Ecotourism and its ecological impact: A study of tourist developments in the Mara
type: CreativeWork
description: The increased growth of wildlife tourism in Kenya over the last few decades has placed increasing demand and attention for the development and subsequent delivery of sustainable tourism. Today ecotourism ventures are perceived by many as a solution to the negative impacts of "traditional" wildlife tourism and thus a way to achieve ecologicalsustainability within the industry. To date however, there has been no attempt to qualifyand quantify any possible wildlife impacts of ecotourism - the basis of this research, usingthe Mara Ecosystem as a case study. Using WildKnowledge© software, this research recorded biotic and abiotic data from wildlife tourism developments of various sizes and assessed their anthropogenic impacts upon key ungulate species in the ecosystem over a three year period. The findings of this aspect of the research indicate that the effects of the tourism industry on wildlife are highly species specific. In particular Buffalo were most affected by differences in tourism seasonal variability (X2=5.040, df=l, p=O.025), distance to developments (X2=23.341, df=l, p=O.OOO) and group size (X2=7.998, df=1, p=O.005) between the different lodge types. In contrast, waterbuck and eland displayed similar patterns of disturbance irrespective of lodge type or tourism seasonal variability. Using historical species count data spanning a twenty year period, kernel density maps were constructed to demonstrate spatial changes in ungulate density and distribution patterns in relation to tourism growth. The resulting density maps revealed that while the national reserve offered a measure of security to wildlife, many ungulate species still heavily utilised their historical dispersal areas in the community lands. Interestingly, despite the tourism related land use changes demonstrated in the Mara's landscape, some species e.g. eland, displayed an increase in range size - to 4s0.5km2 in 2010 from 399.Skm2 in 2005 following the creation of wildlife conservancies in the sur…
abstract: The increased growth of wildlife tourism in Kenya over the last few decades has placed increasing demand and attention for the development and subsequent delivery of sustainable tourism. Today ecotourism ventures are perceived by many as a solution to the negative impacts of "traditional" wildlife tourism and thus a way to achieve ecologicalsustainability within the industry. To date however, there has been no attempt to qualifyand quantify any possible wildlife impacts of ecotourism - the basis of this research, usingthe Mara Ecosystem as a case study. Using WildKnowledge© software, this research recorded biotic and abiotic data from wildlife tourism developments of various sizes and assessed their anthropogenic impacts upon key ungulate species in the ecosystem over a three year period. The findings of this aspect of the research indicate that the effects of the tourism industry on wildlife are highly species specific. In particular Buffalo were most affected by differences in tourism seasonal variability (X2=5.040, df=l, p=O.025), distance to developments (X2=23.341, df=l, p=O.OOO) and group size (X2=7.998, df=1, p=O.005) between the different lodge types. In contrast, waterbuck and eland displayed similar patterns of disturbance irrespective of lodge type or tourism seasonal variability. Using historical species count data spanning a twenty year period, kernel density maps were constructed to demonstrate spatial changes in ungulate density and distribution patterns in relation to tourism growth. The resulting density maps revealed that while the national reserve offered a measure of security to wildlife, many ungulate species still heavily utilised their historical dispersal areas in the community lands. Interestingly, despite the tourism related land use changes demonstrated in the Mara's landscape, some species e.g. eland, displayed an increase in range size - to 4s0.5km2 in 2010 from 399.Skm2 in 2005 following the creation of wildlife conservancies in the sur…
author: Amoke, I
language: en
date published: 2012
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:44:21Z
provider: Oxford Brookes University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Oxford Brookes University