Conservation and tourism : a case study of longhouse communities in and adjacent to Batang Ai National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate benefits of tourism to local communities and conservation in Batang Ai, Sarawak, Malaysia. The main focus of this study is on the environmental sustainability of Batang Ai National Park, which is dependent on the sustainable extraction of natural resources by local communities with privileges to hunt, fish and gather forest produce from the park. There are seven longhouses in and adjacent to Batang Ai National Park with a total of 592 people having privileges within the park.

Research on the use of tropical forests shows that one person per square kilometre is sustainable if people are obtaining all their protein requirements from the forest. Batang Ai National Park, with a total area of 240 square kilometres, is clearly not sustainable if all the protein requirements of the people with privileges are derived from the park. Tourism is seen as a non-consumptive method of providing benefits to the local communities, which is hoped to reduce their dependence on the natural resources of the park.

A combination of both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods was used for the study. These methods include questionnaire surveys, community group interviews and key informants interviews. Questionnaire surveys were conducted on people with gazetted rights and privileges within the park, including those who were residing in longhouses in resettlement schemes three to four hours travel from the park. Community 'group interviews' were conducted in eleven longhouses and sixteen in-depth interviews with key informants from government agencies, non-government organisations, private sector, and local organisations were also conducted.

Results indicate that local communities believe that tourism can benefit them and they believe that it is important to protect the environment, forest and wildlife in order to attract tourists. However, lack of opportunity for earning cash means that their well-being depends on the continued use of natural resources from the forest. Results also indicate that local communities can benefit from tourism and that tourism can benefit conservation, however, the benefits are dependent on the volume and distribution of tourists. During the survey, only the Rh. Ngumbang community receives regular tourists and correspondingly has a higher income, while other communities rarely had tourists and received little or no benefits from tourism. Overall, tourism in Ulu Batang Ai has few or no effects on the local communities' traditional way of life, and their well being still depends on farming, hunting, fishing and gathering forest produce. For Batang Ai National Park to achieve its conservation goals, it is crucial that the forest areas next to the longhouses in Ulu Batang Ai be able to continue to provide the longhouse communities with their requirements of forest produce. Failing this their well-being will be compromised or they might obtain these requirements from the park thus, compromising the conservation values of the national park.