Local Economic Development and Poverty

Reduction: Assessment of Local Attitudes

towards Conservation and Tourism around

Royal Belum State Park, Malaysia

Khairul Hisyam Kamarudin*, Ibrahim Ngah and Khamarrul Azahari Razak

International Conference on Development and Socio-Spatial Inequalities 2015

19-20 August 2015, Bayview Beach Resort, Penang, Malaysia

Introduction

Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction through Sustainable ECT

Stories of Two Villages

Study approaches

Results, Discussions and Conclusion

“inclusive development strategies”

One of the key focus area highlighted in

the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020) is

the urgent need to tackle the issue of

households in the Bottom 40% of income

(or termed as B40 group).

“inclusiveness” is used to address the

development which focus on the need of

2.7 million household in Malaysia

identified as B40 in year 2014.

Government Transformation Programme

(GTP) will continue.

Provision of infrastructure and services +

strategy for poverty reduction and rising the

household income for B40 education,

training programmes and diversification of

local economic base, aiming at high income

generation through innovation.

Focus diversification of rural economic

activities will allow for a specific study

including on locals’ attitude towards

conservation and rural development project (or

in this case, sustainable eco-culture tourism,

ECT project as one of rural development

strategy for Orang Asli’s B40 group).

Local Economic Development and Poverty Reduction: Assessment of Local Attitudes

towards Conservation and Tourism around Royal Belum State Park, Malaysia

Garnering a strong and continuous support, and ‘buy-in’ from local

community and their stakeholders has become an important prerequisite

for a successful local economic development (LED) and biodiversity

conservation project.

Marginalized community living in a protected areas (Royal Belum-

Temengor Forest Complex, BTFC in this context), common means of

providing benefits for both local economy and conservation could be

realised through careful adoption of ‘development through conservation’

approach.

This is where the eco-culture tourism (ECT) programme has come into the

limelight.

Local Economic Development through Sustainable ECT

Eco-culture tourism (ECT) has brought a multitude of

definitions for individuals from varied backgrounds.

an individual or a certain human group travel to enjoy

the nature’s beauty and also the unique cultural

diversity of human populating the earth, where the

relationship between both elements (nature and the

local community’s culture) happens symbiotically.

“

”Kamarudin et al. (2014)

Figure 1: Proposed conceptual model for sustainable eco-culture tourism.

Source: Adopted from Kamarudin et al. (2014)

Sustainable ECT primarily driven by the host

communities’ desire to fulfil their economic objectives.

Review of literature rural communities regarded tourism

programmes as a way to revitalise local economics host

communities received various direct and indirect economic

benefits such as employment, income and may be help to

reduced poverty & out-migration of rural populations.

Trickle-down effects – still debatable successful

/unsuccessful cases of local tourism

Data collection

from two villages

Data collection from two villages

Village (or Kampung) Population Number

of familiesMale Female Total

Semelor 85 74 159 30

Sungai Tiang 191 218 409 83

Village (or Kampung) Sub Ethnic Religion TOTAL

Jahai Temiar Islam Christian Bahai Animisme

Semelor - 159 80 - - 79 159

Sungai Tiang 409 - 49 47 43 - 409

Source: Department of Orang Asli Development (Gerik) (2014)

Data collection from two villages

Data collection from two villages

The analysis was done manually small number of respondents (n=20).

The contribution of each of the factors (reasons/constraints) for sustainableECT was examined and the ranking of the attributes in terms of their criticalityas perceived by the respondents was done by use of Relative ImportanceIndex (RII) which was calculated using equation (2) and the results of theanalysis are presented in Table 1 to Table 2.

Results and discussions

Reasons for supporting the idea of sustainable

ECT

Possible challenges/constraints for adopting

sustainable ECT

Answers given by respondents Likert Scale (n=) RII Rank

1 2 3 4 5

Potential for income generation (full-time job) 0 0 1 3 16 20 0.95 **1

Potential for income generation (part-time job) 0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 *5

Gaining experience / skill in tourism-related activities

though training (human capital development and

entrepreneurship)

0 0 2 7 11 20 0.89 2

Potential for local facilities (physical and

communication) improvement

0 0 2 17 1 20 0.79 *5

Increase protection of local biodiversity and socio-

culture opportunities

0 0 0 5 15 20 0.95 **1

Increase internal link for marketing of local ECT

products and SME products

0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 6

Training ground for future leaders in managing

sustainable ECT

0 0 3 7 10 20 0.87 3

Potential for receiving development funds by

government/private investors

0 0 0 15 5 20 0.85 4

Reasons for supporting the idea of sustainable ECT (n=20)

Source: Research fieldwork in 2014Note: - 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’

- RII (Relative Importance Index)

The study revealed the following factors/reasons for supporting the idea of SECT aroundRBSP namely:

• Top/most influence answers given by respondents as reasons for supporting the ideaof SECT - shared by (1) the respondents’ desire to increase opportunity for incomegeneration and (2) increase protection of local biodiversity and socio-culture (with RIIvalue of 0.95 respectively).

• Less influence in supporting the idea of SECT - Increase internal link for marketing oflocal CBET products and SME products (RII = 0.76) supported by field observation almost no tangible/direct linkage between tourism activity and the indigenouscommunity (did not benefit locals in terms of employment, income, sense of pride,sense of urgency to protect environment).

Answers given by respondents Likert Scale (n=) RII Rank

1 2 3 4 5

• Tough competition with existing tourism

players/operators from outside

0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5

• Language barriers (English in

communication)

0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4

• Lack of access to the village (poor road and

internet/telecommunication coverage)

0 0 2 7 11 20 0.89 2

• Lack of capital and organisational readiness

(lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs)

0 0 1 3 16 20 0.95 1

• Seasonality of activities and hard to maintain

costumers (income instability)

0 0 3 15 2 20 0.79 **4

• Lack of training in tourism-related activities

(past experience)

0 0 7 10 3 20 0.76 *5

• Modernization and culture distortion

(influenced by visitors)

0 0 3 7 10 20 0.87 3

Source: Research fieldwork in 2014Note: - 1 denoted ‘not important and 5 denoted ‘very important’

- RII (Relative Importance Index)

Possible challenges/constraints for adopting sustainable ECT (n=20)

The study revealed the possible challenges/constraints for adopting SECT aroundRBSP namely:

• Top 2 most influence challenges/constraints – Lack of capital and organisationalreadiness (lack of local leaders/entrepreneurs) (RII = 0.95) and Lack of access tothe village (poor road and internet/telecommunication coverage) (RII = 0.89).

• Less influence factor considered as challenges/constraints shared by – (1) Toughcompetition with existing tourism players/operators from outside and (2) Lack oftraining in tourism-related activities (past experience) (RII = 0.76 respectively).

Summary of main points and conclusion:

Positive attitude towards tourism (92% level of agreement) and strong

support for biodiversity conservation (95% level of agreement)

acknowledgement of symbiotic relation between LED through ECT and

the protected area which they live in.

Three (3) main

reasons to link

between

establishment of

protected area

with respondents’

positive attitude

towards tourism

and conservation:

It is suggested by this study benefits from protected area

conservation could bring LED (and poverty reduction) which in turn,

could increase local support for conservation “development through

conservation”

This notion dependent prolong issues such as poverty (low income

and low wage jobs), access to land for economic activities and

integrated local economic development initiatives are to be addressed

for the future planning of BTFC.

Recommends for a long-term studies on local attitudes + ECT capital to

fully identify the impacts of protected area towards tourism and

conservation efforts.

KHAIRUL HISYAM KAMARUDIN, PHD

Lecturer/Researcher in Planning (Rural Development & Sustainable Tourism)

UTM Razak School of Engineering & Advanced Technology

UTM Kuala Lumpur

Email: khkamarudin@gmail.com

Website: http://khairulhkamarudin.wordpress.com

Head

Geo-Sustainability Research Cluster

UTM-High Impact Research on Royal Belum (TRANSROYAL)

http://www.utm.my/royalbelum/

Member

International Rural Research & Planning Group (iRRPG)

http://rrpg.org