3.0 Roles of ecotourism in Kenya
Ecotourism plays an important role to create awareness in natural and cultural conservation in order to be maintained to the next generation. However, organization of campaigns can create local conservation inside and outside of the parks.
3.1 Create awareness in natural and cultural conservation
There are 31 national parks or reserves in Kenya. The parks are managed by a national organisation called Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWF). They are administered by the local authority, but staffed by national parks staff (Parks and reserves legislation 2003). The examples of the national parks and reserves in Kenya which have been conserved are as shown in Table 2 below. The year mentioned is the one when the park…show more content… Besides, it also bring risks because of the some factors.
4.1 Local community
Economic gains are usually experienced by a community, but problems may develop if these are periodic and cannot provide a regular, reliable income. In addition, concerns may arise over inequity in the spread of economic benefits (Okech 2003a; Scheyens 2000). The presence of large numbers of tourists, many from different cultures with local people, will have a negative effect which is commodification of culture of local community. Inherent quality and meaning of cultural artifacts and performances become less important than the economic motive of earning an income from their reproduction (Weaver and Opperman 2000). When this happens, the culture of community may be modified to suit the tastes of tourists, and its original meaning and significance is lost which it becomes a “pseudo-culture”.
4.2…show more content… Employment opportunities are given to local community if local people play a greater participatory role in the tourism process. To develop the tourism sustainability, infrastructures of national parks in Kenya have been improved to get attraction from other countries’ tourists. Besides, ecotourism should be maintained with the help of natural and culture conservation and organizations of campaigns. However, ecotourism also affects the local community, biodiversity and environment such as commodification of culture, species extinction and pollutions. Therefore, tourists, local communities and governments should cooperate to overcome the