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Using Forest Cover Maps and Local People’s Perceptions to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Community-based Ecotourism for Forest Conservation in Chambok (Cambodia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2019

Pichdara Lonn Open the ORCID record for Pichdara Lonn [Opens in a new window] ,
Nobuya Mizoue ,
Tetsuji Ota ,
Tsuyoshi Kajisa  and
Shigejiro Yoshida
Pichdara Lonn
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
Nobuya Mizoue*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
Tetsuji Ota
Affiliation:
Institute of Decision Science for a Sustainable Society, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
Tsuyoshi Kajisa
Affiliation:
Faculty of Agriculture, Kagoshima University, Kagoshima 890-8580, Japan
Shigejiro Yoshida
Affiliation:
Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
*
Author for correspondence: Dr Nobuya Mizoue, Email: mizoue@agr.kyushu-u.ac.jp
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Summary

Increasing attention has been given to evaluating the effectiveness of forest conservation projects, but it is not well known whether different methods yield similar results when evaluating changes in forest resources. The present study compares forest cover maps and local people’s perceptions for evaluating the effectiveness of the Chambok community-based ecotourism (CBET) programme in Cambodia. We assessed forest cover changes from 2000 to 2012 using published global maps and used a covariate matching method to compare forest sites in CBET and non-CBET areas. We also analysed local people’s perceptions of forest resource changes by interviewing 174 households. The forest cover maps showed that the Chambok CBET was effective at reducing deforestation, although the outcome was not completely robust to unobserved heterogeneity. Local people’s perceptions concurred with the effectiveness observed in the forest cover maps, in that 64% of the people perceived that forest resources increased and 75% thought that the local community could protect its own forest resources. We conclude that the Chambok CBET performed effectively for forest conservation and suggest that mixed-method approaches are essential for evaluating the effectiveness of conservation programmes.

Keywords

covariate matchingecotourismforest coverlocal perceptionsremote sensingresource accessibility
Type
Research Paper
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 46 , Special Issue 2: Thematic Section: Forests in Flux , June 2019 , pp. 111 - 117
Copyright
© Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2019 

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