• Tourism

Tourism

Ecotourism has been heralded as a means to promote economic development while protecting wildlife regions. However, there has been minimal examination of its effect on indigenous people. This briefing argues that many indigenous communities who traditionally occupied current ecotourism destinations have been evicted in order to create these spaces, thus limiting their access to ancestral land and undermining their traditional livelihoods.

The brief describes affected indigenous populations in Kenya and Tanzania highlighting:

• in 2006 numerous pastoralist communities such as the Maasai and the Endorois lost 50 per cent or more of their cattle, despite the availability of fresh water and grazing pastures in their respective ancestral lands of the Mara and the Lake Bogoria Game Reserve in the Rift Valley
  
• well over 50 per cent of indigenous communities in Kenya have experienced some form of land dispossession in the name of ecotourism or other development initiatives
  
• the Maasai and other communities such as the Hadzabe (hunter-gatherers) have drawn attention to the exploitation and discrimination they face as a result of the continuing imbalances between human rights, wildlife conservation and the management of natural resources

Minority Rights International Group has initiated a campaign aimed at raising awareness around indigenous rights and ecotourism. The campaign argues that in order to be human-rights-friendly, as well as friendly to the environment, the tourism industry and local governments must strive to ensure greater respect for, and implementation of, the following rights:

• a recognition of indigenous collective land rights
• the right to participation and development
• the right to prior and informed consent

The brief concludes that as ecotourism grows in popularity, there are a number of challenges that need to be faced. Stakeholders must strive to ensure that global standards are established, monitored and met, to ensure that all those affected by (or involved in) ecotourism may benefit. The standards in question need to be respectful of the rights of indigenous peoples. As traditional custodians of their lands, with intimate knowledge of the eco-systems they long protected, indigenous peoples must be viewed as key contributors to the ecotourism industry.

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