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Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR

Ecotourism as a strategy for achieving biodiversity conservation often results in limited conservation impact relative to its investment and revenue return. In cases where an ecotourism strategy has been used, projects are frequently criticized for not providing sufficient evidence on how the strate...

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Autores principales: Eshoo, Paul Frederick, Johnson, Arlyne, Duangdala, Sivilay, Hansel, Troy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5830036/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29489821
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186133
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author Eshoo, Paul Frederick
Johnson, Arlyne
Duangdala, Sivilay
Hansel, Troy
author_facet Eshoo, Paul Frederick
Johnson, Arlyne
Duangdala, Sivilay
Hansel, Troy
author_sort Eshoo, Paul Frederick
collection PubMed
description Ecotourism as a strategy for achieving biodiversity conservation often results in limited conservation impact relative to its investment and revenue return. In cases where an ecotourism strategy has been used, projects are frequently criticized for not providing sufficient evidence on how the strategy has reduced threats or improved the status of the biodiversity it purports to protect. In Lao PDR, revenue from ecotourism has not been directly linked to or dependent on improvements in biodiversity and there is no evidence that ecotourism enterprises have contributed to conservation. In other developing countries, direct payments through explicit contracts in return for ecosystem services have been proposed as a more cost-effective means for achieving conservation, although further research is needed to evaluate the impact of this approach. To address this need, a new model was tested in the Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area (NPA) in Lao PDR using a direct payments approach to create ecotourism incentives for villagers to increase wildlife populations. Over a four-year period, we monitored along a theory of change to evaluate assumptions about the linkages between intermediate results and biological outcomes. Preliminary results show a negative correlation between ecotourism benefits and hunting infractions in target villages; no increase in hunting sign in the ecotourism sector of the NPA relative to a three-fold increase in hunting sign across the NPA’s non-tourism sectors; and an overall increase in wildlife sightings. This case provides key lessons on the design of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy, including how to combine threat monitoring and data on wildlife sightings to evaluate strategy effectiveness, on setting rates for wildlife sightings and village fees, and the utility of the approach for protecting very rare species.
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spelling pubmed-58300362018-03-19 Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR Eshoo, Paul Frederick Johnson, Arlyne Duangdala, Sivilay Hansel, Troy PLoS One Research Article Ecotourism as a strategy for achieving biodiversity conservation often results in limited conservation impact relative to its investment and revenue return. In cases where an ecotourism strategy has been used, projects are frequently criticized for not providing sufficient evidence on how the strategy has reduced threats or improved the status of the biodiversity it purports to protect. In Lao PDR, revenue from ecotourism has not been directly linked to or dependent on improvements in biodiversity and there is no evidence that ecotourism enterprises have contributed to conservation. In other developing countries, direct payments through explicit contracts in return for ecosystem services have been proposed as a more cost-effective means for achieving conservation, although further research is needed to evaluate the impact of this approach. To address this need, a new model was tested in the Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area (NPA) in Lao PDR using a direct payments approach to create ecotourism incentives for villagers to increase wildlife populations. Over a four-year period, we monitored along a theory of change to evaluate assumptions about the linkages between intermediate results and biological outcomes. Preliminary results show a negative correlation between ecotourism benefits and hunting infractions in target villages; no increase in hunting sign in the ecotourism sector of the NPA relative to a three-fold increase in hunting sign across the NPA’s non-tourism sectors; and an overall increase in wildlife sightings. This case provides key lessons on the design of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy, including how to combine threat monitoring and data on wildlife sightings to evaluate strategy effectiveness, on setting rates for wildlife sightings and village fees, and the utility of the approach for protecting very rare species. Public Library of Science 2018-02-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5830036/ /pubmed/29489821 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186133 Text en © 2018 Eshoo et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Eshoo, Paul Frederick
Johnson, Arlyne
Duangdala, Sivilay
Hansel, Troy
Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR
title Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR
title_full Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR
title_fullStr Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR
title_full_unstemmed Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR
title_short Design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in Lao PDR
title_sort design, monitoring and evaluation of a direct payments approach for an ecotourism strategy to reduce illegal hunting and trade of wildlife in lao pdr
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5830036/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29489821
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186133
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