Introduction

The importance of local community participation has never been more underscored than in protected-area development. The World Conservation Strategy acknowledged the need to involve local communities in rural development in terms of labour, funds, land and materials, by linking protected-area management and development with the economic activities of local communities (IUCN 1980). It recommended that local communities should be able to share the benefits from recreation and tourism, both directly and indirectly, through the provision of public services such as roads, water supply and health facilities.

Concurrently, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) voiced similar concerns through a joint declaration on tourism and environment drawn up in 1983 (WTO & UNEP 1992). Both organizations encouraged more appropriate tourism development in national parks and protected areas by addressing the ways and means of involving local people living in and around protected areas so that they may obtain increased social and economic benefits from tourism. The World Tourism Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme further developed guidelines in developing national parks and protected areas for tourism, which state that in identifying their primary beneficiaries, the local people ‘should have the highest priority’ (1992:23).

The Fourth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas also adopted the need to include local people in park planning and management (McNeely 1992).