Stakeholder Collaboration On Conservation Of Natural Resources In Lower Kinabatangan Sabah
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Date
2018-08
Authors
Marcela Pimid
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
A failure to achieve a sustainable development of ecotourism and conservation is often related to the failure in addressing varying needs and interests of various stakeholders. Moreover, the strategies use to solve the issues of conservation and ecotourism often excludes the opinions of local communities in rural areas. The present study investigated the stakeholder collaboration in both sectors, factors and issues which influenced stakeholder collaboration on conservation and ecotourism, as well as the impacts of climate change on stakeholders, ecotourism and conservation in the Lower Kinabatangan Sabah. The aims were achieved by conducting a concurrent mixed method research using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative method gathered 328 questionnaires from each household of local communities in Sukau and Batu Puteh villages in the Lower Kinabatangan, whereas the qualitative method was conducted using a participant observation and in-depth semi-structured interviews to community leaders, local authorities, non-governmental organisations, private sectors, local and private sector ecotourism. The study highlighted five important findings. First, the number of local communities participated in conservation activities were higher compared to the ecotourism venture. Second, the surveys revealed that the local communities did not know how to participate in both activities of conservation and ecotourism, but the interview analysis showed that profit was the main factor that determined the community involvement in both sector. Third, despite previous studies conducted in this area, persistent issues such as a conflict among stakeholder, human-wildlife conflict, and environmental pollutions were found unresolved. The findings exhibited that these issues stemmed primarily from the lack of avenue for the stakeholders to express their problems of conservation and ecotourism, especially the local communities and local sector ecotourism. Fourth, the attitudes of local communities towards conservation and ecotourism were both influenced by a previous participation and the suggestions to improve current conservation and ecotourism. Furthermore, the local communities who positively perceived the suggestions to improve the current conservation were over 4.9 times more willing to donate for the conservation activities than those who perceived it negatively. Fifth, the findings were used to develop an integrated framework based on the viewpoints of key stakeholders. In this regard, the framework highlighted five important aspects necessary for enhancing the collaboration of stakeholders in the conservation and ecotourism in the Lower Kinabatangan, namely the environment, social, economy, stakeholder collaboration on conservation and ecotourism (including local community participation), and a climate change. The framework could also be applied to solve the prevalent issues of conservation of natural resources and ecotourism in other remote areas which encountered similar problems.
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Keywords
Development