Ecotourism for sustainable development: A study on “Bambarakanda”

Ecotourism for sustainable development: A study on “Bambarakanda”

By Dewwanthi Karunarathna | January 18, 2008

The main objective of this study is to explain relationship and consequences between Bambarakanda eco tourist attraction and human activities in the vicinity. It was aimed to explore the main factors for environmental degradation in Bambarakanda and its surrounding, environmental issues arise from the unplanned implementation of eco tourism and resource requirements for conservation of Bambarakanda as a focal eco tourism destination.

Fieldwork methodology was adopted for the study. It was hoped to produce descriptions and explanations appropriate to the people actually behave at the Bambarakanda and its surrounding. The structured interviews were conducted as which were based on onsite documentation and guided by objective of the study. 75 villagers in Weerakoon Gama and 25 visitors to the attraction were interviewed. In addition, direct observations at the site were made to gather data while taking photographs as physical evidences to prove artifacts in the study. Interviews were interpreted by way of method of qualitative analysis (sociological paraphrasing) focusing on passages in the interview concerning Environmental conservation, Eco tourism and Local capacity development. 80% of the villagers mentioned that there were no economic benefits for them with presently existing disorganized nature of eco tourism. 67% of them clearly indicated that present situation would enhance environmental degradation at an alarming rate. More than 50% of the visitors to the vicinity ready to obtain service of local guides and ancillary service providers. Based on these results of the study on Bambarakanda in Kalupahana it is suggested that unless active participation of local community in ecotourism service provision and planning, with focus on income generation and employment creation for all stakeholders in the vicinity, environmental condition may be severely damaged.Therefore to implement vibrant and successful ecotourism it must promote sustainable development by enhancing people participation with improvement in standard of living of local community and eco tourist service providers.

D J Punchihewa
Department of IT and Decision Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura,
Sri Lanka