An assessment of local community involvement in community based ecotourism planning and development: The case of Takamanda National Park. South West region, Cameroon

ABSTRACT: Community–Based Ecotourism (CBET) has been identified as a potential proactive means of development, especially in less developed countries. Based on this conception, many countries are devising different strategies to actively engage in CBET development. In the case of Cameroon, with abundant natural resources and touristic potentials, the government embarked upon conservation of its resources through creation of reserves and national parks. However, they failed to recognize the fact that, these resources are the main source of livelihood for the communities in and around the parks. This is manifested in lack of realizing the need to integrate the conservation strategies with community’s needs. This has resulted in various shortcomings such as, lack of infrastructural development and absence of community involvement in the planning process as the main stakeholders in these areas, especially the Takamanda National Park (TNP). So the big question is; will these communities accept to give up their main source of livelihood for the sake of conservation under the banner of CBET while they are the least beneficiaries of this form of CBET? This study has tried to unravel the impacts and consequences of such undertaking by investigating local community’s awareness of and willingness to participate in the planning and development of CBET in the TNP area bearing in mind that their livelihoods tied to these resources. The study revealed that, despite the level of awareness of the concept of CBET, the community dwellers are willing to participate and involve in its planning and development on conditions of an approach that will not jeopardize the quality of the resources as the sources of their livelihood. They believe this should be guaranteed by the authorities. Communities are also blaming the government for the poor state of infrastructural development in the area and would rather to collaborate with NGOs in instituting a collaborative form of management (bottom-up approach) towards the realization of these goals. Therefore, for a collective realization of this goal, government has to adopt a proactive developmental approach which is the key to CBET’s success. Keywords: community based tourism, collaborative management, Takamanda national park, community collaboration, Cameroon. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………