TOUR3000: Disturbance to Species in Chitwan National Park, Nepal and Analyze the Tourism: Tourism and Environmental Management Case Study, UoN, Singapore

Case Study Question:

Q1.Read the following case study” Disturbance to Species in Chitwan National Park, Nepal” and analyze the tourism practice using relevant theories learned in this subject in terms of becoming an eco-tourism product.

The Chitwan Valley was first protected as a royal hunting reserve in 1846. In 1951, the Chitwan Valley was heavily settled with in-migrants. Forests were cleared and illegal hunting of rhinos for their horn became widespread. Concerned about the decline of forest cover and of the rhinoceros, His Majesty’s The government created a deer park in 1959, which was subsequently declared as the Royal Chitwan National Park in 1973 and extended to 932 sq. km in 1978. Chitwan was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1984. Chitwan has supported a steadily growing tourist industry since 1974 and received some 55,000 visitors in 1992. The majority of visitors, perhaps around 80 percent, were foreigners, many of whom stayed in lodges in or around Chitwan. These 65 lodges have created employment for around 650 people. The main attractions for tourists to Chitwan are tigers and leopards rather than Indian rhinos, but sightings of Indian rhinos are guaranteed for visitors who go out on elephants. Tourists on elephant backs do cause some disturbance to rhinos feeding on open grass meadows.
These visits last for some 10 – 40 minutes and rhinos are alert, and many even walk away, depending on how close they are
approached. Nevertheless, disturbing rhinos return very quickly to their previous pattern of activity once the elephants have departed. The overall patterns of disturbance to the rhinos are considered slight because of their social system (which means that individual rhinos are not disturbed very often) and the
current visitor levels (Lott and McCoy 1995). Furthermore, the disturbance to rhinos caused by tourists is probably less than that caused by other legal or illegal uses of Chitwan. For example, local people have been allowed to cut reeds and grass annually since 1976. There is also illegal use of Chitwan primarily
through cattle grazing and burning to improve the grazing, firewood collection, fishing, hunting of deer for meat, and hunting of tigers, leopards, and rhinos for their valuable products (Nepal and Weber 1993). Tourists to Chitwan can also canoe on the Rapti River. The behavioral responses of the ruddy shelduck to groups of canoeists were studied because of concerns that tour groups were causing significant disturbance to wildlife feeding behavior. However, the results of the study indicated that the disturbance arising from the canoeists was insignificant, representing of total disturbance time of only 2.6 percent of daily activity budgets (Hulbert 1990; HaySmith and Hunt 1995). The use of Chitwan
offsets some of the negative attitudes of local people to the park and its wildlife, which arises as a result of five main areas of conflict. First, crop-raiding was estimated to destroy 9 percent of the total crop in Chinatown District and 60 to 70 percent of the crop in individual villages close to the borders of Chitwan,
and Indian Rhinos were among the chief culprits. Second, Indian rhinos have killed and injured local people. Third, tigers have preyed on livestock. Fourth, access has been denied to resources, following the recent establishment and enlargement of Chitwan. Fifth, the relationship between local people and the army that protects Chitwan is not good (Nepal and Weber 1993).

Q2: Read the following case study “Management and Tourism in Kruger National Park, South Africa” and analyze the tourism practice using relevant theories learned in this subject in terms of becoming
an eco-tourism product.

Kruger National Park lies in the north-east of South Africa and is one of the largest and oldest protected areas in Africa. It was declared in 1926 and now has an area of 19,458 sq. km. Kruger is wooded and subject to periods of drought that follow 20 years patterns. Kruger is controlled by the National Parks Board and throughout its history has been managed under a policy that espouses minimum interference in natural processes and that promotes a non-competitive tourist industry. Nevertheless, because an area even as large as Kruger is affected by factors outside its borders, significant management interventions have been undertaken in the park, including:

• Regular early burns;
• Provision of water through boreholes;
• Fencing and enlargement of the ecosystem, particularly through the increasing involvement of privately owned properties and reserves bordering its western boundary;
• Culling particularly of large herbivores dominant in the biomass, namely elephants, hippos, and buffaloes;
• Species reintroductions to restore key species that were absent at proclamation including two species of rhinoceros.

These management actions aim to retain the delicate balance in the biomass of large herbivores that the dry and artificially watered habitats within the Kruger ecosystem can support in times of drought (Walker et al. 1987). Calls are increasingly made by animal welfare groups to halt the culling of elephants. In this climate, park managers face the future challenge of balancing policies towards different species and towards management practices such as the artificial provision of water.

Kruger has a highly developed non-consumptive tourist industry. There are eight entrance gates, a the network of some 2600 km of tarred and gravel roads, 24 rest camps offering a variety of accommodation and camping facilities. The Skukuza camp at the park headquarters is the size of a town, with an airstrip served by a commercial airline, a restaurant, shop, bank, post office, conference center, library, petrol station, workshop, and car hire facility. Smaller camps are situated up and down the length of the park.

The Kruger has 4200 beds and with day visitors can accommodate around 5000 visitors at any one time. The management places a limit of 1 vehicle per km of the road at peak periods. Hence, Kruger takes an unashamedly populist approach, offering comfort and easy access to wildlife to many people. There is little of the classic African safari about a stay in the Kruger! Despite the massive tourist presence, the rest camps, roads and viewing bands that run alongside them occupy only some 4 percent of the total area of the park. The remaining area is unspoiled and left to nature. Some impacts are evident as a result of the roads and the heavy tourist activity.

Night driving vehicles can kill wildlife. For example, scrub hares are frequently killed as they feed on the short grasses at the road edges and young animals may be left behind on embankments as their parent’s crossroads (Edington and Edington 1986). Nevertheless, these impacts are negligible given the area remaining undisturbed. An average of 520 vehicles per day visit the Kruger, totaling some 0.2 million vehicles and 0.7 million visitors annually. The revenue earned from tourism per sq. km is about 20 times higher than from Tsavo National Park, another similarly large protected area in Kenya and equivalent to the very small and highly subscribed Amboseli National Park. With its huge earnings, Kruger plays a central role in the financial strategy of the National Parks Board in subsidizing the upkeep of the less-visited national parks.

The earnings of Kruger from tourism exceed potential earnings if the same land was converted to different forms of land use, notably agriculture (Engelbrecht and van der Walt 1993). The National Parks Board also employs about 3000 staff in Kruger. Furthermore, 10 percent of visitors to the park are foreigners who create some 9000 jobs in the formal sector and spend large sums in the national economy. In addition, 90 percent of South African visitors to Kruger generate some 4000 jobs and spend further sums on the national economy. Kruger also has an important impact in a regional context. Much of the activity in the surrounding private reserves and hotels is due to the existence of Kruger. Despite the overwhelming economic evidence in favor of retaining Kruger under its current use, the net social benefits appear to be distributed inequitably amongst different levels of South African society. This issue requires urgent attention given the concern of the new majority government for local communities (Hanekom and Liebenberg 1993).