Control Models of Tourism Development and Conservation Management with Respect to Indigenous Culture - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 36

tion, indigenous culture totally disappears from the tourism experience, and is only
seen on the history board in the museum or visitor center.
The second scenario is the attempt to eliminate the indigenous people from the
park area, but the indigenous people will continue to live at the park boundary and
be included in the tourism experience. It is a common scene to spot indigenous peo-
ple wearing traditional cloth for pictures or selling crafts before entering and upon
exiting the park. In some cases, one can find a strip of stores selling indigenous arts
and crafts around the national park boundary. For the tourists, this will allow them
to experience some aspects of the culture and bring back the local flavor with satis-
faction. From the aspect of park authority, which has the entire control of the park,
they assert that the national park can raise the local economy and job opportunities.
However, the fact remains that the indigenous people have already lost their cultural
identity since they are not living on their home land retaining their daily cultural
practices. Although they may keep the skill of art and crafts alive, many indigenous
people claim that the original motivation is missing, the craft work has become com-
mercialized, and only a few indigenous people truly benefit from tourism (Hitchcock
1997). What is more, tourism increases the poverty gap and the inflation that results
in the tourism area, increasing the hardship faced by the local people.
The third type of situation is the delimitation of the park boundary that physically
excludes the indigenous settlement. The indigenous communities keep their own vil-
lages, but they do not have the right to utilize the resources inside the park areas. In
this case, even though the indigenous people are separated from the park control and
have part of their home land under their own control, their ways of life are changed.
Their livelihoods are disrupted or destroyed by the establishment of national parks.
People need to find other ways to live on. Many of the indigenous communities on the
national park boundary are viewed as problems of poverty and a cause of the environ-
mental degradation. It is hard for the indigenous culture to survive in this situation.
With the increase of recognition and appreciation of the different cultures, a new
type of park-people relationship arises. Indigenous people are now viewed as the
protected target. This type of relationship is still close to the end of the traditional
national park model. Indigenous people have access to the park and resources inside
the park, but they are not involved in the park management and governance. Under
the central government control, the indigenous community is monitored as one of the
endangered species. Although the indigenous people retain their own life, they lose
their cultural autonomy.
CO-MANAGEMENT MODEL AND INDIGENOUS CULTURE
The discussion of the conflict between park and people usually revolves around two
aspects. One is the overlay exploitation of the natural resources, and the other one is
the insufficient involvement of local people in the process of decision making. The
latter may cause fiercer resistance because of the neglect and disdain of indigenous
rights. The conflicts obstruct indigenous people from cooperating with the conserva-
tion goal that the park authority sets out. When the traditional “top-down” approach
suffers from resistance and criticism because it fails to deliver the promised envi-
ronmental conservation and local development goal, a new approach emerges which