Ecotourism suitability of Okomu and Pendjari National Parks

ABSTRACT

This paper used eight factors to evaluate the land suitability for ecotourism of Okomu National Park (ONP), Nigeria, and Pendjari National Park (PNP), Benin. Poor ecotourism planning could cause irreversible loss of extensive vegetation areas. Therefore, ecotourism experts’ responses through analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information systems were employed to calculate the criteria evaluation weights. The AHP results showed that the maximum and minimum weights of the criteria are the land use/land cover and aspect, respectively, in ONP, while the visibility and aspect, respectively, in PNP. Large areas of ONP were classified as unsuitable, while that of PNP were classified as moderately suitable. However, the land suitability models for ecotourism will serve a dual-purpose of effective park planning and value-added game viewing.

Abbreviation: LSMs: Land Suitability Models

KEYWORDS:

• LSMs
• ecotourism
• national parks
• park planning
• suitability evaluation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the A.G. Leventis Foundation [5982; 10342; 12108].

Notes on contributors

Oluwatobi Emmanuel Olaniyi

Oluwatobi Emmanuel Olaniyi is a lecturer in Conservation Geographic Information Systems and Ecotourism/Biodiversity Management at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria.

Shadrach Olufemi Akindele

Shradrach Olufemi Akindele is a full professor of Forest Biometrics and Geographic Information System at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria.

Babafemi George Ogunjemite

Babafemi George Ogunjemite is a full professor of Primate Community Ecology at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria.