Impact of Ecotourism to Community Adjacent to Protected Areas A Case of Isirwa Village in Ngorongoro District, Tanzania

Abstract

The study focused at finding out the impacts of ecotourism activities in social and cultural development of the community adjacent to protected areas. Specifically, the study firstly determined community member's views on the impacts of ecotourism activities in enabling access to social services in Isirwa village. Secondly, seek the community member's perspectives on the impacts of ecotourism activities in cultural preservation. Thirdly, determined whether community member's viewpoints on impacts of ecotourism activities in social and cultural development differ across their demographic characteristics, lastly determined the impacts of ecotourism activities in social networking. Stratified random and purposive sampling was used to select 143 respondents. From community viewpoints the study revealed that at very large extent ecotourism enabled communities to access roads, safe and clean water. At small extent ecotourism enabled access to education while at very small extent ecotourism enabled access to health. The study found ecotourism activities are actively preserving culture. Furthermore, the results of independent T-test showed no significant difference in viewpoints among women and men between levels of extent to which ecotourism enables access to social services and contribute to culture preservation in their community. Likewise, results from ANOVA showed no significant difference in extent to which ecotourism enabled access to social services in their local community across ages of respondents. Likewise, the study revealed benefits from social networking includes; getting aids/gifts, interaction and relationship building. The study recommends NCAA to continue educating local communities on how they can tape opportunities arising from ecotourism activities