Parks beyond Parks: Genuine community-based wildlife eco-tourism or just another loss of land for Maasai pastoralists in Kenya?

This paper provides an analysis of the Kenyan ‘Parks beyond parks’ programme which attempts to introduce a community based social component to their parks management policies by allowing locals to establish eco-tourism projects adjacent to parks. Using as a case study a new eco-tourism initiative in the Selengei region bordering Amboseli National Park, the author looks at the history of wildlife conservation and tourism in the region and examines the process of establishing the new project. He goes on to assess the impact of the scheme in terms of delivering tangible benefits to the community as a whole and looks critically at the level of participation of local people.The paper concludes that although ‘Parks beyond parks’ is a step forward from the historical policies of the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) it is still too ‘top down’ in nature and that its level of reliance on the private sector to deliver key aspects of the policy is ‘questionable’. Furthermore the KWS failed to build capacity in the local community to enable them to negotiate successfully with tour operators in establishing the ‘Eselenkei Conservation Area’ with the result that the benefits to the community arising from the agreement were questionable.A number of general points are also made:initiatives for community-based tourism should originate from the community rather than from outside. External organisations can promote this through the provision of information of the issues involved rather than the proposal of fixed modelsbroad-based discussion of the issues and whether or not to get involved in a particular project among all members of the community is essentialthe provision of quality advice from an independent source that has no personal stake or too narrow an interest in the project is crucialstarting small with one’s own resources and slowly building up is preferableif there is a need to engage a commercial company standard regulations should be adhered to. It is better to tender the project than to stick to one commercial tour operator from the startcommunities who sign contracts need to consult with neighbouring groups that might be negatively affected by the new ecotourism projectthe (financial) benefits as well as the disadvantages for the community, for both men and women, should be well understood. Realistic expectations should be createdindustrialised countries' tourists should be better informed about the character of true eco-tourism and the way in which local communities are involved in the development and management of a tourist attraction.The origional version of this document is no longer available from the publisher. This summary links to an alternative provider.