THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN COMMUNITY-BASED ECOTOURISM TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Ecotourism development is one of the important assets to promote conservation and sustainable economic development in the tourist destinations.  The implementation of ecotourism can be initiated through Community-based Ecotourism (CBET). CBET promotes participation in natural and cultural resource management as well as to seek benefits for the economic development of the local community in which ecotourism takes place. However, the implication of CBET in several places is far from the target to achieve sustainability. It was identified that the sustainability was caused by mutual symbiotic and benefits among local economic livelihood, cultural preservation, and environmental conservation. One of the main hindering factors for the implementation of CBET to create mutual symbiotic among those aspects is insufficient social capital. This finding is based on reviews of related literature particularly about social capital in CBET. In addition, social capital and CBET’s main issues in economic, culture and environment were analysed. The result shows that social capital was found important and worthy to be given special attention because it includes basic social features i.e. norms, social trust and networks. For example, the success of CBET can be seen in the case study conducted in Tumani Tenda Camp Village-Gambia, West Africa. It was showed that social capital has created positive impact on economic development, environmental management and cultural preservation. By setting up structured social capital, local people currently have less relied on other villages to provide poultry for the camp and even can sell the surplus. For a high level of social capital, this village has become the first village winning the National Environmental Agency’s competition for ecocamp development in forest program. In terms of cultural preservation, social capital helped villagers in building trust and participation in several rituals or village’s activities. However, conformity and restriction on the norms and rules in the village will be negative consequences of social capital in Tumani Tenda Camp Village. Thus, social capital in CBET should be put into account for its important roles in supporting economic development, environmental management and cultural activities in many other tourism sites.