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TRANSCRIPT
Local Economic Development and Poverty
Reduction: Assessment of Local Attitudes
towards Conservation and Tourism around
Royal Belum State Park, Malaysia
Khairul Hisyam Kamarudin*, Ibrahim Ngah and Khamarrul Azahari Razak
International Conference on Development and Socio-Spatial Inequalities 2015
19-20 August 2015, Bayview Beach Resort, Penang, Malaysia
Introduction
Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction through Sustainable ECT
Stories of Two Villages
Study approaches
Results, Discussions and Conclusion
“inclusive development strategies”
One of the key focus area highlighted in
the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020) is
the urgent need to tackle the issue of
households in the Bottom 40% of income
(or termed as B40 group).
“inclusiveness” is used to address the
development which focus on the need of
2.7 million household in Malaysia
identified as B40 in year 2014.
Government Transformation Programme
(GTP) will continue.
Provision of infrastructure and services +
strategy for poverty reduction and rising the
household income for B40 education,
training programmes and diversification of
local economic base, aiming at high income
generation through innovation.
Focus diversification of rural economic
activities will allow for a specific study
including on locals’ 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
Garnering a strong and continuous support, and ‘buy-in’ from local
community and their stakeholders has become an important prerequisite
for a successful local economic development (LED) and biodiversity
conservation project.
Marginalized community living in a protected areas (Royal Belum-
Temengor Forest Complex, BTFC in this context), common means of
providing benefits for both local economy and conservation could be
realised through careful adoption of ‘development through conservation’
approach.
This is where the eco-culture tourism (ECT) programme has come into the
limelight.
Local Economic Development through Sustainable ECT
Eco-culture tourism (ECT) has brought a multitude of
definitions for individuals from varied backgrounds.
an individual or a certain human group travel to enjoy
the nature’s beauty and also the unique cultural
diversity of human populating the earth, where the
relationship between both elements (nature and the
local community’s culture) happens symbiotically.
“
”Kamarudin et al. (2014)
Figure 1: Proposed conceptual model for sustainable eco-culture tourism.
Source: Adopted from Kamarudin et al. (2014)
Sustainable ECT primarily driven by the host
communities’ desire to fulfil their economic objectives.
Review of literature rural communities regarded tourism
programmes as a way to revitalise local economics host
communities received various direct and indirect economic
benefits such as employment, income and may be help to
reduced poverty & out-migration of rural populations.
Trickle-down effects – still debatable successful
/unsuccessful cases of local tourism
Data collection from two villages
Village (or Kampung) Population Number
of familiesMale 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)
The analysis was done manually small number of respondents (n=20).
The contribution of each of the factors (reasons/constraints) for sustainableECT was examined and the ranking of the attributes in terms of their criticalityas perceived by the respondents was done by use of Relative ImportanceIndex (RII) which was calculated using equation (2) and the results of theanalysis are presented in Table 1 to Table 2.
Results and discussions
Reasons for supporting the idea of sustainable
ECT
Possible challenges/constraints for adopting
sustainable ECT
Answers given by respondents Likert Scale (n=) RII Rank
1 2 3 4 5
Potential for income generation (full-time job) 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
though training (human capital development and
entrepreneurship)
0 0 2 7 11 20 0.89 2
Potential for local facilities (physical and
communication) improvement
0 0 2 17 1 20 0.79 *5
Increase protection of local biodiversity and socio-
culture opportunities
0 0 0 5 15 20 0.95 **1
Increase internal link for marketing of local ECT
products and SME products
0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 6
Training ground for future leaders in managing
sustainable ECT
0 0 3 7 10 20 0.87 3
Potential for receiving development funds by
government/private investors
0 0 0 15 5 20 0.85 4
Reasons for supporting the idea of sustainable ECT (n=20)
Source: Research fieldwork in 2014Note: - 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’
- RII (Relative Importance Index)
The study revealed the following factors/reasons for supporting the idea of SECT aroundRBSP namely:
• Top/most influence answers given by respondents as reasons for supporting the ideaof SECT - shared by (1) the respondents’ desire to increase opportunity for incomegeneration and (2) increase protection of local biodiversity and socio-culture (with RIIvalue of 0.95 respectively).
• Less influence in supporting the idea of SECT - Increase internal link for marketing oflocal CBET products and SME products (RII = 0.76) supported by field observation almost no tangible/direct linkage between tourism activity and the indigenouscommunity (did not benefit locals in terms of employment, income, sense of pride,sense of urgency to protect environment).
Answers given by respondents Likert Scale (n=) RII Rank
1 2 3 4 5
• Tough competition with existing tourism
players/operators from outside
0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5
• Language barriers (English in
communication)
0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4
• Lack of access to the village (poor road and
internet/telecommunication coverage)
0 0 2 7 11 20 0.89 2
• Lack of capital and organisational readiness
(lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs)
0 0 1 3 16 20 0.95 1
• Seasonality of activities and hard to maintain
costumers (income instability)
0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4
• Lack of training in tourism-related activities
(past experience)
0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5
• Modernization and culture distortion
(influenced by visitors)
0 0 3 7 10 20 0.87 3
Source: Research fieldwork in 2014Note: - 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’
- RII (Relative Importance Index)
Possible challenges/constraints for adopting sustainable ECT (n=20)
The study revealed the possible challenges/constraints for adopting SECT aroundRBSP namely:
• Top 2 most influence challenges/constraints – Lack of capital and organisationalreadiness (lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs) (RII = 0.95) and Lack of access tothe village (poor road and internet/telecommunication coverage) (RII = 0.89).
• Less influence factor considered as challenges/constraints shared by – (1) Toughcompetition with existing tourism players/operators from outside and (2) Lack oftraining in tourism-related activities (past experience) (RII = 0.76 respectively).
Summary of main points and conclusion:
Positive attitude towards tourism (92% level of agreement) and strong
support for biodiversity conservation (95% level of agreement)
acknowledgement of symbiotic relation between LED through ECT and
the protected area which they live in.
Three (3) main
reasons to link
between
establishment of
protected area
with respondents’
positive attitude
towards tourism
and conservation:
It is suggested by this study benefits from protected area
conservation could bring LED (and poverty reduction) which in turn,
could increase local support for conservation “development through
conservation”
This notion dependent prolong issues such as poverty (low income
and low wage jobs), access to land for economic activities and
integrated local economic development initiatives are to be addressed
for the future planning of BTFC.
Recommends for a long-term studies on local attitudes + ECT capital to
fully identify the impacts of protected area towards tourism and
conservation efforts.
KHAIRUL HISYAM KAMARUDIN, PHD
Lecturer/Researcher in Planning (Rural Development & Sustainable Tourism)
UTM Razak School of Engineering & Advanced Technology
UTM Kuala Lumpur
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://khairulhkamarudin.wordpress.com
Head
Geo-Sustainability Research Cluster
UTM-High Impact Research on Royal Belum (TRANSROYAL)
http://www.utm.my/royalbelum/
Member
International Rural Research & Planning Group (iRRPG)
http://rrpg.org