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

Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction: Assessment of Local Attitudes towards Conservation and Tourism around Royal Belum State Park, Malaysia Khairul Hisyam Kamarudin*, Ibrahim Ngah and Khamarrul Azahari Razak International Conference on Development and Socio-Spatial Inequalities 2015 19-20 August 2015, Bayview Beach Resort, Penang, Malaysia

 Introduction  Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction through Sustainable ECT  Stories of Two Villages  Study approaches  Results, Discussions and Conclusion

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

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

 Focus  diversification of rural economic  activities will allow for a specific study locals’ including on attitude towards conservation and rural development project (or in this case, sustainable eco-culture tourism, ECT project as one of rural development strategy for Orang Asli’s B40 group).

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

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

Eco-culture tourism (ECT) has brought a multitude of definitions for individuals from varied backgrounds. “ an individual or a certain human group travel to enjoy nature’s the beauty and also the unique cultural diversity of human populating the earth, where the relationship between both elements (nature and the ” local community’s culture) happens symbiotically. Kamarudin et al. (2014)

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

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

Data collection from two villages

Data collection from two villages Village (or Kampung) Population Number of families Male Female Total Semelor 85 74 159 30 Sungai Tiang 191 218 409 83 Village (or Kampung) Sub Ethnic Religion TOTAL Jahai Temiar Islam Christian Bahai Animisme Semelor - 159 80 - - 79 159 Sungai Tiang 409 - 49 47 43 - 409 Source: Department of Orang Asli Development (Gerik) (2014)

Data collection from two villages

Data collection from two villages

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

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

Reasons for supporting the idea of sustainable ECT (n=20) Answers given by respondents Likert Scale (n=) RII Rank 1 2 3 4 5  Potential for income generation (full-time job) 0 0 1 3 16 20 0.95 **1  Potential for income generation (part-time job) 0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 *5  Gaining experience / skill in tourism-related activities 0 0 2 7 11 20 0.89 2 though training (human capital development and entrepreneurship)  Potential for local facilities (physical and 0 0 2 17 1 20 0.79 *5 communication) improvement  Increase protection of local biodiversity and socio- 0 0 0 5 15 20 0.95 **1 culture opportunities  Increase internal link for marketing of local ECT 0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 6 products and SME products  Training ground for future leaders in managing 0 0 3 7 10 20 0.87 3 sustainable ECT  Potential for receiving development funds by 0 0 0 15 5 20 0.85 4 government/private investors Source: Research fieldwork in 2014 - 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’ Note: - RII (Relative Importance Index)

The study revealed the following factors/reasons for supporting the idea of SECT around RBSP namely: • Top/most influence answers given by respondents as reasons for supporting the idea of SECT - shared by (1) the respondents’ desire to increase opportunity for income generation and (2) increase protection of local biodiversity and socio-culture (with RII value of 0.95 respectively). • Less influence in supporting the idea of SECT - Increase internal link for marketing of local CBET products and SME products (RII = 0.76)  supported by field observation  almost no tangible/direct linkage between tourism activity and the indigenous community (did not benefit locals in terms of employment, income, sense of pride, sense of urgency to protect environment).

Possible challenges/constraints for adopting sustainable ECT (n=20) Answers given by respondents Likert Scale (n=) RII Rank 1 2 3 4 5 • Tough competition with existing tourism 0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5 players/operators from outside • Language barriers (English in 0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4 communication) • Lack of access to the village (poor road and 0 0 2 7 11 20 0.89 2 internet/telecommunication coverage) • Lack of capital and organisational readiness 0 0 1 3 16 20 0.95 1 (lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs) • Seasonality of activities and hard to maintain 0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4 costumers (income instability) • Lack of training in tourism-related activities 0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5 (past experience) • Modernization and culture distortion 0 0 3 7 10 20 0.87 3 (influenced by visitors) Source: Research fieldwork in 2014 - 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’ Note: - RII (Relative Importance Index)

The study revealed the possible challenges/constraints for adopting SECT around RBSP namely: • Top 2 most influence challenges/constraints – Lack of capital and organisational readiness (lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs) (RII = 0.95) and Lack of access to the village (poor road and internet/telecommunication coverage) (RII = 0.89). • Less influence factor considered as challenges/constraints shared by – (1) Tough competition with existing tourism players/operators from outside and (2) Lack of training in tourism-related activities (past experience) (RII = 0.76 respectively).

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

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