Tourism, Development and the Environment - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 280

emerging tourist destinations in the developing world have no sewage pro-
cessing infrastructure at all.
However, although there is much evidence of the environmentally
degrading consequences of tourism development, the adopted image of tour-
ism as an 'extractive industrial activity' (Garrod & Fyall, 1998) - intrinsically
based upon a development and environment dichotomy - often conceals its
potential to promote environmental conservation and social and economic
development. The Eselenkei Conservation Project in southern Kenya, for
example, has evolved through the joint efforts of a commercial operator and
the local Maasai Community in Eselenkei Group Ranch. Not only has the
community gained significant socio-economic advantages from the small-
scale wildlife safaris conducted on their land, but the mere presence of tour-
ists and the local 'game scouts' has rid the area of poaching. Here, tourism is
more than just a malign 'smokeless industry' but a genuine and positive force
for change.
Thus, contrary to its reputation as a 'spectre haunting our planet' (Croall,
1995: 1), tourism can justifiably be regarded as a 'smokeless industry' and an
'ecology-oriented sector, a logical partisan of environmental conservation'
(Mieczkowski, 1992: 112). In many instances, tourism offers economic incen-
tives for environmental conservation, making protection a more economically
profitable option in comparison to other potential resource uses. Wildlife con-
servation in much of Africa exemplifies the economic and ecological value of
conservation, where countless examples of 'community conservation' projects
throughout the region are founded on the belief that 'conservation will either
contribute to solving the problems of the rural poor who live day to day
with wild animals, or those animals will disappear' (Adams & McShane,
1992: xix). Many such projects, most notably the CAMPFIRE programme in
Zimbabwe and Kenya's pioneering attempts to promote the linkages between
conservation and rural development, have hinged upon the ascendancy of
tourism (be it primarily based on hunting in the case of the former and wild-
life tourism in the latter) above alternative land uses.
One particular example is Kenya's Maasailand, where scarce 'wetland in
dryland' resources have come under increasing pressure due to an increase in
small-scale irrigated cultivation. This has started to degrade the water
resource base and initiate wide scale ecological change. Many Maasai have
lost access to customary sources of water and pasture for their herds, and
wildlife (in particular elephant herds) has been displaced, creating acute
wildlife/human conflict problems elsewhere. However, in recent years and
with the support of the Kenya Wildlife Service, commercial investors and
local communities, a number of 'community conservation' projects have
emerged which have started to generate income for Maasai communities
through safari tours. Local institutional arrangements have been created to
protect key natural resources for wildlife, to ensure an equitable distribution
of income and to protect wildlife and the community at large from the