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Evaluation and resilience of ecotourism in the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2013

NABIN BARAL
NABIN BARAL*
Affiliation:
Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 305 Cheatham Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr Nabin Baral Tel: +1 540 231 3596 Fax: +1 540 231 3698 e-mail: [email protected]
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Summary

Ecotourism has been promoted to reconcile seemingly conflicting goals of tourism development and nature conservation. Given its importance, how has ecotourism fared in the Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA) and how resilient was it to the Maoist insurgency in Nepal (1996–2006)? Drawing upon more than 10 months of field research, participant observation, semi-structured surveys and content analysis of 21 annual reports, ecotourism was evaluated by organizing ACA's programmes and activities under the four major emerging themes, namely local capacity building, waste management, education and infrastructure development; the most prominent theme was local capacity building. Annual visitor numbers declined during the insurgency, but ecotourism managed to survive, mainly due to self-organization of local tourism entrepreneurs. Local tourism entrepreneurs facilitated self-organization through capacity building and diversification of livelihoods. In the aftermath of the insurgency, visitor numbers rebounded and ecotourism continued to develop and evolve; ecotourism was thus resilient to the insurgency. Building local capacity, facilitating self-organization and diversifying livelihoods can enhance the resilience of ecotourism, sustaining stability and helping to deal with uncertainty.

Keywords

community-based conservationecotourismprotected areas managementprogramme evaluationresiliencesocial-ecological system
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 84 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2013 

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