Can ecotourism deliver real economic, social, and environmental benefits? A study of the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

Abstract

Doubt persists about ecotourism's ability to make tangible contributions to conservation and deliver benefits for host communities. This work in Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula tests the hypothesis that ecotourism in this region is more effective at improving well-being for local residents, at enhancing their access to key resources and information, and at supporting biodiversity conservation than other locally available economic sectors. Data from 128 semi-structured interviews with local workers, both in ecotourism and in other occupations, together with associated research, indicate that ecotourism offers the best currently available employment opportunities, double the earnings of other livelihoods, and other linked benefits. Locally, ecotourism is viewed as the activity contributing most to improvements in residents’ quality of life in the Osa Peninsula and to increased levels of financial and attitudinal support for parks and environmental conservation. Ecolodge ownership by local people is substantial, and many local ecotourism workers plan to launch their own businesses. The data offer a convincing rebuttal to arguments that ecotourism does little to address poverty or disparities in access to resources and equally rebuts claims that ecotourism is simply a part of the “neoliberal conservation toolkit” that cannot help but exacerbate the very inequalities it purports to address.

生态旅游能传递真正的经济，社会和环境益处吗？哥斯达黎加奥萨半岛的研究

对生态旅游在使对社区保护和传递益处的能力的怀疑一直存在。这个在哥斯达黎加得奥萨半岛的工作测试了一个假设，就是这个地区的生态旅游对于改善当地居民的生活更有效，以提高他们对于主要资源和信息的使用，和比其他当地已有的经济行业支持更能支持生态多样性。与在生态旅游和其他职业里的当地工人做的128个半结构的采访，和其他的研究方法，显示出生态旅游提供了最好的现有的就业机会，增加其他生活的收入和相关的益处。当地，生态旅游被看作是对改善奥萨半岛居民生活质量最有用的，并且提升了财务和对公园和环境保护的态度支持。当地人民的生态所有权是很大的，许多当地生态旅游工人计划开启他们自己的生意。数据提供了一个可信的反驳声称生态旅游对贫穷或贫富差距对于使用资源的讨论很少，并且声称生态旅游只是“新自由对话工具”并不能帮助反而加剧不平等。

Keywords:

• ecotourism
• community development
• conservation
• tourism impacts
• Costa Rica
• Osa Peninsula

关键词:

• 生态旅游
• 社区发展
• 保护
• 旅游影响
• 哥斯达黎加
• 奥萨半岛

Acknowledgements

This study was made possible through a grant from the Tinker Foundation. We are grateful to Fundacion Corcovado for their assistance throughout the complexities of fieldwork logistics. Our thanks go to the residents and businesses of Puerto Jimenez and Drake Bay who shared with us their invaluable knowledge and experience in countless interviews and conversations with our research teams. We are very grateful for the time they granted us, and for their patience and wisdom in sharing perspectives on their home. We also wish to acknowledge the efforts of our student research assistants: Stanford University students Caroline Adams, Molly Oshun, Joshua (Mac) Parish, and Anne Scalmanini, and Andrea Cordero Retana and Isabel Arias Sure of the Golfito branch of the University of Costa Rica.

All authors share an interest in the use of tourism to stimulate biodiversity conservation and alleviate poverty in Latin America.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carter A. Hunt

Carter A. Hunt is an assistant professor of recreation, park and tourism management at the Pennsylvania State University. At the time of this research, he was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University.

William H. Durham

William H. Durham is the Bing Professor in Human Biology, a Yang and Yamazaki University Fellow, and has been a member of the Stanford Anthropology faculty since 1977. He is also the co-director of the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST).

Laura Driscoll

Laura Driscoll, MA, was the CREST Stanford Coordinator at the time of the research and is currently pursuing doctoral studies in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley.

Martha Honey

Martha Honey, PhD, is the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), and was an executive director of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) from 2003 to 2006.