impacts possibly as a result of their operation.
There was no baseline inventory made to a site used by any of the operators to
provide knowledge of its initial status, and to use that knowledge to make a
comparison of what the environment was like before and to what it is now. In this
case, the health and condition of the environment used will be difficult to
determine over time, therefore, any negative impact encountered from and during
the operation will not be recognised.
Findings from the examination of the business set-up of the operators showed that
none of the operators had: (1) undertaken any technical planning process
regarding the physical set-up of their operation in the environment used; (2) any
action plans in place to accommodate environmental drawbacks if they were to
occur at some stage as a result of their unmanaged practices; or (3) any
conservation plans at hand to adopt in order to protect the environment in the
future. Planning, according to Battan (2000), is about organizing for the future to
achieve certain objectives and so it is important in the development of tourism.
Because no environmental damage was observed or evident, operators, in
planning their development had played very little attention to it. This, again, is an
example of poor management practice. Planning for ecotourism is very important,
because ecotourism opportunities will be lost if the resilience of an area and the
ability of its communities to absorb impacts are exceeded, or if its biodiversity
and physical appearance is altered significantly.
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Operators, have taken initiatives in the management of litter. Such initiative cover
solid litter, liquid wastes, degradable and non-degradable litter, although the
approach used for the disposal of plastic materials (which are normally burnt) is
not as environment-friendly. The burning of plastics contributes to the increase of
harmful carbon-based chemical compounds released into the atmosphere, which is
believed can negatively affect the environment. Regardless of the litter
management imposed, a lot of rubbish was still observed floating on the sea
surface or washed up along the shoreline of the resorts. This was expressed by
tourists as one of the most disappointing experiences when visiting Nacula. There
is also an increase use of raw materials from the marine environment (sand, coral,
and rocks) for construction and cosmetic purposes. The continuous extraction of
raw materials can result in habitat displacement for many marine organisms and
most importantly, contribute to coastal erosion if it is not sustainably practiced.
Tourists also reported the poor condition of the marine environment with respect
to reef health.
Ecotourism contributes to conservation by providing environmental education or
interpretation to participants, which can lead to an awareness and understanding
of the natural environment, thus promoting pro-environmental attitudes, support
for conservation and responsible environmental behaviour (Boo 1991, Goudberg
et al. 1991, Nianyong and Zhuge 2001, Beaumont 2001). Environmental
education, therefore, forms a core component of ecotourism (Nianyong and Zhuge
2001). Increasing education and awareness enables individuals to make a decision
about the best way forward, from an environmental, economic, and social
viewpoint, in order to benefit both the present and future communities (Hoctor
2003). Operators, however, did not address any environmental education and
awareness programs in terms of training staff on environmental issues, providing
personnel training of tour guides, and providing environmental conservation
programs to communities. The lack of awareness provided to communities by the
operators has not resulted much to the pro-environmental attitude expected from
communities which is why in many cases most community members do not seem
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to take full responsibilities of protecting the marine environment of Nacula. Only
two operators did identify staff training (but not specifically on tour guides) of
which cannot be classified as quality training. None of the operators interviewed
expressed the interest of tour guide training but according to Lindberg et al.
(1998), consider tour guides are the heart and soul of the ecotourism industry and
therefore their roles are considered as particularly important (Weiler et al. 1991;
Weiler and Ham 1999). Environmental education provided to tourists, in this case,
was often conducted by any of the staff available for the day during their arrival
briefing, which cannot be as effective, because it does not provide enough
information to tourists to allow them to understand the value and importance of
the environment that surrounds them and of which they will be using during their
period visit. Charters (1996) believes, that the greater understanding of the value
of resources will happen if people actually experience it first-hand, as
understanding leads to appreciation and appreciation itself will further lead to
protection. Information provided to tourists on the day of arrival is only a one
time reminder and so it is likely to disappear in the minds of the tourists after two
days or so unless a tour guide was available to educate them continuously
throughout.
b) The Involvement and Participation of Communities in Ecotourism
The involvement and participation of local communities in ecotourism is an
important factor in the success of ‘ecotourism and environmental conservation’.
For a tourism project to be successful, the locals must be made a part of it. Most
importantly, they are resource owners; therefore, the interest in protecting or
using their environment should not in any way be separated from them. A basic
finding of this study is that this has not been the case in Nacula.
Communities, as reported, were never actively involved in any of the processes
regarding the development of tourism within the area, nor were they ever
involved in any of the decision-making process as to how their marine
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environment would be used to facilitate various tourism water related activities
that were offered by the local operators. There were three main reasons for this:
(1) the lack of communication between operators and local communities; (2) the
lack of confidence communities had in identifying the sources of the problems
encountered in their environment; (3) the right of local operators to the use of the
environment and its resources to which communities saw no reason to object. The
lack of communication simply was because decisions regarding tourism
development or environment use were always made between operators and the
elders with authority of ‘say’ within a community. This is because, traditionally,
any major decisions in a Fijian community were usually made only by those of
high social status. Individual consensus was never requested among community
members; therefore, many felt no reason to be involved at all. Healey (1997),
identifies that community participation will be more intense if there are direct,
open and respected dialogues amongst all stakeholders, which would also allow
the opportunity for learning about each other’s views and concerns, thus finding a
solution to any objections made. This, however, was not the case. The lack of
confidence in communities was due to the fact that they found no obvious
environmental damage to strongly say it was caused by the operators. Because of
this, communities felt no reason to communicate with operators in any decision-
making regarding the use of their environment. There were only a small number
of community members that had not recognized any changes to their marine
environment over time. Concerns have been raised in relations to some of the
pollutants observed in the marine environment but no effort has been made to
address them.
From an observation made around the study area, one common environmental
displacement noticed was the excessive dead algae often deposited on most
shorelines after a high tide. This was also reported to have increased over the
years by those who had also observed this change. Increase of algae growth could
indicate increased nutrients entering the marine environment, especially from
untreated sewage that leaches into soil and then out to sea after a heavy rain.
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There is a possibility that the sewage could be from most of the hotel operations
as they do not have proper sewage disposal systems or from cruise operations
travelling to and from in the area. Even though the excessive algae deposition was
physically observed, communities did not express any understanding or
knowledge about what this could have been caused by. This shows that no
consultations, information sharing or education was given to communities in
order for them to understand and explain some of the environmental changes that
could result from the increased tourism development or activities over time. As
shown, in this case, if communities were provided with increased access to
information about environmental processes, they could be able to directly relate
the causes and be concerned with how operators were using their environment.
Many of the operators interviewed were locals (Appendix 8) and because they
also had ownership right to the use of the environment and its resources, most
communities felt no right to object and so this gave a much stronger reason for
communities to not participate or be involved with any decision making of the
operators.
On the involvement process that encourages communities to take control in all
stages of ecotourism planning, as discussed by Wearing and Neil (1999), Drake
(1991), MacDonald and Wearing (2003), none was addressed between the
communities and operators in Nacula. The communities were never involved in
any management planning, implementation towards any tourism developments
undertaken by operators. Decisions were always made by a top-down approach,
because low status individually was never consulted regarding how they felt about
the use of their resources. Control over resources can be the key to gaining
community support towards conservation and the top-down approaches has
sometimes failed to gain such support, in spite of the fact that it has provided
monetary benefits to local people (Campbell 1999).
Generally as an overview, the lack of local community involvement could be that
people do not know what they are supposed to do. They lack the understanding of
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ecotourism so it follows that they do not know anything and therefore lack the
capacity to do anything else.
c) The Tourists as the Users of Ecotourism
Tourists are described as vital players in the success and failure of ecotourism, as
they are the main users of the environment intended to be conserved.
Based on their demographic characteristics, ecotourists can be generally
characterized as holding tertiary qualifications, aged of 20–40 or 55+, equally
divided between male and female and mostly from United States, Canada,
Germany, Sweden and Australia (Blamey 1995; Boo 1991; Wight 1996;
Valentine 1991). They regularly travel as couples or individuals and are frequent
and experienced travellers (Wight 1996; Boo 1991). The demographic features of
tourists surveyed within Nacula, which may likely be a representative of the types
of tourist received most in the area all year round, are the young adults (between
the ages of 20–34+) travelling mostly as a couple. In some cases, a couple may be
travelling in a group with other couples where many of them have a high tertiary
qualification. Tourists found travelling to Nacula hold some of the characteristics
of an ecotourist as described in which they are young, well educated and are from
one of the countries described earlier.
Some studies of ecotourists, as reported by Beaumont (2001), have found that
ecotourists generally share motivations of wanting to view or experience a natural
area and to learn about nature. From the survey, more tourists were purposefully
travelling to Nacula mostly for three reasons and they are to relax, to learn about a
new culture, and to experience a natural environmental setting. The factors found
to have been extremely important in affecting tourists’ choice of travelling to
Nacula, prior to visit, were related to the beach and the people and their culture.
The environment was considered as slightly above important but not with the
intensity of the above-mentioned factors. Tourists therefore, travelling to Nacula,
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were more motivated by wanting to have a relaxing trip to Fiji because of the
captivating image of its sun, sand and sea. The image of the sun and the
hospitality of the locals have often been used to portray the tropical climate of Fiji
and the culture of the people respectively, and so many tourists were found to
have selected climate and culture as being extremely important to travel back to
Nacula in the future. During the trip, tourists had also identified people and
culture, environment, and climate as the three most interesting factors experienced
in the trip. These factors as discussed, have expressed that the tourists’
motivations were not strongly ecotourist-oriented in terms of having an intention
to learn about the environment, but rather, the intention of the visit was to use and
enjoy the environment for the purpose of relaxing. Relaxation in the case of many
tourists was mostly in the form of diving and snorkelling.
Even though culture was commonly identified as a holiday choice, there was little
visible interest expressed by tourists in wanting to learn it, as participation of
tourists in cultural tours relatively. Ecotourists, according to Eagles et al. (1992),
should demand information and instructions of their chosen destination because
they are often science oriented and focused on studying new things, but again, this
was not evident in tourist participation. Apart from being a frequent and
experienced traveller, ecotourists are also often outdoor enthusiasts (Wight 1996;
Boo 1991). The study shows that many tourists were reported to have engaged in
various outdoor activities such as kayaking and surfing, diving and snorkelling,
boat cruises and game fishing. These activities were also identified as forms of
relaxation, which were all associated with the enjoyment of the ‘sea’ and the
‘sand’. The luxury living, accommodation, and food are far less important to
ecotourists (Wearing and Neil 1999). Tourists visiting Nacula, however, still
considered accommodation as a very important factor for their return.
A study conducted by Beaumont (2001) suggested that not all ecotourists are
environmentally aware and sensitive. Tourists surveyed have expressed average
knowledge on environmental functions and the importance of conservation.
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Knowledge on environmental conservation was relatively low because issues
regarding conservation measures were generally related to managing litter;
limiting tourist access; controlling water traffic; and monitoring and enforcement
of environment-friendly practices, without any descriptive explanation.
According to Nianyong and Zhuge (2001) and Beamount (2001), providing
environmental education can help foster awareness and understanding of the
natural environment and consequently promote pro-environmental attitudes and
responsible environmental behaviour because the more informed a person is, the
more likely they are to support environmental conservation because they can
appreciate the value and identify with the environment that is at risk (Goudberg et
al. 1991). Operators have not provided environmental information to visiting
tourists and therefore the attitudes and interest of tourists towards environmental
conservation have not been actively expressed in terms of financial support
towards conservation (more ranking percentage was made in the slight support of
financial contributions). Even though there was a high percentage of concern
regarding the amount of litter and the poor reef conditions, tourists had still
expressed great disappointment towards the lack of white sandy beaches within
the area, again showing that many were there to enjoy the sandy beach rather than
having the interest to learn about the environment as ecotourists are expected to
do. The level of compliance to the code of conduct expressed by tourists does
show a positive attitude but it is most likely that the compliance will be forced
rather than voluntarily accepted. This will not bring out a positive learning
attitude for tourists without their realizing it, to actively learn and understand the
reasons why some careless behaviour on their part could, disturb the environment
used.
d) Individual Efforts Made Towards Conservation
Ecotourism has the potential to create support for conservation objectives in both
the host community and in visitors alike, through the establishment of and the
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sustaining of links between the tourism industry, local communities and the
environment. Conservation, importantly, addresses the management of resources
in an attempt to restore, enhance, protect and sustain the quality of the local
environment.
In examining the contributions made towards conservation from various
stakeholders, the findings showed that all operators (except for one) had no
conservation strategies or future planning regarding environmental conservation
in place. Contribution of effort towards environmental conservation by operators
seems to have been a ‘hear-say’ catchphrase, because evidently, there were no
conservation practices in place by any of the operators’ interviewed. If there was
any environmental disturbance from the increasing tourism development,
operators would not be able to take action because they also had no contingency
plans available. All operators in their business set-up have addressed the
management of rubbish and litter, but communities have learnt that it has only
been efficient but not as effective over the past years. The litter management
program was actually introduced by the Nacula Tikina Tourism Association, in
which they were expected to take a leading role in advocating conservation in the
marine environment of Nacula. One of the reasons expressed by both operators
and communities regarding the diminished effectiveness of the program was the
lack of enforcement at the time of its introduction. Tourists have also expressed
great disappointment in the amount of litter observed along the shorelines and in
the marine environment. Pollutants such as oil slicks and excessive dead algae
were found on the water surface and along the shores. Evidence of oil slicks is
probably the result of increase tourism transports to and fro the islands from the
mainland or within islands. Excessive algae deposits are the result of increased
sewage seeping into the marine environment from untreated waste materials. This
would mostly be from operators that do not have proper sewage treatment for
their toilets or cruise vessels that may possibly be discharging waste into the
marine environment. This is possible because no patrol boats were available to
monitor the everyday activities of cruise vessels, but some locals have reported
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such concern in recent years. Agricultural practices of operators were
environment- friendly but there were some reservations about the use of resources
(sand, rock, rubbles extracted from the marine environment for construction), as
future planning for most operators is to expand their business, and as result, will
increase demand on resources.
A further finding is that, the understanding of the concept of environmental
conservation was very vague with both communities and the operators; therefore,
operators have expressed the need to actively address environmental awareness
and education. No local environmental conservation was currently practised in
any of the communities, apart from litter management. Communities were not
influenced by the operators on any environmental conservation practices even
though some had reported that they were more influenced by tourists’ attitude and
behaviour. Evidently, such influence has not been effective enough to change the
behaviour and attitude of communities towards conservation. This is because
communities were still found harvesting targeted marine ornaments to sell to
tourists, using processes of harvesting that were not even environment-friendly.
For example, coral in particular, are broken off and sold to tourists, as observed
on site. Most importantly, most ornamental species sold are listed as endangered
species of Fiji. This has been the result of the lack of environmental awareness
and education provided to communities and has resulted in communities not
recognizing inevitable changes occurring over time within their own environment.
As long as money was coming into communities, many did not express the
interest in addressing environmental protection or conservation.
According to Wearing and Neil (1999), there is a possibility that communities
may express resentment towards areas designated for conservation, simply
because such a measure is viewed as principally of benefit to tourists with no
reciprocal benefit for the local population. This would mean that local people no
longer have the right to use resources they consider theirs, but at the same time
see it frequently visited by foreign people, that the communities express negative
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reactions is hardly a surprising result. This has exactly been the case for Nacula
communities. Many have felt that their right to use the resources has been denied
as some operators have forbidden the locals to fish or glean in areas adjacent to
the hotels. The intentions of operators may be for the tourists’ benefits, but
because there was no proper communication and consultation made at a grass-root
level, negative reactions were expressed by local communities. Locals giving up
the use of their resources for tourism activities, in return, could provide associated
benefits that they would appreciate and acknowledge, but this has not been the
case. Communities were satisfied with how operators are using their resources, in
terms of gaining less monetary benefits, to increase their business performances.
This could also be the reason why communities have expressed less interest in
protecting their environment and as a result they are driven continuously to
harvest marine ornaments to sell to tourists continuously.
Lastly, operators have expressed full support for any future environmental
conservation effort put forward in the future, for example, donating funds for
raising awareness about conservation, providing technical support, and
monitoring. Communities may only provide full support once environmental
awareness and education have been provided; because many communities have
commented that they have very little knowledge and understanding on how the
environment could be affected by their individual practices.
Hoctor (2003) states that increased awareness of the importance of natural
resources can result in an increased willingness of the host communities to protect
resources and to support local conservation causes. There is an increased
willingness of communities in Nacula to participate in conservation only if they
were provided with a lot of awareness. Tourists, on the other hand, have
expressed very little interest and support for any conservation, not even the
willingness monetary contribution to support environmental conservation. The
majority of tourists indicated no interest of monetary contribution towards
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conservation, even though suggestions were made as to how it would be spent if
later tourists will have to make contribution.
CONCLUSION
Regardless of the many debatable issues surrounding ecotourism today, many
interest groups have proposed that ecotourism is one of the new ways forward for
environmentally sustainable development. And so, as tourism continues to
develop, the environment, in turn will also be protected.
The term ‘ecotourism’ means a lot of things to many theorists and over the years
it has been difficult to find a standardised meaning but in the world of
conservation today, ecotourism has been recognised as a solution to protecting the
environment while at the same time gaining a return benefit from using it.
The literature review of this study has identified ecotourism as a bridge that links
tourism not only to environmental conservation but also to the local communities.
Of the seven highlighted characteristics of ecotourism expressed by different
theorists, the study has only selected those characteristics that match the practice
of ecotourism towards the conservation or protection of the environment and in
doing so, it has provided conclusions to the following areas:
1) The interpretation and understanding of ecotourism to operators and
communities
The study has shown that there were some disagreement in the definitions of
ecotourism, as described by communities and operators. Operators understand or
define ecotourism in two different contexts, the cultural and the physical
environment. Their objective of ecotourism was to provide tourists a cultural
experience that will result in a higher understanding and appreciation of the
environment. Most importantly, ecotourism was also meant to minimize negative
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impacts on the physical environment and contribute towards its protection.
Minimizing negative impacts, in this case, was referred to as the management of
litter and the physical set-up of the tourism operation as offered to tourists. The
accommodation set-up simply in conclusion cannot be classified as environment-
friendly (as mentioned by operators) because the materials used were obtained
from the natural environment and continuous use of the natural resources for
building materials over time will increase the pressure to extract raw materials
from the natural environment. Deterioration of the environment is inevitable
unless there was some effort to extract them on a sustainable basis. Protecting the
cultural environment, on the other hand, was meant providing a cultural
experience to tourists to allow them to learn and understand, respect, and
appreciate the locals’ way of living.
Communities, on the other hand, understand ecotourism as an activity that
provides them with economic benefits, such as employment and as a source of
income for using their surrounding environment. Most importantly, ecotourism
was described as a source of improving the well being of communities. Like the
operators, communities also identify ecotourism as an activity that was provide a
cultural experience, which will increase tourists’ knowledge and appreciation of
the local culture they were visiting.
Evidently, there is also a gap in the understanding of ecotourism between
operators and communities. In theory, ecotourism addresses the importance of
finding a balance between the social, cultural and physical environments. Its core
interest is to maintain the nature of an environment used. This means that, as
tourism activities continue to provide benefits to the social, cultural and physical
environment over time, the nature or natural setting of that environment is not
negatively affected in any way. The tourism activities, therefore, should be
conservation-led or oriented. Ecotourism aims to take a relatively small number of
people to a natural area in order to minimize impacts on the social, cultural and
physical environment. Ecotourism has the idea that it will contribute to a
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sustainable future for the destination it occurs in, in the form of economic return
because it has the potential to foster conservation of the resources used by
increasing awareness to people on the importance of maintaining the resources.
The situation is, however, that operators express their interest in protecting the
environment while communities, only look at how the environment used can
provide them economic benefits. Sure enough, operators have expressed their
concern to protecting the environment but practically, this had not been the case.
Ecotourism also was never emphasized as a means of empowering local
participation for any conservation interest in the long run.
2) The practicality of ecotourism for operators relative to environmental
conservation
The definition of ecotourism stresses that the notion of travel for ecotourism is
restricted to undisturbed natural areas, as ecotourism’s focus is fundamentally on
experiencing natural areas without causing damage to the local environment.
Activities provided by the tourism operators in Nacula were based on the use of
natural features and attractions. Operators were only offering activities that were
nature-based and so they can be classified as ecotourism.
Ecotourism by definition also emphasizes the need to minimize impacts posed on
the social, cultural and physical environment used for tourism activities and in
doing so, proper management planning is expected to play a key role. Ecotourism
should be managed actively, so that it can contribute to the health and viability of
the environment used, rather than destroying it. Active management requires the
control of human use of resources in an attempt to restore, use, enhance, protect
and sustain the quality and quantity of a desired ecosystem and some of it would
include the identification of carrying capacity of an area, the development of
monitoring strategies of the environment used, the development and
implementation of a code of conduct, and the development of contingency plans.
This study has shown that there was no active management that accompanied the
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use of the environment facilitating any of the tourism activities. This simply
meant that no control of use was in place, and neither, were there any regulations
provided to tourists for the use of the environment that will at least minimize
negative tourist behaviours. Added to this, operators had no monitoring program
and resource inventory in place regarding the environment used for facilitating the
activities offered. This was probably the reason why operators had very little or
no knowledge of the status and changes encountered within the environment.
Initially, there was no planning made in linking the individual set-up with the way
the environment was used. None of the operators had any action plan in place,
which would help address environmental problems if they were to occur later in
time (possibly as a result of their individual practices) and how they would cope
with it. None of the operators also had current or future conservation plans in
place. Planning in regard to the use of the environment for the purpose was poorly
acknowledged. There had been intentions expressed by operators in support of
conservation, but no sign of planning for conservation was observed on the
ground. Management planning, in this case, had played little role according to the
operators’ in relation to the development of tourism within Nacula, even though
the management of litter was identified as one of the main priorities of operators
making a move towards environmental protection. Although the litter
management introduced was identified as efficient, there are still uncertainties
about its effectiveness and approach. Again the practices of the operation in this
case cannot be identified as ecotourism.
Ecotourism by definition also emphasises the importance of education for both
tourists and residents of nearby communities. It attracts people who wish to
interact with the environment, and in varying degrees, develop their awareness
and appreciation of it. Ecotourism also provides local people the opportunity to
learn and use the area and attractions that tourists visits. Here, the advocacy of
environmental education through the operation of ecotourism for operators was
poorly practised towards the communities, tourists and even to their very own
staff. Raising environmental awareness and education to tourists and communities
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was of little importance to operators. This also included the training of staff as
tour guides. Because there were no tour guides, tourists were always left on their
own. The verbal reminders made to tourists during arrival briefings do not
provide tourists a first hand experience with nature which is expected to motivate
them to appreciate and value the environment used. Ecotourism, from the finding,
had not played any educative role as it is supposed to have done, and therefore the
operation, as expressed by many operators, was not aligned with their own
definition of ecotourism.
3) Community’s understanding, involvement and contribution towards ecotourism
Ecotourism, in its definition, addresses the importance of conserving the natural
resources utilised by surrounding communities. Also by definition, it highlights
the importance of what it can provide to local communities in return. But, for
ecotourism even to begin using the environment, communities’ consensus is often
important to consider. Ecotourism links communities to their environment, but the
success of ecotourism are also very dependent on how communities play a role in
the environment. This is why ecotourism, also by definition, encourages the
importance of local involvement in the overall operation of ecotourism. Local
communities are resource owners and therefore they should not be marginalized
by or excluded from any effort to use or protect their environment. Increasing
access to information for local communities can provide them with greater scope
for involvement in planning and decision-making. In other words, education plays
a powerful role in increasing local involvement.
Findings made in this study did not contradict these generalizations from
experiences elsewhere. Community involvement and participation in the planning
or development process of the ecotourism operations in Nacula had played no role
at all. In decision- making regarding resource and environmental use, a top-down
approach was the only adopted throughout; there was no recognition of the
desirability of reaching a bottom-up consensus on the question of how local
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resources are used. In many cases, some communities expressed disappointment
at the loss of the right to use the resources or the environment within their own
vicinity. This did not represent an example of good ecotourism practice.
Ecotourism, as earlier defined, is education on the environment for local
communities, which will help increase their understanding and appreciation of
protecting their environment. The findings also showed that local communities
identified the lack of environmental education as the fault of operators, who
should have provided the communities with such help since they, as resource
owners, are key players in the holistic approach and the success of ecotourism.
Because of the lack of education provided to local communities, findings have
shown that local communities had only very limited knowledge regarding the
interrelationship between ecotourism and the use of the environment. As a result
of this, they had failed to recognize changes in the environment over time,
possibly caused by tourism development within the area.
4) Tourists and their contribution towards ecotourism
Even though tourists received in Nacula meet the demographic characteristics
described as those of ecotourists, their motives for travel was only focused on the
interest in what most ordinary tourists do when visiting a tropical destination,
which is to relax and enjoy the climate, the environment, and the hospitality
offered. From the findings, the intentions of travelling for most of the tourists
were basically to enjoy the environment for its purposes of relaxing, rather than
wanting to learn about it. Attitudes towards environmental conservation expressed
by tourists were surprisingly disappointing in terms of monetary contribution for
future conservation work, as many tourists were not actively supportive of the
idea. In other words, this is not ecotourism.
The tourists’ knowledge of environmental functions and the importance of
conservation were relatively low and knowledge expressed on environmental
conservation measures was generally described without logical explanations. It is
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simple to say, in this case, that every tourist visiting Nacula could be blamed for
not expressing an interest towards environmental conservation because his or her
motive for travel was focused elsewhere. Due to the fact that the operators of
ecotourism did not clearly identify their operation to tourists as environmentally
focused, through the provision of education to increase environmental awareness,
it is scarcely surprising that tourists did not take an interest in any environmental
conservation themselves. The attitudes of the tourists towards conservation were
not actively supportive of any future conservation in Nacula in terms of monetary
contribution. The tourists did at some stage express responsible environmental
behaviours by raising concerns about the amount of litter encountered in the
marine environment, but again great disappointment was expressed towards the
lack of ‘white sandy beaches’. This seems to reflect that tourists were visiting
Nacula to enjoy the sandy beach rather than having an interest in learning
something new. The types of tourists moving in an out of Nacula are expected to
affect the development of ecotourism, if so, over time. This is because if tourists
visiting Nacula are only focused on using the environment for their own
enjoyment then the purpose of ecotourism to protect the environment has been
defeated. Communities often look up to tourists as their inspiration towards
looking after their environment and so if tourists did not show any interest
towards caring for the environment, communities also became more ignorant in
the process.
To conclude, ecotourism in Nacula has placed very little emphasis on the
conservation of the environment used for facilitating tourism activities. The
emphasis of ecotourism, for the Nacula operators was focused more towards
culture and so the interest towards protecting the environment for all those
involved (operators, communities and tourists) was poorly acknowledged, if the
intention of ecotourism was to also protect the environment. Possible factors as to
why the tourism operation in Nacula has addressed very little about the
environmental protection include the fact that ecotourism as it is supposed to be
was not clearly defined to both communities and operators so that they would
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both have a mutual understanding of the goals. There was also a lack of education
and awareness provided in the whole approach of ecotourism within the area.
Most importantly, there was a lack of communication between communities,
operators and tourists, who are believed to be the key stakeholders in the success
of any ecotourism operation.
Also as another concluding factor, none of the groups (operators, communities
and tourists) had expressed a high indication of being more ‘eco-aware’ to the
other. Operators even though had some knowledge of the concept of
ecotourism, their operation however did not express as such. Communities on
the other hand had relied on the operators to take the leading role on practice
of ecotourism and because this had not been the case, communities’
knowledge and participation, as part of the ecotourism equation, in Nacula
became very limited.
Critically in summary, the case study of Nacula does not fit the theory of
ecotourism from a range of perspectives or criteria simply because of the
following reasons:
1. It undermines genuine ecotourism operation elsewhere around the world but
most importantly for Fiji because it did not follow fully the principles of
ecotourism as highlighted by many theorists.
2. It makes false claims about the nature of the product and the visitors’
experiences. All the tourist products offered by the operators even though was
focused on the natural environment, there was no evidence to support they
were of an interest to protect the environment in the long run.
3. It persists with a product that is not in the interest of environmentally
sustainable development.
4. It diverts the focus of ecotourism from environmental conservation to
concentrate more importantly as an alternative option of providing socio-
economical benefits to local communities and to the interest of the country’s
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economy. This is because ecotourism was greatly encouraged in Fiji as an
option to provide economic benefits to outer island communities.
5. It undermines the contribution and involvement of local communities as key
players to the success of ecotourism because communities were not fully
participative to the whole process from the very beginning as suppose to be.
6. It neglects the educative potential of ecotourism, which could help enhance
the quality of life for the host community, provide a high quality of experience
for the visitors and maintain the quality of the environment for all, for the
future.
All of these six factors is a result on the fact that the principles and focus of
ecotourism are not clearly defined or outlined to a level where there is a mutual
understanding from all those involved stakeholders, mostly to the operators and
local communities.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
RECOMMENDATIONS
The case study of Nacula reveals an unfolding scenario of what the experience of
ecotourism may be to some local operators in Fiji. The locals of Nacula like many
other island communities, uses the natural environment and its resources as a
product for attracting tourists. The advocacy of involving local communities to
take active roles in tourism development over the years has resulted in the
increasing numbers of locally owned tourism operators in Nacula, a trend that is
also beginning to expand rapidly in other island communities of Fiji. Because of
government concern regarding the protection of the environment in line with
sustainable development planning, alternative forms of tourism that have the
interest of safekeeping the environment have been introduced for adoption across
Fiji. This form of tourism is referred to as ‘nature-based tourism’ or ‘ecotourism’
under the National Ecotourism Policy (NEP). This policy focuses on the
promotion of positive economic and social impacts; reducing leakages; and the
opportunities for resource owners to establish and run their own businesses,
especially in the rural areas.
Critically, the definition of ecotourism under the NEP policy identifies ecotourism
as a means of equally distributing the benefits of tourism to many rural areas,
instead of having the focus on the protection of the natural environment. In other
words, it is centred more on the welfare of the local people, rather than the
interests of the environment used. Losing the focus of environmental protection or
conservation in ecotourism can impose negative impacts for the future
development of ecotourism in Fiji.
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FOR THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF ECOTOURISM IN FIJI
Recommendations to Government
The operation of ecotourism in Fiji should not only focus on its economic
potential but that it should also be greatly advocated as a conservation tool. The
term ecotourism in Fiji has somehow become a misused expression by those
tourism operators that focus or centre their attraction on the natural environment
even though there is no support towards environmental conservation. This is
because the term and key principles of ecotourism are not clearly defined, but
even if it was, questions are drawn to determine if the definition of ecotourism is
valid and operational to the context of Fiji, especially at a local level. The
definition of ecotourism used here in Fiji has a lot of emphasis on the social,
cultural and economic components with very little focus towards the protection of
the natural environment. In the long run, Fiji needs to address this and find a
balance where not only is the operation of ecotourism gaining the social, cultural
and economic benefits but that the interest of the environment used is
safeguarded. The government and other involved stakeholders of tourism and
environmental conservation groups or institutions should review the current
definition of ecotourism and formulate one that is desirable to all environmental
aspects (cultural, social, economical and natural). Regardless of environment-
friendly tourism practices, ecotourism needs to be recognized as an activity that is
also focused on understanding the ecological relationships of the environment
which some local operators do not address. Fiji government should review the
current ecotourism policy relating to environmental protection, the effectiveness
of which should be measured over time, in order to identify its weaknesses and
strengths and make improvements thereafter. Governments has the potential to
exert control on the scale and the types of tourism development and they,
therefore need also to have a balanced attitude towards a broader care of the
environment, whilst developing tourism. Ecotourism policies should be
encouraged in the direction of the critical role it can play towards environmental
162
protection, rather than only advocating its economic potential, especially for most
rural communities.
One of the major loopholes brought to light the findings in Nacula is the lack of
understanding regarding the definition and concepts of ecotourism on
environmental conservation. It is possible that in the future, qoliqoli ownership in
Fiji will be fully transferred to local communities, and therefore the advocacy of
economic benefits gained from using local community resources in the tourism
industry can impose a major drawback. Communities may be driven more
towards what their resources can offer economically, rather than towards their
protection. This has been the case for Nacula district and probably will get worse
if actions are not taken to address this situation.
Recommendation to Operators
Increased education and awareness not only for ecotourism, but also on
environment-friendly practices is greatly needed for operators because, as
findings indicate, most operators were not environmentally focused in their
operation, or at least not according to what an ecotourism is suppose to be.
Ecotourism encourages environmental protection and therefore good quality
environmental planning and management should be associated with it in order to
maintain the natural features of the environment used. Basic management criteria
should be outlined and adopted by operators who wish to engage in its operation,
not only as a site for ecotourism enterprise but also as an operation that is focused
towards the interest of protecting the environment used. Some of these measures
include setting up different zones to use, identifying the carrying capacity of an
area used, conducting environmental impact assessment, conducting
environmental monitoring or assessment, and providing environmental codes of
conduct for tourism. Zoning can provide a proper recognition of the resources that
exist in an area and subsequently identify where tourism can and cannot take
place. Identifying the carrying capacity of what an environment can facilitate is
163
important because only then can the number of tourists visiting an area be
monitored and controlled. Identifying carrying capacity can be extremely
problematic because of the various factors that influence it. Nevertheless, trying
to identify a limitation or control on a number of tourists visiting would be a step
forward, as there is no form of control in entry at this point for Fiji as a whole.
Environmental monitoring and assessment will also allow an operator to
understand and identify changes occurring within an area. Added to this,
operators need to be encouraged in providing educational programs and
increasing the awareness of their visiting guests, sensitising them to the focus on
environmental conservation. There is great potential for tourists to contribute
towards environmental conservation only if there is more active promotion of
environmental education and awareness and that first-hand experiences are also
provided to them during their visit.
Recommendation to Communities
This study has shown that the term ecotourism was not clearly defined to
communities and as a result, the operation of ecotourism in Nacula has become a
one way-process not only to the operators but also to communities. Because of
this, communities have been drawn more towards the capitalising effort of
ecotourism rather than having the interest to initially protect the environment. As
a recommendation, it is important to note that before identifying a tourism project
as ecotourism, communities need to first seek consultations or advise from
expertise not only regarding what ecotourism is about but how every step is
approached to becoming a real successful ecotourism project that is based on all
of its principle.
Ecotourism addresses the links between communities, tourism and the
environment used. It is therefore important that there is communication and
transparency at all times between communities and operators regarding any
current or future plans and development of tourism relating to the use of local
164
resources. Local communities are also users of the resources used for any tourism
activities and therefore they need to be part of any development or planning
process that is associated with it. Because one principle focus of ecotourism is to
conserve the natural resources of the surrounding communities it is therefore only
important that we consider that the interest in using a community’s environment
should not be removed from them. The more involved communities are in
ecotourism, the more they will allow them to understand the processes involved
and a better chance of success. Giving the chance for communities to be involved
the development of ecotourism will inspire them to take leading roles in the
conservation of their natural resources. However, again, there needs to be a high
degree of awareness provided to communities by operators, government and other
involved institutions. Active awareness should include dialogue of the goals and
objectives of ecotourism operation and the way it affects communities.
As recommendations to the overall approach of ecotourism in Fiji, the
government involved in the development of the tourism industry in Fiji with other
stakeholders should compose a definition that is acceptable to all that not only
will it create a mutual agreement to the definition that can be applied here in Fiji
but that it will also help minimise the misunderstanding of the concepts of
ecotourism and other policies of which it is associated with. The primary focus of
ecotourism on environmental conservation should be strongly emphasised not
only on the definition of ecotourism but also to its practical operation. Following
this, communities and operators should then be provided with active education
and awareness so as to provide a better understanding of the components of
conservation in ecotourism, which they could then provide to visiting tourists with
the intention to use the environment. Added to this, both communities and
operators need to work together collectively, be more transparent, and have more
active dialogues with each other regarding any decision-making on resource use.
Last but not least, in the long run, the approach of ecotourism towards any
environmental conservation should be adopted holistically by everybody—
165
including the government, operators, communities and tourists, for the benefit of
Fiji’ long term future.
Because of this, the term ‘ecotourism’ as used by most local operators should be
removed and instead be recognized only as tourism. Surely having a genuine
ecotourism initiatives would be highly desirable, and so there is an urgent need to
‘raise the bar’ in the practice of ecotourism and the understanding that surrounds
it.
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APPENDICES Appendix 1.0
Operators and Community Preliminary Visit Questionnaire
Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies, School of Social and Economic
Development, University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus, Suva Fiji
Preliminary Visit Questionnaire for:
a) Tourist Operators
Objectives
To investigate the interpretation of ecotourism concepts by each individual
ecotourism operators. This will help build an understanding to the foundation of
the ecotourism operation and be able to identify any linkages relating to the
conservation or protection of the marine environment.
Name of Operator:…………… Year of Operation:………….
Name of Interviewee:…………… Contact Details:……………………
Interpretation of Ecotourism
1. How would you define ecotourism in your own words or understanding?
2. What are the objectives of your business or operation?
3. What are your goals in the next 3 years?
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4. Do you have a business statement that highlights your operation?
5 From the list of definitions identified, choose one definition that you feel best
fits your current business practice or is ideal for an ecotourism operation to
be?
6. Could you please indicate how the definition of ecotourism (selected above)
has been helpful to achieving the objectives stated?
7. Could you please indicate how the definition of ecotourism (selected above)
has been helpful to achieving the objectives you have identified?
b) Community
Household Id:………
1. How many family members do you currently have in this household?
2. How many of the family members are working and where do they work?
3. What would be the various sources of income to the family?
4. What would be the percentage of each of the sources?
5. Cash income made from the sale of marine ornaments to tourists, what would
your household spend it on? If you do sell them.
6. How important would you find your marine environment to be of use to you?
Not at all (1) Average (2) Important (3) Very important (4)
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7. What activities do you engage most with in the marine environment
(swimming, food collecting, shell collecting for selling, traveling etc.)?
8. If fishing is identified in Q4, then what % of food is obtained from the marine
environment compared to the % purchased from shops or supermarket if any?
9. Have you heard of the term ecotourism?
10. How would you define the term ecotourism from your own understanding?
11. How many ecotourism operators do you think exist around this Tikina?
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Appendix 2.0
Operators In-depth Interview Questionnaire
Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies, School of Social and Economic
Development, University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus, Suva Fiji
What this survey about….
This study is about gaining a better understanding of your experience to the operation of ecotourism in the Nacula Tikina. By participating in this survey, you will help us understand your operation as an ecotourism operator and how it has it has contributed to the conservation of the environment and its resources. Objectives
To investigate the business practices of each operator in relations to addressing environmental concerns and issues that may have some connectivity impact to the marine environment such as the use of the product, waste management, resources use, agriculture, planning, contribution to conservation, education and awareness programs etc.
ID:…………………... Understanding of Ecotourism 1. What do you understand by the term ecotourism? Explain in your own word 2. From the list of definition provided, please select which you think best suits
your operation practically Ecotourism Products 3. What types of ecotourism product do you offer to your customers? Identify
the entire ecotourism product offered under your operation. 4. Do you have a special project site (natural site) that is associated or is being
set out for the use of the ecotourism product that you offer to your customers to use at any time for their learning experience or for enjoyment during their visit? What would the area of the site be like? Briefly explain (location (map), area, how many other operators use this site)
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5. Do you have any baseline inventories of this site? If so, have you used this information to set-out any management and decision making process for conservation or protection to the use of the site?
6. How do you go about organizing the use of the project site (emphasis of
individual responsibilities, carrying capacity (number of people you allow at any one time), and zonning, seasonal closures of specific areas, closure during breeding seasons, etc? Briefly explain.
7. Do you have any guidelines or regulations outlined for your customers as to
how they should use the environment of the product for their enjoyment? Briefly describe the guidelines if there are any.
8. Do you monitor the status of the natural environment of the site over time in
order to understand the conditions and changes that have occurred physically to the surrounding from the time the area had been first used for your operation? Briefly explain. (This can also help identify the level of impact imposed by tourists)
Education and Awareness Programs 9. How well do you feel you are informed about environmental functions and
interactions of what occurs on land and its connectivity impact with the marine environment? Rank between 1-5
10. Are there any staff training and awareness of environmental management in
place? How often is this conducted? 11. Do you provide personnel training of tourist guides to meet the requests of
tourist regarding information about various environmental issues? 12. Do you educate your tourists as to how they should interact themselves with
the environment or identify some biological and ecological significance of the environment that they could be of importance to conservation. Briefly explain
13. Do you provide any form of education to local communities as well to the
conservation of the environment? Contribution to Conservation 14. How do you feel about taking an active role in contributing to the
conservation of the marine environment around the Nacula Tikina as a whole? In what ways do you see yourself engage to this?
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15. Do you generate or plan to generate some form of money towards conservation or protection of the marine environment. If so how do you plan its distribution? How do you feel about making contribution towards conservation work?
Planning process
16. Was there a planning process involved in the initial physical setting up of your
operation? Briefly explained the involvement in the planning process? To be able to gain an understanding if there were any external review made to the environment (resource inventory, assessing government regulation in relation to environmental policies or ecotourism criteria)
17. Are you aware of some of the environmental damages that may arise if the
followings (waste management, agricultural practices, resource use) are not environmentally practiced to the full extent? If any such happens, what plan of action do you intend to take? Do you have any contingency plans that address future environmental harm that may be caused by your operation in the near future?
18. Are there any conservation strategies in place for the marine environment in
the future operation of your business?
Waste Management
19. Briefly describe any of the waste management programs that your operation has implemented around and within the natural environment of your operation.
Solid Waste Management Recycling and Reuse Liquid Waste Management (sewage treatment, septic tanks, effluents irrigation, holding tanks) Rubbish and Litter Management
20. In what ways do you feel has the identified waste management program been helpful to the protection of the environment (marine environment for that matter) around and within your operation?
21. Of how many years have your operation now adopted and implemented the
program identified above (for each individual)?
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Agriculture 22. Briefly describe how the flower gardens, natural vegetations, other green
crops, etc. are maintained around the area. Able to describe the use of fertilizer, other manure etc. (What is the focus on environmentally-friendly practices)
Resource Use 23. Briefly identify some of the natural resources used from the marine
environment that you have used to maintain the physical set-up of your buildings, sea wall, floor of bures, footpaths, internal decorations of bures, manure, or as souvenirs for tourists etc. Examples of this could be: extraction of sand from beaches to make stones for building, rubbles and corals to use for septic tanks, seaweed or seagrass to use in flower beds as manure, shells for bure internal decoration etc. Where have these resources been extracted or collected from? What has been the methods used for extraction or collection? How often is this being done?
24. What is your dependency level to the marine environment in terms of food?
Do you encourage fishing, shell extraction, coral extraction, gleaning etc. from the vicinity of where you take your tourist? Briefly explain.
Experiences 25. What are some of the challenges and opportunities faced as an ecotourism operator in Nacula Tikina?
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Appendix 3.0
Community Questionnaire
Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies, School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus, Suva Fiji Objectives
To also investigate community’s understanding and participation in the operation of ecotourism to the use of their marine environment or fishing grounds as they are the resource owners and therefore have the majority impact and influence to the decision-makings relating to conservation practices and issues.
General
1. Have you heard of the term ‘ecotourism’? If yes, please briefly explain or describe what you think it means?
2. Are you as an individual familiar with the ‘qoliqoli’ boundary of your community?
3. Which sites within the ‘qoliqoli’ are being used by the tourism operators in the Nacula Tikina for their outdoor marine activities (diving, snorkeling, kayaking, etc)? Describe on map
4. Are these sites also used by the communities for subsistence etc? If so, how exactly do you feel about the tourism operators using the same site? and why?
5. What are some of the tourism-related activities that are currently practiced within the community’s qoliqoli? List the ones that you are more amiliar with?
Networking with ecotourism operators
6. Does the community work closely with the tourism operators around the area in the use of its community ‘qoliqoli’ for their tourism activities? If yes, please specify what the involvement has been? What has been the level of involvement? If low, please indicate why?
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7. Have the tourism operators in any way helped influence you as an individual about the protection/conservation of the marine environment? If yes, briefly explain how?
8. How do you feel about the use of your community’s qoliqoli for the benefits of the tourism operators around the Nacula Tikina? ....Satisfied ..Not satisfied. Briefly explain for reason stated above
Community Practices
9. Shell harvesting has been a common activity for the locals (source of income), what then are some of the common species of shells that you collect and sell to tourists? What sort of income do you get from this? What possible methods do you used to harvest the shells collected? Are they harvested alive of dead? If shells are caught alive, do you still intend to keep them? From where do you commonly harvest these shells? How long has the area been used for? How many harvesting sites have you already used?
10. Are there any local conservation practices already implemented or are under
process within the community to help protect the marine environment for touristic purposes? Briefly explain if there are any
11. If there are none, do you think that the community is intending do implement
any? What do you think will it involve? Briefly explain? Who all have been or will be involved in the conservation process identified above?
Observation 12. What are some of the marine environmental problems that have you have generally observed over the years in your communities ‘qoliqoli’? 13. What do you think are the causes of these problems? 14. What do you feel has been the impact of the tourism activities in the marine
environment around the ‘qoliqoli’ of the communities? ..very good ..good ..neutral ...bad ….very bad …..dnt know.
For the option selected above, please briefly explain your reason 15 Do you in any way feel that the practice of the existing operators within the
Nacula Tikina has helped address some of the problems indicated above? If so, then explain how?
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Community’s Participation
16. Do you think that your community has contributed in any way to the better use of the marine environment for current tourist benefits? If so, please explain how?
17. If no, do you then think that the community can help contribute to the future
use of the qoliqoli for future ecotourism purposes? In what way can do you think they could contribute. List all of the possible ways.
18. What are some of the conservation issues do you think are important to
address if the community is given a chance to manage its marine environment for future ecotourism purposes?
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Appendix 4.0 Tourist Questionnaire Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies, School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus, Suva, Fiji.
Bula! This survey is conducted in order to gain a better understanding of how important your engagement as a tourist to some of the ecotourism activities offered by operators for your enjoyment and learning experience. By participating in the survey, you will help us understand your involvement and contribution to the protection and conservation of the marine environment. This will help develop better management policies that would encourage further conservation of the marine environment through the practice of ecotourism.
How to complete this questionnaire: Answer by ticking the appropriate box or by writing in the answers where possible Please add any comments you feel are necessary to clarify any of the answers that you may be providing. Please note that Nacula is the name of the district of where you are currently
spending your holiday which has been used at most times in this questionnaire.
1. What is your age group? …… 15-24 …25-34 …35-44..…45-54 …….55-64 …..65+ 2. Are you ……male or ……female? 3. Nationality ……………….. 4. Where do you normally live?…………………………………. 5. What is your highest level of education? ……..no degree ……..secondary degree (high school) ……..some tertiary qualification or technical degree ……..university qualification 6. Are you traveling ……alone ……in pair ……..in families?
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7. How long have you been here in Nacula or how long do you intend to stay? ……..1-3 days ……4-7 days ……>7 days 8. What is the main purpose of your trip here to Nacula. Please tick one box ……….relaxation ………honeymoon ……..business ………culture …….adventure (engagement of extreme physical activities) …….nature experience others: please state ……………………………….. 9. How important were the following aspects to your holiday in Nacula? Please rank on the scale from 1-5, whereby 1 is not important at all and 5 is extremely important. Coral reefs 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Beach 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Marine life 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Coastal Vegetation 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) People 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Culture 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Food 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Cheap accommodation1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) 10. Have you done any of the following activities while here in Nacula. If yes, how often? Please tick the boxes and indicate how many times ….Diving …..times; ….Snorkeling….times;…..Kayaking…times ….Game fishing….times; ….Surfing.…times; ….Boat cruise…times ….Cultural tours….times; ….Cave Visit....times Others: …………….., …times 11. What are the things that have interested you most in this trip? ….Coral reefs; ….Sandy Beach; ….Marine life; ….Coastal Vegetation ….People; ….Climate; ….Culture; ….Food; ….Accommodation ….Others: Please indicate………………… 12. Why do you say so? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 13. What has been the most disappointing part of your holiday in Nacula in regards to your encounter with the marine environment either it be diving, snorkeling, beach walks etc?
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………beach ……..coral reefs ………marine life ……….rubbish/litter 14. Give reasons to the above. Beach ……………………………………………………………………… Coral reefs………………………………………………………………….. Marine life………………………………………………………………….. Rubbish or litter……………………………………………………………. 15. What factors would you consider in visiting Nacula again in the future? Please rank on the scale from 1-5, whereby 1 is not important at all and 5 is extremely important Scenery/nature 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Learning experience of the natural environment 1( ) 2 ( )3 ( )4 ( ) 5 ( ) Enjoy the climate 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Culture 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Food 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) Accommodation 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) 16. How informed or knowledgeable are you personally about the natural environment processes or interactions (especially for the marine environment) irrespective of what you have been provided during this trip? Please tick box that is appropriate from 1-5, whereby 1 is no knowledge at all and 5 is extremely knowledgeable 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) 17. How informed or knowledgeable are you personally about conservation practices regarding the protection of the environment? Please tick box that is appropriate from 1-5, whereby 1 is no knowledge at all and 5 is extremely knowledgeable 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( )
18. Were you provided with enough information during your visit regarding responsible practices as tourist to protect the environment? Please rank between 1-5 whereby 1 is not informed while 5 is extremely informed.
1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( )
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19. When using the marine environment for your enjoyment, are you satisfied with the information or regulations being provided to you about responsible use of the environment provided to you by the operators? Please rank on the scale from 1-5, whereby 1 is not satisfied at all and 5 is extremely satisfied. 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) 20. How likely do you to follow the information or regulations provided? Please rank on the scale from 1-5, whereby 1 is not followed at all and 5 is extremely followed. 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) 21.Do you feel that you have gained any new information at all about the importance of the marine environment and everything associated with it during this trip to Nacula? Please rank on the scale from 1-5, whereby 1 is not gained anything at all and 5 is extremely gained. What are some of the information that you would like operators to provide for you? 1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 22. What are some of the responsible practices that you keep in mind and apply while enjoying some of the marine environment related activities offered by the backpacker operators in Nacula? (e.g. do not step on corals while snorkeling etc.). Please indicate as many as possible.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
23. How do feel about contributing to the conservation and protection of Nacula’s marine environment? Please rank on the scale from 1-5, whereby 1 is no support at all and 5 is extremely support.
1( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 ( ) 24. How much do you feel you would contribute? ………………$FJ
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25. What are some recommendations that you would recommend to the locals and operators about trying to protect and conserve their marine environment for future ecotourism activities? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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Appendix 5.0
Definitions of Ecotourism used for Operators Interview 1. ‘Nature-based tourism that involves education and interpretation of the natural
environment and is managed to be ecologically sustainable’ (Queensland Government 1997).
2. ‘Purposeful travel to maintain areas to understand the culture and natural
history of the environment, taking care not to alter the integrity of the ecosystem, while at the same time producing opportunities that make the conservation of natural resources beneficial to local people’ (International Ecotourism Society 2003).
3. Tourism that consist of traveling to undisturbed or uncontaminated natural
areas with the specific objective of studying, admiring and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals, as well as any existing cultural manifestations’ (Ceballos-Lascurain 1987)
4. ‘Any form of tourism activity that gains for a country, a tourist enterprise and
local communities, cash income, foreign exchange or other assistance required to make life safer, healthier, more productive and more enjoyable while at the same time focusing on the uniqueness, beauty and knowledge of the natural and cultural environment and the links that local communities have to the environment as a central tourist attraction or beneficial learning experience and as a resource that should be protected, restored and used sustainably for the benefit of future generation’ (Thaman 2001)
5. ‘Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and
improves the well being of local people. It also includes minimization of environmental and cultural consequences, contributing to conservation and community project in developing countries and environmental education and political consequences raising such as the establishment of code of conduct for travelers as well the various components of the travel industry’ (Honey 1996)
6. ‘The planned practice of tourism in which the enjoyment of nature and
learning about living beings and their relationship with their environment are brought together, it is an activity which does not result in the deterioration of the environment and which promotes and supports the conservation of natural resources, thereby producing economic benefits which reach most social strata of the population in such a way that a sustainable horizontal development is achieved. Moreover, real ecotourism promotes justice for people and for nature’ (Evans-Pritchard & Salazar 1992)
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7. ‘Ecotourism can contribute to both conservation and development and involves a minimum, positive synergistic relationships between tourism, biodiversity and local people, facilitated by appropriate management’ (Ross and Wall 1999)
8. ‘It is a form of tourism that will achieve the potential benefit to environment
without the negative impacts’ (Australian Conservation Foundation 1994) 9. ‘It is an activity that can stimulate the economy and generate direct funding
for conservation, as well as provide employment and entrepreneurial opportunities that justify conservation of the natural areas and protection of assets upon which the industry depends on’ (Boo 1990)
10. ‘It can contribute to conservation by providing environmental education or
interpretation to participants which leads to awareness and understanding of the natural environment and promotes pro-environment attitudes, support for conservation and responsible environmental behavior’ (Wearing and Neil 1999)
11. ‘The kind of tourism which is: (a) based on relatively undisturbed natural
areas, (b) non-damaging, non-degrading, (c) a direct contributor to the continued protection and management of the natural areas used, (d) subject to an adequate and appropriate management regimes’ (Valentine 1993)
12. ‘A form of nature-based tourism which involves responsible travel to
relatively undeveloped areas to foster an appreciation of nature and local cultures, while conserving the physical and social environment, respecting the aspiration and traditions of those visited, and improving the welfare of the local people’ (Harrison, 1999)
13. ‘Ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing
natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation’ (Ecotourism Australia 2003)
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Appendix 6.0
Graphical Analysis and Discussion of Community Questionnaire Question 1
Have you heard of the term 'ecotourism'
42%
23%
35%
YesSlightlyNo
The pie-chart shows that 42% of the community respondents said ‘yes’ that they had heard of the word ‘ecotourism’ while 35% indicated ‘no’ and 23% indicated slightly. Question 4
Are you satisfied with how operators are gaining benefits from your environment
35%
65%
yesno
The pie-chart shows that 65% of the community respondents were not satisfied with how operators were gaining the benefits of using their marine environment while 35% were satisfied.
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Question 6
What has been the level of involvement with operators on the use of the environment?
72%
28%
0%
NoneSlightlyMore
The pie-chart shows that 72% of community respondents were never involved with operators on any decision making regarding the use of their marine environment while 28% indicated that they were slightly involved to some level. No respondent indicated that they were involved in whatsoever (0%).
Question 7
Were you influnced by the operators to conserve the environment?
83%
17%
YesNo
The pie-chart shows that 83% of the community respondents were influenced by operators to conserve their environment while 17% did not feel influenced as all
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Question 12
Do you see any changes to your marine environment now as compared to 10-years ago
68%
32%
NoYes
The pie-chart shows that 68% of the community respondents had observed changes to their marine environment over time while 32% did not observe any changes at all.
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Appendix 7.0
Graphical Analysis and Discussion of Tourist Questionnaire Question 13
Dissapointing Experience
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Beach Coral reef Marine life Rubbish/litter
Perc
enat
ge
The bar-graph shows that 65.5% of the respondents related their disappointing experience to rubbish/litter, 29.1% to the beach, 27.3% to coral reef and 10.9% to marine life during their visit to Nacula.
Question 17
Conservation Knowledge
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
no knowledgable
slightly knowledgeable
knowledgable
slightly aboveknowledgeable
extremely knowledgeable
Percentage
The bar-graph identifies the ranking made to the different to knowledge level that tourists had in regards environmental conservation. The graph shows that at least 38.2% of the respondents ranked that they were slightly knowledgeable, 27.3% were knowledgeable and 20% were very knowledgeable.
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Question 18
Provision of Information
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
no information at all
slightly informed
informed
slightly above informed
extremely informed
Percentage
From the bar-graph, 47.3% of the respondents indicated that they were not provided any information during their period of stay in Nacula. Only a small percent (1.8%) were extremely informed while 21.8% and 20% were slightly informed and informed respectively.
Question 19
Satisfaction
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
unsatisfied
slightly satisfied
satisfied
slightly above satisfied
extremely satisfied
Percentage
From the bar-graph, 29.1% of the respondents were unsatisfied with the type of environmental information provided to them while 23.6% were slightly satisfied and 25.5% were only satisfied to some level. Only 3.6% of the respondents indicated that they were extremely satisfied.
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Question 20
Compliance to Information or Regulation Provided by the Operators
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
will not follow
slightly follow
follow
slightly above follow
extremely follow
Percentage
The graph shows that 72.7% are likely to extremely follow any information or regulation provided by operators regarding responsible use of the environment. There was a low responses made to those that will slightly and not follow any information or regulation provided to them
Question 21
New Information Gained
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
no information at all
slightly
average
slightly above average
extremely
Percentage
The graph shows that 30.9% of the respondents felt that did not gain new information apart from what they already knew regarding the importance of the marine environment while 27.3% indicate a fair knowledge. Only 3.6% indicated that they had some form of knowledge extremely.
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Appendix 8.0
List of Operators Interviewed
(Listing of the operators provided here is not according to that of the ones
provided in the tables of Chapter 5. They have been provided as background
information to the types of management for those operators that were
interviewed)
1. Turtle Island Resort- Foreign owned and managed
2. Oarsman’s Bay Lodge- Locally owned
3. Otto’s and Fanny Dought’s Place- Locally owned
4. Safelanding Resort- Locally owned
5. Coral View Resort- Locally owned
6. Seaspray- Foreign owned
7. Nabua Lodge-Locally owned
8. Melbravo-Locally owned
9. Gold Coast Inn- Locally owned
10. Sunrise Lagoon- Locally owned
11. Tavewa Dive Operator- Foreign owned
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Appendix 9.0
List of villages where interviews were conducted in Nacula District
1. Matacawalevu Village 2. Nacula Village 3. Naisilisili Village 4. Malakati Village 5. Navotua Village 6. Vuata Village
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Appendix 10.0 Map of Nacula Customary Fishing Boundary
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Appendix 11.0
NTTA Coral Friendly Snorkeling Guidelines
Page 1
206
Page 2- Continue
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Appendix 12.0
Oarsman’s Bay Ecotourism Activities Pamphlets
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Appendix 13.0 Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation Program- Workshop Notes (Source: Ministry of Tourism 2005)
Sustainability Principles
Environment Sustainability Environmental Sustainability Tourism – Tourism activities should not degrade the natural resources. Operations should be developed and managed to conserve and enhance the natural and cultural environment in which they exist, through the recognition and appreciation of ecological sustainable practices. These practices include waste and energy minimization and those relating to specific activities such as bush walking and snorkeling. Interpretation – Products provide opportunities to experience nature in ways that lead to greater understating, appreciation and enjoyment. It is not just information, but bring many pieces of information together and relating them to the setting or experience in such a way that it all becomes more meaningful and enjoyable. Good interpretation not only enhances the customers’ experience but also assist in the other objectives such as minimizing human impact on resources and promoting better public perceptions. Contribution to Conservation – Tourism involves active participation in the conservation and enhancement of the natural resources. This contribution may include the removal of customers’ litter or rubbish; the provision of physical, financial or in-king assistance for the rehabilitation of areas subject to negative visitor impacts; and the contribution to a conservation group.
Socio-cultural Sustainability Cultural Respect and Sensitivity – Tourism is sensitive to, interprets and involves different cultures, particularly indigenous culture. Working with Local Communities – Products provide constructive ongoing contributions to local communities. The benefits of tourism should be equitably distributed with significant benefits accruing to the local community. Local benefits may accrue from the use the employment of local guides, the purchase of provisions and services and the use of local facilities. These benefits should outweigh the costs.
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Accreditation Levels For Green Fiji STAMP Workshop Session 1
Level 1 – Elementary: Satisfies all legislative requirements. Business should self register for certification and initial listing in tourism directory.
Cost in is nil
Level 2 – Evolving: Standards are provided for business is in the process of/moving towards achieving sustainable practices.
Small administration fee
Level 3 – Sustainable: Business practices are sustainable at a practical and operational level.
Fee to be determined…..
Level 4 – Superior: In addition to the minimum impact level, products encourage interpretation and conservation in customers.
Level 5 – Best Practice: Opportunity for innovations to be shared with other accredited business
The names of each level are still to be finalized, possible with Fijian words. For example Level 1 may be Tuyavu(meaning foundation/base) rather then elementary.
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Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation Program.
Segments for Tourism Industry Product Standards. Segments for Accommodation Standards • Hotels/Resorts
• Ecotourism • Backpackers • Home-stay • Camping • Timeshare • Villas • Cruise Ships
\Segments for Tour Standards • Diving
• Cruising/Yachting • Liveaboards • Ecotours
- River/Rafting - Hiking - Horseriding - Caves - Scenic Attracting - Other - (Cultural)
• Tour operators
Segments for Transport Standards • Airlines • Ferries • Public Transport • Rental Hire • Travel Agents
Segments for Food Standards • Restaurants
• Cafes
Segments for Miscellaneous Standards • Cultural & Tourism • Health & Tourism • Sports & Tourism • Tourism & the Arts • Duty Free • Handicraft
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Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation Program
Accreditation Levels
Symbol Requirements Assessment Benefits Level 1 – Elementary:
Satisfies all legislative requirements
Proof of licenses etc. provided with registration of business details
Listing with FVB & Awards Category
Level 2 – Improving: Business practices are not all sustainable but an operation meets the minimum sustainability requirements.
Self-assessment of operation submitted along with proof of licenses etc.
Marketing with FVB & Awards Category.
Level 3 – Sustainable: Business practices are sustainable at a practical and operational level.
Self-assessment of operation submitted along with proof of licenses etc
Marketing with FVB & Awards Category.
Level 4 – Superior: In addition to the minimum impact level, products encourage interpretation and conservation in customers.
Self-assessment of operation submitted along with proof of licenses etc & external assessment conducted.
Marketing with FVB & Awards Category & Economic Benefits
Level 5 – Best Practices: Opportunity for innovations to be shared with other accredited business.
Self-assessment of operation submitted along with proof of licenses etc & external assessment conducted.
Marketing with FVB & Awards Category & Economic Benefits
The names for each level are still to be finalized, possible with Fijian words. For example Level 1 may be Tauyavu(meaning foundation/base) rather than Elementary.
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Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation Program
Proposed Institutional Arrangement This proposal outlines the recommended institutional arrangements for the implementation and management of Green Fiji Sustainable Tourism Accreditation and Monitoring Program (STAMP). The program will be piloted with the Accommodation sector of the tourism industry and once successfully established move into the remaining sectors through a continued phased approach. Consultations and workshops with the Accommodation sector have been carried out to develop this proposal. Additional workshops will be held with the other tourism sectors to page their support for the program in the next few weeks. Institutional Arrangement The management of Green Fiji should be the responsibility of the Ministry of Tourism for the initial implementation phase. The Ministry has the necessary power and resources needed to successfully establish the program that an independence management body would not be able to provide at the outset. Once the program is established, the program could be privatized of incorporated depending on the resources available at the time. An assessment of the programs progress and operating environment should be carried out annually to determine the optimum timing for establishing independence from the Ministry. To maintain autonomy, an independent advisor body should be establish, the Green Fiji Advisory Board (GFA). The proposed members of GFAB and tasks that will be required of the board are listed below. A green Fiji Auditor(GFA) should be engaged to manage the day to day functioning requirements of the program. The job description and four options for filling this position are listed below but Option C is recommended for the first year(2006) considering the current resources available to the Ministry and operational constraints. Options B should be consider for 2007. Green Fiji Advisory Board (GFAB) The board should contain seven members from both the tourism industry representative bodies and relevant government departments. Possible members will be representative from: 1. Ministry of Tourism (Sustainable Development Section); 2. Department of Environment; 3. Department of Culture; 4. University of the South Pacific (Department of Tourism) 5. Fiji Islands Hotel and Tourism Association (Environmental Coordinator); 6. To be determined?? 7. To be determined??
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The main tasks of the board will be to: Award the higher levels of accreditation upon the recommendation of GFA; Review any appeals requested from applicants; Advise on any issue raised with their relevant bodies and feed into the
ongoing development of the program; and Review reports from GFA on the programs achievements.
Green Fiji Auditor (GFA) The following tasks will be the key duties of the auditor:
Review all applications, regardless of level applied for and provide and assessment on the accreditation level achieved, including recommendations to the applicant;
Audit facilities of higher level applications and present findings with recommendations to GFAB for approval;
Participate in the review of all appeals at the directive of the board; Perform the daily functions required in the management of the program
including responding to applicant enquiries; Coordinate with the Ministry (particularly the Sustainable Development
Section) in the promotion of the program; Conduct Green Fiji awareness training and assessment training as required; Conduct quarterly workshops for accredited business to facilitate the sharing
of best practice case studies and experiences; and Present quarterly reports to GFAB on the programs achievements.
GFA Staffing Option A A current staff member of the Sustainable Development Section of the Ministry of Tourism could perform the tasks of the auditor. The nominated staff member would need to undergo auditing training (possible overseas) to ensure they have the necessary qualifications and skills to credibility undertake product audits. Although there would be no additional funds required for wages, considering the current responsibilities of the sections, it would be overburdening them and unfeasible to pursue this option. GFA Staffing Option B The auditor could become a new position within the Sustainable Development Section of the Ministry of Tourism. The responsibilities of the position would require the appointment to be at the level of Senior Tourism Officer (starting wages of $24,00 per year). This option would be ideal financially and the auditor could provide additional support for the section while the program is building up its operations. However, due to the operational requirements of the Public Service Commission (PSC), it does not seem possible to have this position approved and fund until 2007 and is therefore not recommended. GFA Staffing Option C Following the structure of option B but looking at the possibility of using Program funds (PSIP funds), the third possibility is for the Ministry to tender an
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individual to be contracted to fill the position of auditor on a full time basis for a year. It should be possible to hire this person from within Fiji and cost of approximately $40,000 per year and avoid the time constraint established with hiring a new staff member. GFA Staffing Option D It may be possible to tender a contractor on a needs basis, where they would only work with the Ministry when tasks were required such as carrying out audits, assessments and training. In this option the costs of employing a consultant would be increased to a daily rate of approximately $1000 (including VAT and expenses). In this situation, the Sustainable Development Section would need to complete some of the daily tasks required of the position, as the contractor would not be available. Initially this option would be practical but could easily become too expensive as the program increases popularity and the section is unable to provide the time to complete the daily tasks required.
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Sustainability Principles For Green Fiji STAMP Workshop Session 1 Environment Sustainable Tourism – Tourism activities should not degrade the natural resources. Operations should be developed and managed to conserve and enhance the natural and cultural environment in which they exist, through the recognition and appreciation of ecological sustainable practices. Theses practices include waste and energy minimization and those relating to specific activities such as bush walking and snorkeling. Interpretation – Products provide opportunities to experience nature in ways that lead to greater understating, appreciation and enjoyment. It is not just information, but bring many pieces of information together and relating them to the setting or experience in such a way that it all becomes more meaningful and enjoyable. Good interpretation not only enhances the customers’ experience but also assists in the other objectives such as minimizing human impact on resources and promoting better public perceptions. Contribution to Conservation – Tourism involves active participation in the conservation and enhancement of the natural resources. This contribution may include the removal of customers’ litter or rubbish; the provision of physical, financial or in-kind assistance for the rehabilitation of areas subject to negative visitor impacts; and the contributions to a conservation group.
Socio-cultural Sustainability Cultural Respect and Sensitivity – Tourism is sensitive to, interprets and involves different cultures, particularly indigenous culture. Working with Local Communities – Products provide constructive ongoing contributions to local communities. The benefits of tourism should be equitably distributed with significant benefits accruing to the local community. Local benefits may accrue from the use the employment of local guides, the purchase of provisions and services and the use of local facilities. These benefits should outweigh the costs.
Economic Sustainability Business Management and operational Planning – Sound business management and operational procedures are integral to the delivery of economic sustainability. This includes legal compliance through meeting all regulation, licensing and permitting requirements. Insurance such as public liability insurance would also be included in this.
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Business Ethics – The business and all it’s staff adopt and follow ethical business practices. Responsible Marketing – Tourism marketing is accurate and leads to realistic expectations though operation providing clients with an accurate and responsible depiction of what to expect from the product. Customer Satisfaction – Products consistently meet customer expectations. The is achieved through formal and informal monitoring of customer satisfaction, which is subsequently acted upon.
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Green Fiji STAMP Workshop Outcomes Background In December 2004, cabinet endorsed the drafting of a Fiji Tourism Standards & Risk Management Guide. This process has been initiated with preliminarily consultation held with a small sample of relevant industry and government stakeholders. These consultations provided a broad view of what an appropriate Green Fiji accreditation program should be. To ensure the program is developed in accordance with all of Government of Fiji’s policy strategies and legislations requirements, a Green Fiji working Group was formed and will meet at regular intervals. The first working group was held on 24 June 2005. As a next step in the development of the drafting of the accreditation program, a series of five industry workshop will be held. Each workshop will be attended by representative from the tourism industry in Fiji and will focus on a particular segment of the industry. This workshop is for the first workshop focusing on accommodation stakeholders. The supplementary workshops are proposed for:
Workshop 2. for Tours on 21 July 2005 Workshop 3. for Food and Miscellaneous on 27 July 2005 Workshop 4. for Transport on 9 August 2005; and Workshop 5. to be held in Fijian on 16 to 17 August 2005 Workshops Objective: To provide representatives of the tourism industry with the opportunity to express their view and ideas on the proposed ‘Green Fiji’ accreditation program. Workshop Outcome: The main outcome of all five workshops, including this one, will be a report detailing the tourism industry’s view on the proposed Green Fiji accreditation program. Specifically the report will address: • What the fundamental principles for environmental, socio-cultural and economic sustainability should be; • What should be the sectors or product groups within the program; • Who should be responsible for the management and the administration of the accreditation process; • Who should carry out the accreditation assessments and audits (including an appropriate appeals process) and how this should be done; • What fees the industry is willing to pay for accreditations; and • What they would like to receive as insensitive or benefits for achieving accreditation.
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Appendix 14.0 (from the http://www.pacificpeoplespartnership.org/takeaction/docs/Responsible_Tourism_Code.pdf) Nacula Tikina Tourism Association (NTTA) CODE OF CONDUCT from Fiji’s magical Yasawa Islands brochure Properties in this brochure have agreed to and adopted the following Code of Conduct and Practice, and have agreed to implement and be bound by its principles in their Resort operations. Waste Management • To implement recycling programs in each property by separating waste and returning bottles, tins and plastics to town monthly; • To ensure each property has installed best practice sewage disposal facilities; • To educate staff on what is biodegradable and compostable and to establish a composting program; • To have a weekly clean up of all litter on beaches, in the sea and around property generally. Fijian Culture • To educate guests on Fijian customs important to the Villages and Yasawas including appropriate dress, sevusevu, ceremonies and mekes; • To train staff members to provide interpretation of local Yasawa history, and to explain operations of village social structure and cultural protocols. • To respect privacy of Fijian villages and to visit Fijian villages only on Sunday to attend church after permission has been granted. • To only use beaches and other islands where permission has been obtained. Protection of Ecology and Environment • To stop selling shells and precious marine resources and to substitute this income with sales of woven baskets, coconut oil and fruit; • To educate guests and staff on fragility of marine resources and encourage responsible usage; • To minimize impact of buildings and structures on the natural and visual environment; • To have concern for the environment of other properties, other beaches and other islands in Nacula Tikina; • To observe proper practices in marine resource management including not catching undersize fish; • To implement program for de-sexing unwanted dogs and cats to eradicate stray and malnourished animals around properties;
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• To only use cleaning and chemical products that do not damage or harm the environment. Guest Safety and Care • To ensure all boats used for guest transportation are seaworthy and contain all necessary safety equipment; • To educate staff on safety procedures in the event of fire or cyclone and to provide written safety instructions for guests; • To provide sufficient drinking water storage for both guests and staff to go through a dry spell; • To train all staff in provision of basic first aid assistance, and to have essential first aid equipment at the properties; • To maintain high standards of hygiene in food management and in bar and dining areas. Education and Training • To educate all key staff members on which products in the resorts can be used safely for specific purposes; to train key staff members to deal calmly but firmly with difficult circumstances including dissatisfied guests, emergencies and cyclones. Communication • To utilize V.H.F. radio frequency between NTTA members to maintain communication on guests and safety issues; • To regularly attend NTTA meetings to share information and experiences. Self Improvement • To implement a system of incentive rewards for NTTA properties that continually improves their performance towards best practice.
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