Linking National Parks with its gateway communities for tourism development in Central America: Nindiri, Nicaragua. Bagazit, Costa Rica and Portobelo, Panama

              Vol. 4 Nº 3 págs. 351-371. 2006
www.pasosonline.org
© PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural. ISSN 1695-7121
Linking National Parks with its gateway communities for tourism
development in Central America: Nindiri, Nicaragua, Bagazit, Costa
Rica and Portobelo, Panama
Juan Antonio Aguirre G.†
Center for Sustainable Development (Costa Rica)
Abstract: Protected areas and national parks are becoming one of the most important forms of land use in
Central America. All the projections made by the World Tourism Organization seems to agree that by 2010
Central America, maybe receiving between eight and ten millions tourists, a figure that is almost twice what
the region is receiving today. A study was conducted base on 369 direct field surveys conducted in three Cen-tral
American communities: Bagazit gateway community to Palo Verde National Park, Costa Rica, Nindiri,
gateway community to Volcan Masaya National Park, Nicaragua and Portobelo, gateway community to Por-tobelo
National Park, Panama. The study found that relative to the socio-demographic variables, that there
were no significance differences at the 95% probability level in all four variables, age, sex, education and
monthly income of the family. Educational level seems to be the socio-demographic variables affecting more
the state of relations. The perception variable being has taken into account in the decision that affects the
communities and responsibility to help with community problems are present in two of the three models. The
perception variables related to tourism, feel trained to take care of the tourist and existence of businesses that
can caters to tourist seem to be key elements in the community perception about the state of relation. Tourism
related economic activities and community participation in park decisions are today and will be in the future
essential elements in the shaping of community/park relations in Central America as tourism becomes a major
economic sector in the region economy.
Keywords: National Parks; Communities; Participation; Tourism; Costa Rica; Panama; Nicaragua; Central
America.
Resumen: Los parques nacionales y las áreas protegidas se han convertido en una de las formas de uso de la
tierra más importantes en la America Central en anos recientes. Si las proyecciones de crecimiento del turismo
de la Organización Mundial de Turismo son correctas, para el ano 2010, la America Central estaria recibiendo
entre 8 y 10 millones de turistas, numero que representa el doble de lo que la region recibe en la actualidad. El
estudio que se reporta en este trabajo consistio de 390 encuestas en tres comunidades aledanas a tres importan-te
parques nacionales de la region. Bagazit, aledaña al Parque Nacional Palo Verde en Costa Rica, Portobelo
comunidad aledaña al Parque Nacional Portobelo en Panamá y Nindiri comunidad aledaña al Parque Nacional
Volcán Masaya en Nicaragua. El estudio encontró que no había diferencias significativas al nivel de 95%
entre las variables socio-demográficas: edad, sexo, educación, e ingreso mensual entre las tres comunidades.
El nivel educativo del entrevistado fue identificado como las variables que al parecer mas afectaba, la opinión
sobre el estado de las relaciones al tercer presente en dos de los tres modelos estandarizados estimados. Las
variables que median, si el trabajo desempeñado por el entrevistado estaba relacionado o no con el turismo y si
en la comunidad había suficientes negocios o no que podían servir a los turistas parecen ser elemento claves,
en la determinación del nivel de percepción sobre el estado de las relaciones. El turismo y las actividades
económicas relacionadas a esta actividad será en el futuro inmediato elementos esenciales en el desarrollo de
las relaciones comunidades / parque en la región, en la medida que la actividad se convierta en elemento clave
del desarrollo económico de la América Central.
Palabras clave: Parques Nacionales; Comunidades; Participación; Turismo; Costa Rica; Panamá; Nicaragua;
América Central.
† • Juan Antonio Aguirre G. Ph.D. Environmental Economics Professor. The School for Field Studies, Center for
Sustainable Development. Atenas, Costa Rica. E-mail: jaguirre@fieldstudies.org
352 Linking National Parks with its Gateway Communities for Tourism Development ...
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Introduction
Protected areas and national parks are
becoming one of the most important forms
of land use forms in Central America, as
can be observed in table 0. This is without
question the result of what is normally
accepted a combination of three forces.
One, the international pressures for more
space covered by forest to better preserve
the environment. Second, the agricultural
crisis of the region major exports crops.
Three, the growing interest particularly in
the United States for destinations that are
near "home" and risk reduce, in comparison
with others part of the world. All the pro-jections
made by the World Tourism Or-ganization
seems to agree that by 2010
Central America, maybe receiving between
eight and ten millions tourists, a figure
that is almost twice what the region is re-ceiving
today.
An additional element that brings, pro-tected
areas to the forefront of world biodi-versity
conservation is the Mesoamerican
Biological Corridor, a corridor of protected
areas that will connects all the protected
areas of the region, to guarantee the elimi-nation
of many of the "biological" island
that irresponsible human behavior have
created over the past 50 years. If tourism
growth predicted materialize and the
"Mesoamerican Biological Corridor" be-comes
a reality in the next two or three
decades, "good" relations between protected
areas and its surrounding communities will
be essential for the preservation of the re-gion
biodiversity and particularly for the
development of sustainable ecotourism in
the region.
The purpose of this paper is to compare
the state of relations among three national
parks and its gateway communities in Pa-nama,
Nicaragua and Costa Rica and iden-tify
the issues and variables affecting, the
condition of the relations, with the idea of
providing protected areas administrators
and policy makers with technical informa-tion
that maybe useful in the design of
strategies to maintain the best relations
possible, between protected areas and the
people surrounding the parks, a condition
necessary for sustainable management of
ecotourism in Central America.
Objectives of the Study.
The objectives of the study were:
• To determine the socio-demographic and
perception variables that may be affect-ing
the state of the relations between
the national parks and the communities,
• To identify possible differences among
the three countries and how those dif-ferences
maybe affecting the way the
communities related to their neighbour-ing
parks,
• To determine the possible role of tourist
related economic activities in shaping
the perceptions that community mem-bers
may have currently, about the con-ditions
of the state of the relations and
the impact of tourism in the local com-
Country TA
Total Area
TPA
Total
Protected
Areas
TANP
Total Area
National
Parks
%
TPA/TA
%
TANP/TA
Costa Rica 50900 22514 4631 44 9
Belize 22965 7977 1119 35 5
Guatemala 108889 17817 7684 16 7
Honduras 112088 24888 5948 22 5
Nicaragua 139000 26594 253 19 0
Panama 75517 30046 13596 40 18
Total 509359 129838 33233 25 7
Table 0. Protected Areas and National Parks Surface in Central America.Source: IUCN
Juan Antonio Aguirre 353
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munities social organization.
General Working Hypotheses.
The guiding hypotheses of the study
were:
• Socio-economic differences among the
three communities exist, differences
that are impacting profoundly the state
of the relations currently,
• Community participation in park deci-sions
or to be taken into account by the
park in important decisions that affect
the community, is the most important
element shaping community/park rela-tions
currently.
• Tourism development is impacting simi-larly
each of the communities.
Methods and Size of Sample
The same questionnaire was used in all
three sites. The information requested from
members of the communities interviewed,
included the following socio-demographic
characteristic: age, gender, education level
(degree equivalent) and monthly family
income from all sources in the local cur-rency
converted later in the office to the
equivalent dollars using the average ex-change
rate of the period during which the
studies were conducted.
Originally, a total of 150 surveys were
planned in all three sites; however the lack
of tradition of the communities with this
type of surveys, created circumstances that
made refusal to certain questions common,
therefore incomplete surveys were dis-carded.
The numbers survey reported below
refers to the final usable surveys in each
community. The material was collected for
Costa Rica in Bagazit, gateway community
to Palo Verde National Park, in the prov-ince
of Guanacaste, during the January of
2003 and 2004 by the author of the paper.
For Nicaragua in Nindiri, gateway commu-nity
to Volcan Masaya National Park, in
Masaya, during the spring of 2004, by a
group of students from the School for Field
Studies. For Panama in Portobelo, gateway
community to Portobelo National Park, in
province of Colon, during the Fall of 2004,
by a group of students of the School for
Field Studies. In Bagazit a total 125 usable
randomly selected interviews were con-ducted,
in Nindiri a total of 141 and for
Portobelo a total of 103. The questions used
as an answer, a "likert" type scale with five
levels that permitted gradation in the an-swers,
e.g., from total agreement to total
disagreement or from total satisfaction to
total dissatisfaction, whatever the case may
be. The final set of questions used in all
three locations is presented below:
The statistical analysis conducted con-sisted
of the following steps: selection of the
key dependent variable, in all three case
the answer for question 18, development of
comparative histograms, analysis of vari-ance
for all variables that permitted such
Question 1: When was the last time you visited park?
Question 2: to what extent are you related to activities in
the park?
Question 3: To what extent is your job related to tour-ism?
Question 4: To what extent do you feel capable of at-tending
to visitors to the park?
Question 5: In the last ten years, have improvements in
the community been related with the existence of the
park?
Question 6: Do you think park visitors have contributed
to improvements in the economic conditions of the
community?
Question 7: Do you feel the park is part of the commu-nity?
Question 8: Who receives the most benefits from the
presence of the park?
Question 9. Was the creation of the park the best use
that could have been given to the land?
Question 10. Is their businesses near the community to
serve tourists going to the park?
Question 11: Do the foreigners and locals who visit the
park respect the community?
Question 12: When the park makes decisions that affect
the community does the park takes into account the
opinions of the community?
Question 13: Of the benefits generated by tourism,
which is the most important?
Question 14: Do you know of any conflict, past or pre-sent
between the community and the park?
Question 15: What are the three most important prob-lems
of the community?
Question 16: Should the park help to solve said prob-lems?
Question 17: What is the most important natural re-source
that the park offers to the community?
Question 18: How do you rate the relations between the
community and the park?
Question 19: What would you like the personnel and
administration of the park to do to improve relations
with the community?
Question 20: Do you have any additional comments
about the present state of community/park relations?
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an analysis, standardizing the variables an
estimating a stepwise multiple regression
model with standardized variables, to mean
zero and variance one, Since the data, use a
"modify" likert type scale with five levels, a
direct estimation using was possible using
a standardized stepwise ordinary least
squares process as suggested by Kachigan
to establish the relative importance of the
independent variables in explaining the
variation in the dependent variable using
version No 12 of the computer program
Minitab (Kachigan ,1991 ). The last step
was the verification of the models using the
experience gained during the survey. The
rationale of the modelling results were
evaluated and confronted with the analysis
of variance and the histograms results.
Review of the Literature.
The importance of good relations among
protected areas , tourist and communities
has been clearly recognized in 2004 in a
study of the World Wildlife Fund, that
investigated the state of the management
of protected areas around the world and
concluded that: "One depressingly
consistent problem is a failure to manage
relations with people. Problems are evident
both in terms of relations with local
communities and indigenous people ,the
management of tourism, the provision of
visitors facilities and the access to
commercial tourism facilities …..." WWF,
(2004) situation which seems to perpetuate
despite all efforts , declarations and good
wishes.
Ecotourism and Community Sustainability
Rural communities seeking to improve
the quality of life for their residents often
turn to tourism as a means to improve their
economic position. Even though the
existing evidence shows that there are no
statistically significant differences in how
involved versus noninvolved citizens
evaluate the potential impacts of tourism,
differences in the support each group
showed for the development of cultural
tourism infrastructure has been identified ,
therefore the views of the involved citizens
are important to decision makers because
the involved citizens are the ones most
likely to influence public policy. (Jurowski
and Brown, 2001)
Sustaining the resource base on which
tourism depends must be the central focus
of any discussion surrounding sustainable
tourism development. To date, this debate
has focused narrowly on controlling the
adverse impacts of tourism development
itself. Yet, the applications of the
conflicting interpretations of sustainable
development and ecologically sustainable
development may pose an even greater
threat to the future of tourism, especially
outside urban areas.(McKercher, 1993)It is
legitimate to ask whether and in what form
tourism might contribute to sustainable
development. This is not the same as
sustainable tourism which, as a single-sector
approach to development, may
overlook important linkages with other
sectors. If tourism is to contribute to
sustainable development, then it must be
economically viable, ecologically sensitive
and culturally appropriate. (Wall,1977)
Tourism can be a far-reaching agent of
change, yet too often planning for the
industry is based solely on isolated
economic criteria. For the industry and the
destination community to benefit a
mutually symbiotic relationship should be
developed, a relationship modelled on an
ecosystem framework. (Murphy, 1993)
Community solidarity is considered a
definitive quality of many rural towns and
one that could be dramatically influenced
by accommodating tourism development.
Previous research shows that tourism
brings people from different cultural
backgrounds into a community. In this
exploratory study, evidence indicates that
tourism development changes residents'
relationships to one another and to their
community. (Huang, 1996)
Finally, rural tourism planners have
called for more consideration to be given to
potential social and environmental costs
associated with tourism development. (Hol-land
and Crotts, 1992). Many rural com-munities
view tourism as an economic de-velopment
strategy. The existing evidence
shows that communities differ with respect
to residents' support for specific tourism
development options and attitudes toward
tourism. There is a general relationship
Juan Antonio Aguirre 355
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between attitudes and support for tourism
development, although the nature of the
relationship is different for each commu-nity
(Andereck and Vogt, 2000). That evi-dence
advocates for great care and careful
evaluation of conditions before embarking
in uncontrolled and rapid tourist develop-ment.
Tourism and Change in Costa Rica.
In 1951, in Monteverde and later in
Santa Elena, what started as a
conservation adventure with scientific
underpinnings (Burlingame,2000), by 2005
is in a collision course with the social and
economic realities of the 21st century
where the conservation models of only
biological orientation that have governed
and still do govern the activities in many
parks and reserves in Central America, are
not providing satisfactory solutions for
many of the new problems created by the
business of outdoor recreation and the new
macroeconomic realities .The major
outcome of this evident collision is that the
"Monteverde-Santa Elena Area" maybe
turning touristically speaking
unsustainably because everybody seems to
be more concern about agriculture and
ecological sustainability of the area while
the "environment" is fastly deterioration by
what seems to be "poor" tourist
management and poor urban planning.
In a study conducted in Costa Rica,
many pressure groups were identified in
the Manuel Antonio and Quepos area that
were affecting in one way or another the
management of Manuel Antonio National
Park making the working together of the
many groups very difficult. The groups
identified were: illegal hunters and plant
gatherers, park administrators, park per-sonnel
from outside the community, local
hotel owners, foreign hotel owners, park
personnel from the area, subsistence farm-ers,
foreign and local scientists, tourism
operators, craft salespeople at the park
gates, municipal officials and authorities,
local politicians and Ministry of Energy and
the Environment and the National System
of Conservation Areas personnel. (Aguirre,
2000),
On the other hand, for Costa Rica, many
nature base tourism and ecotourism related
businesses have received substantial tax
exemptions in order to import the goods
and services needed to develop as well as
hefty income tax exemption on profits and
investment, nevertheless many small
communities receive very little in terms of
economic benefits or simply have been left
out. (Damon and Vaughn, 1993).The gate-way
community Poasito to Volcan Poas
National Park residents, complain that
many tourists do not stop in their commu-nity
on their way to the Volcan Poas Na-tional
Parks, situation that is far better
than the one experienced at the beginning
of the decade of the nineties in the Carara
National Park, where only 1% of the in-come
generated by the tourists visiting the
area, remained in the area because many
tour operators buses loaded with tourists
visiting the national park refuse to stop in
the area businesses while for Poasito, many
buses stop at the strawberry and cheese
shops along the highway leading to the
park. (Heisterkamp, et al, 2001), (Fouche
et all, 2001).
The reserves and parks can stimulate
the local economies when the money that
they generate is put back in circulation in
the surrounding areas. The type I and II
multiplier effects in jobs, investment,
expenditures in materials, have been well
documented in Costa Rica. In the area of
Quepos, for example in the hotel industry,
it was identified that over 90% of the
people employed in second and third level
jobs came from the area, while the
executive jobs were filled by foreigners or
from people from other areas of Costa Rica,
using the excuse that in Quepos it was
hard to find people to fill top managerial
positions. At the same time profound social
and cultural changes have taken place in
the community, something that was
recognized by about 97% of those inteview
during the survey. (Aguirre, 2000).
In the case of paid jobs, it is very hard
for people to recognize the benefits to the
local communities because the employment
and the salaries earned seem to be more
difficult to associate with the existence of
the parks or reserves (Wells, 1992 ). This
situation has been established in studies
conducted in the Manuel Antonio and
Quepos area, where the neighbors
interviewed associated their jobs with the
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businesses where they were employed, but
not with the capacity of the park to attract
tourists (Aguirre, 2000).
In Costa Rica, a study conducted found,
mixed feelings regarding ecotourism's effec-tiveness
as a conservation and community
development tool. The paper concludes by
recognising that ecotourism would be most
effective as a component of a broader con-servation
strategy and offers suggestions to
improve ecotourism's potential. (Stem et al,
2003). In Gandoca, Costa Rica, using a
grounded-theory analysis of interviews
conducted with project staff, ecotourist,
park guards, and cabin owners reveal a
broadly shared view of ecotourism that
incorporates both the 'nature' and 'people'
discourses, and stands in contrast to the
nationally dominant 'profit/nature' view
(Gray, 2003). In Ostional, Costa Rica, while
most residents had a positive attitudes
toward tourism, they had limited aware-ness
of employment or investment oppor-tunities.
Lack of awareness, along with
increased activity by outside investors,
suggests that, without formalized planning
or intervention, the possibilities for the
community to further benefit from tourism
development will be limited (Campbell,
1999). In Tortuguero, Costa Rica a study
was conducted, that focused on the estab-lishment
of Tortuguero National Park and
its impact on a neighbouring population.
Park-based tourism has become important
to the local economy; yet few of the villag-ers
neither are aware of the economic value
of the park, nor are there any systematic
attempt to promote nature-based tourism
as a development strategy (Place, 1991). In
Isla Venado, Costa Rica a study found that
the potential impacts on local sustainable
development would come from the devel-opment
of the community, new consump-tion
patterns, additional pressure to the
island's basic infrastructure plus limited
profiteers, will have direct effects on the
environment and society. Necessary infra-structure
improvements would include the
zoning of the land and capacity building for
ecotourism employment and other opportu-nities
(Beeker, 2000).
In a recent study conduceted in the
gateway communities of Guayabo and
Santa Cruz de Turrialba, gatway
communities to Guayabo Archaelogical
Monument National Park, in Costa Rica
central plateau, the evidence collected
indicates that tourism is look in both
communities as a real alternative source of
income and jobs, irrespectively of the
potentially adverse effects that unrestricted
tourist development may have in the
communities. At the same time the park is
expected to be a major catalytic agent for
the communities tourism development
efforts (Aguirre, 2006b).
Some Examples from Around the World.
In developing countries
In Belize, studies conducted showed,
that if the community shares in the bene-fits
of ecotourism brought by the protected
areas, they will get involved in the protec-tion
of the areas and facilitate its activities.
When the sharing does not occur, the re-sults
are the opposite and negative changes
in the protected areas and communities
may appear (Lindberg and Enriquez, 1994).
In Brazil, a study acknowledges that in
order for all participants to benefit from
ecotourism attention needs to be given
towards the perceptions and
understandings of the participants, taking
into account the level of community
involvement and the social impacts of such
involvement. (Nelson, 2000). In Cyprus a
study of the perceptions of Greek and Turk-ish
Cypriot residents of coastal on tourism
development found that will be an inverse
relationship between the level of tourism
development and perceived impacts for the
worse on the social, economic and environ-mental
status of the host community (Akis
et al, 1996). In Turkey, a study concludes
that formulating and carrying out a par-ticipatory
tourism development approach
requires a total change in socio-political,
legal, administrative and economic struc-ture
of many of the countries and hard po-litical
choices and logical decisions based on
cumbersome social, economic and environ-mental
trade-offs are sine qua non along-side
deliberate help, collaboration and co-operation
of major international donor
agencies, NGOs, international tour opera-tors
and multinational companies (Cevat,
2000)
In the Dominican Republic found that in
national parks, hiking and trekking oppor-
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tunities attract both national and interna-tional
tourists to the park, and community
members benefit from employment as tour
guides and providing mule rentals. At the
same time, tourism activities also present
continuing challenges related to: (1) the
distribution of tourism benefits between
local people and outsiders, and within the
local community, (2) maintaining the local
economic benefits of tourism while protect-ing
park resources, and (3) developing
park- or conservation-related economic
opportunities to complement tourism (Shel-las,
et al., 2002). In Bhutan, the authors
examine the relationship betweentourism,
development, Bhutanese culture and
environment, suggest that Bhutan's
tourism's policyhas been effective to date in
limiting environmental and cultural impact
fromWestern tourism. But as tourism
demand is rapidly growing, an assessment
of the country's carrying capacity is
necessaryif Bhutan's 'middle path' policy of
high yield, low impact tourism if it is to
continue to be effective, special political
agreement between India and Bhutan,
which amongst other things allow
unlimited numbers of Indian touriststo
enter Bhutan, will pose amajor challenge in
achieving an effective cultural and
environmental ( Brunet et al, 2001) .
In Uganda, a study found that the im-pact
of tourism in Bigodi, suggest that tour-ism
dependency is not a direct result of
tourism but instead of a perceived external
locus of control. In other words, residents
believe they have little control over what
happens in there lives. This perception is
rooted in historical, political and economic
forces and creates a social psychological
environment in which tourism encourages
dependency. Thus, in the future, locus of
control should be considered an important
variable for successful tourism-based de-velopment
(Lepp, 2004). In Namibia the
experience in Namibia highlights the
importance of three facts which sound
obvious but havechallenging implications.
First, that summarising the development
impact of tourism as 'jobs andcash' is an
over-simplification. Local people have a
complex livelihood strategies, based on
múltiple land-uses, and diversification of
risk across several activities. These are
affected by tourism in manydifferent ways,
positively and negatively, directly and
indirectly. Secondly, differenttypes of
community tourism ventures have different
types of livelihood impacts. And thirdly,
different people have different livelihood
priorities..(Asheley, 2000). In Kenya,a
study gives a historical evaluation of
western environmental values and how
these values influence wildlife conservation
and the development of nature-based
tourism in Kenya and contrast are
established between western
environmental values and rural peasants'
environmental perceptions. (Akama, 1996)
In develop countries.
In Canada, a structured survey of the
people of Alberta, was carried out to
developing a methodology capable of
providing an operational basis for tourism
consensus policy formulation, and of
identifying significant differences within
the host population. Comprehensive results
providing an insight into the residents'
view on all aspects of local tourism was
obtained. (Ritchie, 1988). In Norway and
Denmark, , in one of the first comparative
studies of its kind into the socioeconomic
impacts of tourism in Scandinavia, three
host communities, Hemsedal in Norway,
Sälen in Sweden and Blokhus in Denmark,
were studied. All the communities, once
dominated by farming and small scale
industry and now the recipients of mass
tourism on varying scales, were questioned
on the economic, social and cultural
impacts of tourism. Negative attitudes
towards tourism were found to be strongest
from those engaged in more traditional
occupations and to be directly related to the
level of tourism development (Haukeland,
1984). In Australia, in the rainforest region
of the New England/Dorhgo National
Parks. found that rainforest-generated
tourism had a significant impact on the
local economy and suggested that a
rainforest parks marketing strategy should
be prepared, funded jointly by the Parks
Service and local business (Wearing and
Parsons, 1991). In Australia, a cluster
analysis involving 1,244 visitors to six
popular recreational sites in the hinterland
of Australia's Gold Coast revealed diverse
attitudes toward tourism development and
product integration in this urban-rural
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fringe, although biocentric tendencies and a
desire to maintain the hinterland in its
present condition were dominant in all
clusters. These results indicate distinct
dynamics in the urban-rural fringe and will
potentially help the sustainable tourism
and recreation development of such areas
(Weaver and Lawton. 2004) . In New Zea-land,
an article discusses resident attitudes
to tourism development. There was general
support for this plan, but the community
was not homogeneous in its views. Per-ceived
positive impacts were the provision
of a community facility, job creation, and
the promotion of the area for tourism. Per-ceived
negative impacts included more
drunken driving, traffic problems, and in-creased
noise (Mason, 2000)
In the United States, in Williams,
Arizona, it was found that the fast pace of
tourism development causes community
attitudes toward tourism to decline over
time (Davis and Morais, 2004) .In the
United Sates , a study examined the
factors predicting attitudes toward tourism
of residents from a dozen communities in
Arizona, Findings showed that in general,
personal characteristics did not predict
attitudes toward tourism, but community
dependence on tourism was a predictor. As
expected, the existence of personal benefit
from tourism was not a significant predictor
of support for tourism planning.(Andereck
and McGehee, 2004). In the United States,
Rocky Mountain West, one group of studies
suggests a direct relationship between the
level of tourism development in a commu-nity
and the presence of negative resident
attitudes toward it. and suggest a typology
of rural communities experiencing tourism
growth that includes tourism-saturated,
tourism-realized, and tourism-hungry
community types (Smith and Krannick,
1998). In the United States a study investi-gated
the impacts of tourism on the Amish
of Illinois. A paradox is taking place, which
will not be easily resolved or remedied
without involvement by each party, the
tourist promoters and the Amish commu-nity.
Overall, the implications of this re-search
show that more careful attention
needs to be focused on respect for the pri-vate
lifestyle of the Amish, interpretative
programs to inform tourists about the com-munity,
a search for a balance between
gains for the entire local community, and a
desire to maintain the historically rural
and basic way of life for the Amish (Schu-ett,
1993). In the United States in Colo-rado,
a study determines which of the
seven dimensions of community life was
more important: public services, economics,
environment, medical services, citizen in-volvement,
formal education, and recrea-tion
services found that the relationship
between tourism development and satisfac-tion
or importance of community dimen-sions
are generally non-linear with citizen
involvement, public services, and the envi-ronment
being most sensitive to tourism
development (Allen et al, 1998).
In Japon, a case study of a Japanese
mountain village demonstrates how tourist
hosting may be marked by a double ten-sion:
first, with respect to the different
definitions of tourism within the tourism
sector; and secondly, relative to the social
divide between the existing sector and
those outside of it (Knight, 1996)
Results.
The results presented in this section
have been organized in three area, one for
the socio-demographics of the sample and
perceptions about the issues related to park
management and community and percep-tion
about tourism comparison of each of
three parks. This section is base on descrip-tive
histograms. A second section covering
the results of the analysis of variance, on
the means of each variable to determine
the basic differences among the three
parks. A stepwise regression analysis
pseudo modeling to determine using stan-dardized
variables, which variables of those
quantify through the survey have more
influence on the key dependent variables in
each of the communities. The data will be
discuss referring to countries, with the fol-lowing
correspondence: Bigamist (Costa
Rica), Nindiri (Nicaragua) and Portobelo
(Panama)
Socio Demographics Features
Tables 1, 2 and 3 present the results of
the socio-demographics characteristics in
each of the three locations: age, sex, educa-tion
level and income. Relative to the age
distribution in all three cases most the per-
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son's survey, place between the ages of 20
and 40 years, with Panama and Costa Rica
having a large percentage over the age of
65. Relative to sex, the sample in all three
locations was almost evenly split 50/50
with Costa Rica including little more fe-males.
In the case of education, Nicaragua
reported 17% with no education, some of
the persons interview reported that they
did not knew how to read and write. Pri-mary
education in all three locations was
the predominant, reporting Nicaragua 40%,
Costa Rica 60% and Panama 46.6%. The
survey reported very similar university
level education for all the sites. The results
must be remembered referred to those hav-ing
some education in the last level re-ported,
not necessarily that they have com-pleted
the level.
Relative to the income reported the
variation was very large in all three loca-tions
with cases like Nicaragua with an
average income of the equivalent to
US$300 a month for an average family of
six members, Costa Rica with an average
monthly income reported US$158 for an
average family of 4.5 members and Panama
reporting an average monthly income per
family of six members of US$274 a month.
For Nicaragua two persons in the sample
reported income that was found to be very
high for the country average, of around
US$ between 125 to 175 per family of six,
when this two cases were excluded form the
calculation the average for the group came
down to US$187 dollars per month. It was
interesting to note that Panama family
monthly income was the highest of the
three and Costa Rica the lowest.
The results presented by the socio-demographic
histograms for all three sites
shows that the three communities appear
to be somewhat similar, which is what was
expected, observation that was validated by
the results of the one way analysis of vari-ance
as it will be seen in the corresponding
section.
Perceptions related to Issues about Park-
Community Relations
Tables 4, 5 and 6 present the results re-lated
to the perception on park issues asso-ciated
directly with the relations between
the national park and the community and
the perception related to tourism and its
role in development of the community.
In relation with the degree of involve-ment
of the community members with the
park its is important to point out , that
Bagazit is the most involved with 36% of
those surveyed reporting that they are in-volved
, on the other extreme of the spec-trum
in Nindiri only 4% reported being
involved with the park. Another element
review was the opinion that they have
about the community improvement that
has taken place over the past ten years and
what role had the park played. For Nindiri,
64% said that it has nothing to do, 44% in
Bagazit said the same and in Portobelo the
opinions were more spread out over the
scale range.
Nindiri ,Nicaragua
Age
Years Frequency %
10 0 0.0
20 21 14.9
30 42 29.8
40 30 21.3
50 27 19.1
60 18 12.8
70 3 2.1
Sex
Sex Frequency %
Female 84 60
Males 57 40
Education
Level Frequency %
None 24 17
Primary 57 40
Seconday 39 28
University 21 15
Monthly Income
Level Frequency %
100 0 0
250 3 2
500 9 6
1000 17 12
2000 51 36
3000 30 21
4000 6 4
5000 12 9
6000 4 3
10000 3 2
15000 3 2
50000 3 2
n=141 for sociodemogarphics features.
Table 1. Socio-demographic Features. Nin-diri,
Nicaragua
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Age Levels Frequency %
15 0 0
20 15 12
25 15 12
30 5 4
35 30 24
40 30 24
45 5 4
50 5 4
55 5 4
60 10 8
65 0 0
70 0 0
75 0 0
80 5 4
85 0 0
90
Sex Frequency %
Female 60 48
Males 65 52
Education Frequency %
Primary 75 60
Secondary 30 24
University 15 12
Other 5 4
Income Frequency %
40000 10 8
50000 20 16
60000 30 24
70000 15 12
80000 15 12
90000 20 16
100000 5 4
110000 0 0
120000 10 8
n= 125 for all features
Table 2. Socio-demographics Fea-tures,
Bagazit. Costa Rica.
Another important perception evaluated
was, if the park was perceived part of
community or not. For Nindiri the re-sponses
were approximately distributed
over the range, in Bagazit 60% was em-phatic
a gave a five as an answer for the
question and in Portobelo 92% responded
with an one which meant no. Related to the
above the community was ask if they con-sidered
the park creation as the best land
use decision that could have been made
with the land that today conforms the park.
The responses for Nindiri and Portobelo
were distributed over the answer spectrum
and in Bagazit 100% answered with a five
meaning an excellent idea. Together with
the above statements the communities
were requested to express the opinion
about the responsibility that the park au-thorities
had in helping the community in
the solution of all the communal problems.
For Nindiri the opinions were distributed,
in Bagazit 60% said that they have no re-sponsibility
and 32% imply that they
should, but that they do not really have to.
Age Levels Frequency %
15 2 1.9
20 10 9.7
25 14 13.6
30 16 15.5
35 15 14.6
40 7 6.8
45 9 8.7
50 11 10.7
55 7 6.8
60 4 3.9
65 1 1.0
70 1 1.0
75 2 1.9
80 2 1.9
85 1 1.0
90 1 1.0
Sex Frequency %
Male 48 46.6
Female 55 53.4
Education Frequency %
None 8 7.8
Primary 48 46.6
Seconday 29 28.2
University 17 16.5
Graduate 1 1.0
Average Monthly Income
Level Frequency %
0 38 36.9
100 8 7.8
200 17 16.5
300 20 19.4
400 9 8.7
500 5 4.9
600 0 0.0
700 2 1.9
800 1 1.0
900 0 0.0
1000 2 1.9
1500 1 1.0
n= 103 for all socio-demoghraphics
Table 3. Socio-demographics Features, Por-tobelo,
Panama
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One interesting element in this section
was the perception related to whether or
not the community was consulted, when
the park made decisions that affected them
directly. In Nindiri 62% said that they
were never consulted, in Bagazit 60% ex-press
that they were consulted and in Pa-nama
73% said that they were consulted
some (three and 4) in a scale of 5.
Perception Related to Tourism Issues in
the Community.
One interesting observation made dur-ing
the surveys was the importance that
tourism activities were already having in
the economy of the three communities. The
results related to tourism issues confirm
sometimes the observation and in other
cases raise very interesting issues.
The first issue asks for in the perception
was whether or not the visitors respected
the community or nor. In Nindiri, 78% gave
answer between four and five meaning
therefore that visitor respected the com-munity,
in Bagazit 100% gave an answer of
five and in Portobelo 73% gave an answer
of four or five. In general them everybody
was happy with the visitor's behavior.
For Nindiri 79%, Bagazit 68% and Por-tobelo
57% of those interviewed said that
their work has nothings to do or was re-lated
to tourism in any way. At the same
time with the question whether or not they
felt trained to take care of the visiting tour-ist,
for Nindiri the answer was distributed
over the possible spectrum, in Bagazit 44%
said that they did not felt themselves
trained to care for tourist and in Portobelo
37% said the same.
The perception related to the visitor's
contribution to the economic development
of the community was interesting, since in
Nindiri 47%, in Bagazit 44% and in Porto-belo
37% said that they made no contribu-tion
to the economic development of the
community. In a way this previous answer
is reaffirm some what by the answer to the
question whether in the community existed
business capable of taking care of the visi-tor
needs. In Nindiri 49% said that busi-ness
did not exist in the community that
could serve visitors properly, in Bagazit
92% said that business existed and in Por-tobelo
73% gave answer between four and
five meaning therefore that business ex-isted.
Involved with the
Park,
Work Related to Tour-ism,
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 87 62 1 111 79
2 21 15 2 15 11
3 24 17 3 6 4
4 3 2 4 6 4
5 6 4 5 3 2
Community Impro D to
Park
Feel Trained to Care
for Tourist
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 90 64 1 30 21
2 15 11 2 15 11
3 12 9 3 33 24
4 6 4 4 42 30
5 18 13 5 21 15
Park Part of Commu-nity
Visitors Contribute to
ED
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 18 13 1 66 47
2 24 17 2 18 13
3 33 23 3 9 6
4 33 23 4 27 19
5 33 23 5 21 15
Park Creation Best
Land Use
Business Exist
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 3 2 1 69 49
2 15 11 2 36 26
3 33 23 3 33 23
4 57 40 4 3 2
5 33 23 5 0 0
Community Taken into
Account
Visitors Respect Com-munity
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 87 62 1 0 0
2 9 6 2 9 6
3 12 9 3 21 15
4 15 11 4 57 40
5 18 13 5 54 38
Park Help with Prob-lems
State of Relations
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 39 28 1 60 43
2 24 17 2 27 19
3 24 17 3 9 6
4 18 13 4 24 17
5 36 26 5 21 15
n= 141
Table 4. Nindiri, Perception About Main Park-
Community. Issues in Relations and Park and
Tourism.
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State of the Relations.
Finally if one looks at the answer gave
to the question in which they were ask to
rank the states of the relations level, it was
interesting to find that it depended on the
site. For Nindiri , the situation was polar-ized
42% of the answer gave felt between
one to two and 39% gave an answer falling
between four to five.In the case Bagazit
76% gave answer falling between four to
five and in Portobelo the answer was dis-tributed
over the range.
Analysis of Variance and Standardized
Regression Modeling Analysis.
Table 7, presents the analysis of vari-ance
results. The results indicate that
there are no significance differences at the
95% probability level, between age, sex,
education level and income levels, results
verify by the Tukey's test. The preliminary
overall result indicates that one is dealing
with very similar people in all three sites.
However, when one observed in detail
the results of the analysis of variance
analysis for the means in each of the per-ception
questions. The results indicate that
in the question related to: feel trained to
take care of tourist and if the community is
taken into account or not when decisions
affecting them are made no significant
were detected at the 95% probability level,
in other words there seems to be agreement
in the major participation issues, among
the three sites. This finding is interesting if
one looks at the rating given to the taken
into account question, 2,3 in Portobelo, 1,8
in Bagazit and 1.2 in Nindiri.
The results indicate that on the question
about: the park creation being the best land
use decision, about the existence of busi-nesses
to take care of tourist, visitors re-spect
for the community and in the percep-tion
of the state of the relations were sig-nificance
difference was detected among
the three sites in all other variables the
differences depended on the site in other
world it appear to be agreement in the dif-ferences.
This finding is particularly inter-esting
again if one looks at the average
mean value for the three sites: 3 for Porto-belo,
4 for Bagazit and 2.4 in Nindiri.
Involved with Park Ac-tivities
Work Related to Tour-ism
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 65 52 None 85 68
2 0 0 2 0 0
3 5 4 3 5 4
4 10 8 4 0 0
5 45 36 5 35 28
Improvement due to
Park
Feel Train to Serve
Tourist
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 55 44 None 55 44
2 10 8 2 0 0
3 20 16 3 5 4
4 25 20 4 0 0
5 15 12 5 65 52
Park Part of Community Visitors Contribute to
Economic
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 15 12 None 55 44
2 15 12 2 10 8
3 15 12 3 20 16
4 5 4 4 25 20
5 75 60 5 15 12
Park Best Land Use
Decision
Business Exist to Serve
Tourist
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 0 0 None 5 4
2 0 0 2 0 0
3 0 0 3 0 0
4 0 0 4 5 4
5 125 100 5 115 92
Help with Prob-lems
Visitors Respect Com-munity
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 20 16 None 0 0
2 15 12 2 0 0
3 15 12 3 0 0
4 5 4 4 0 0
5 70 56 5 125 100
Community Taken into
Account
State of Relations
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 75 60 None 10 8
2 0 0 2 10 8
3 10 8 3 10 8
4 5 4 4 25 20
5 35 28 5 70 56
n= 125
Table 5. Bagazit, perceptions about main park com-munity.
issues in relations and park and tourism.
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Involved with the
Park
Work Related to
Tourism
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 59 57 1 59 57
2 19 18 2 10 10
3 8 8 3 10 10
4 2 2 4 10 10
5 15 15 5 14 14
Improvement in Com
Due to Park
Feel Trained to Care for
Tourist
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 25 24 1 26 25
2 22 21 2 12 12
3 25 24 3 21 20
4 14 14 4 22 21
5 17 17 5 22 21
Park Part of Com-munity
Visitor Contribute to
Economic Develop
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 95 92 1 38 37
2 6 6 2 33 32
3 0 0 3 11 11
4 1 1 4 10 10
5 1 1 5 11 11
Park Best Land Use
Decision
Business Exist in
Commmunity
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 7 7 1 12 12
2 14 14 2 29 28
3 21 20 3 26 25
4 50 49 4 30 29
5 11 11 5 6 6
Community Taken into
Account
Visitors Respct the
Community
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 2 2 1 2 2
2 8 8 2 8 8
3 19 18 3 19 18
4 57 55 4 57 55
5 17 17 5 17 17
Help with Prob-lems
State of Relations
Level Frequency % Level Frequency %
1 19 18 1 11 11
2 13 13 2 31 30
3 18 17 3 18 17
4 20 19 4 28 27
5 33 32 5 15 15
n=103 for all percep-tions
questions
Table 6. Portobelo, Perception About Main Park
Community . Issues in Relations and Park Tourism.
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NSD non significant and SD significant.
Tukey's Family Error Test
Portobelo Bagazit Nindiri P/B P/N N/B F P
Socio-Demog Var
Age Years 37.8 36.8 35.7 NSD NSD NSD 0.68 0.509
Sex 0.53 0.52 0.4 NSD NSD NSD 2.64 0.073
Education 2 2 2 NSD NSD NSD 2.62 0.074
Income 274 158 300 NSD NSD NSD 0.85 0.43
Perceptions Var
Last timeVisit P 3.4 4.7 2.7 SD NSD SD 21.35 0.000
Involved w Park 2.0 2.3 1.7 NSD NSD SD 4.20 0.016
Work R Tourism 2.1 1.5 1.4 SD SD NSD 7.01 0.001
Feel Trained w T 3.0 2.7 2.7 NSD NSD NSD 1.80 0.250
Impro D to Park 2.7 2.1 1.9 SD SD NSD 7.94 0.000
Visitors C.to E.D 2.2 2.4 2.4 SD NSD SD 19.22 0.000
Park Part of Com 1.0 3.5 3.3 SD SD NSD 125.15 0.000
Park Best Land U 3.4 4.9 3.7 SD SD SD 92.16 0.000
Exist Business 2.9 4.5 1.7 SD SD SD 255.96 0.000
Visitors Respect C 3.7 4.6 4.1 SD SD SD 23.48 0.000
Take Account C 2.3 1.8 2.1 NSD NSD NSD 1.91 0.149
Know of Problems 0.55 0.24 0.19 SD SD NSD 12.82 0.000
P Help w Problems 3.3 4.8 2.9 SD NSD SD 67.50 0.000
State of Relations 3.0 4.0 2.4 SD SD SD 45.59 0.000
Table 7.Results of the ANOVA Analysis Among Communities for Key Socio Demographics
and Perception Variables.
Table 8, summarized the standardized
rank order stepwise regression models
derived. In interpreting this result one
needs to remember that the absolute val-ues
of the beta coefficients provide infor-mation
on the rank order or relative order
of importance of the independent vari-ables
with respect to the dependent vari-able,
and no information on the absolute
contribution is provided or assume. (Ka-chigan,
1999)
For Nindiri, the results indicate that
nine variables account for 42, 9% of the
variation (R2), with all the coefficients
significant at the 95% probability level,
with p values between 0.046 and 0.000.
For Nindiri the most important variables
are: taken into account with an absolute
value for the coefficient of 0.37542, T =
5.59 and p= 0.000. For Bagazit the most
important variable is the existence of
businesses in the community that can
take of tourist needs with an absolute
value of the coefficient of 0.35364, a T=
7.76 and a P=0.000. For Bagazit the most
important variable is education level of
the person with an absolute value of the
coefficient of 0.76890, with a T=6.00 and
a P= 0.000.
It is important to indicate that being
took into account appears in the model
identify in the cases of Nindiri and Porto-belo
and that for Nindiri this variable is
the most important of all, and for Porto-belo
is the second in importance with an
absolute value of the coefficient of
0.26533, with a T= 6.19 and a P= 0.000.
Who Benefits and Types of Benefits.
One remaining issue is the benefits
from tourism, who gets them and what
are they, in the eyes of the community.
The results are presented in Tables 9 and
10. The results in table nine are clear, in
60% of the benefits as perceived by the
community goes to the government and
the park, even with the good relations
that seem to exist, only 4% of those sur-vey
said that the town is benefiting from
tourism. For Portobelo, 56% said that
benefits go to the government and the
park and for Nindiri, 86% said the same
thing.
In relation with what kind of benefits
they perceived as the most important,
table 10 numbers are very interesting. In
Bagazit, 32% sees employment and in-come,
with visitors arrivals to the com-munity
as important. For Portobelo, 39%
sees employment and income as key con-
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tributions and 21% sees tourist visits.
However in Portobelo 20% mention that
the community received no benefits. For
Nindiri, 40% talks about income and em-ployment
as the two most important con-tribution
but 36% said that the commu-nity
received no benefits.
Predictor Coef StDev T P
Constant 0.00000 0.06581 0.00 1.000
STDAGE 0.29047 0.07971 3.64 0.000
STDGEND -0.31448 0.07152 -4.40 0.000
STDEDULE 0.31791 0.07544 4.21 0.000
STDLAST -0.15564 0.07504 -2.07 0.040
STDINVOL -0.22665 0.08055 -2.81 0.006
STDCIdT -0.24637 0.07373 -3.34 0.001
STDVCEI 0.16305 0.07366 2.21 0.029
STDVIRES -0.21820 0.07616 -2.86 0.005
STDTAC 0.37542 0.06720 5.59 0.000
S = 0.7814 R-Sq = 42.9% R-Sq(adj) = 38.9%
Analysis of Variance
Source DF SS MS F P
Regression 9 60.0101 6.6678 10.92 0.000
Residual Error 131 79.9899 0.6106
Total 140 140.0000
Portobelo Standardized Regression Analysis
Predictor Coef StDev T P
Constant 0.00000 0.04073 0.00 1.000
STDGEN -0.15640 0.04107 -3.81 0.000
STDTRAIN 0.08663 0.04339 2.00 0.047
STDIMPRO -0.15380 0.04305 -3.57 0.000
STDBLU 0.23116 0.04526 5.11 0.000
STDEBUSS 0.35364 0.04558 7.76 0.000
STDTAC 0.26533 0.04288 6.19 0.000
STDHwP 0.10997 0.04606 2.39 0.017
S = 0.7824 R-Sq = 40.0% R-Sq(adj) = 38.8%
Analysis of Variance
Source DF SS MS F P
Regression 7 147.018 21.003 34.31 0.000
Residual Error 361 220.982 0.612
Total 368 368.000
Bagazit Standardized Regression Analysis
Predictor Coef StDev T P
Constant -0.00000 0.05968 -0.00 1.000
STDEDL 0.7689 0.1281 6.00 0.000
STDLAST -0.17937 0.07668 -2.34 0.021
STDWRT -0.29126 0.09092 -3.20 0.002
STDTRAIN 0.42943 0.07635 5.62 0.000
STDBLU 0.47902 0.08790 5.45 0.000
STDEBUSS 0.49495 0.06430 7.70 0.000
STDVRESP -0.19653 0.07402 -2.66 0.009
STDHwP 0.5880 0.1660 3.54 0.001
S = 0.6672 R-Sq = 58.4% R-Sq(adj) = 55.5%
Analysis of Variance
Source DF SS MS F P
Regression 8 72.3610 9.0451 20.32 0.000
Residual Error 116 51.6390 0.4452
Total 124 124.0000
Table 8. Standardized Regression Analysis: Nindiri, Porto-belo
and Bagazit, 2005. Nindiri Standardized Regression
Analysis
Bagazit
Institution Frequency %
MINAE 35 28
Park Personnel 40 32
Town 5 4
Visitors 20 16
Country 20 16
Others 5 4
Portobelo
Institution Frequency %
ANAM/Gov 47 46
Park Personnel 10 10
Town 13 13
Visitors 21 20
Country 10 10
Others 2 2
Nindiri
Institutions Frequency %
Government 84 60
Park Personnel 36 26
Town 0 0
Visitors 15 11
Country 6 4
Others 0 0
Table 9 Who Benefits from the Park
Bagazit
Type of Benefits Frequency %
Employment 20 16
Income 20 16
New Businesses 10 8
C Exchange 30 24
Visitors 40 32
Others 5 4
Portobelo
Type of Benefit Frequency %
Employment 26 25
Income 14 14
New Businesses 13 13
C Exchange 7 7
Tourist Visits 22 21
No Benefits 21 20
Nindiri
Type of Benefit Frequency %
Employment 30 21
Income 27 19
New Businesses 9 6
C Exchange 15 11
T Visits 9 6
No Benefits 51 36
Table 10. Type of Benefits for
Community.
Vol. 4 Nº 3 págs. 351-371. 2006
www.pasosonline.org
© PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural. ISSN 1695-7121
Discussion.
It is important to remember the basic
idea of this paper stated in the introduc-tion
is to compare and contrast condi-tions,
on how park community relations
work in communities that are gateway to
three national parks, in three different
countries that are well known for their
different ethnic compositions, approach to
economic and social development and
particularly in their historical back-ground.
Nicaragua among the poorest
Latin American countries, a "mixed"
white/indian population, depending on
agricultural exports for their development
with a rather limited institutional struc-ture
for the protection of protected areas.
Panama a commerce, banking and trade
base economy, at the crossroads of the
Americas, with a heavy African heritage,
with a fairly large number of protected
areas around the Old Panama canal area,
trying to develop an efficient system of
protected areas management. Costa Rica,
mostly white, highly educate and "mod-ern"
with some of the best human devel-opment
indicators of the isthmus and
without question, the most advance insti-tutional
arrangement for protected areas
management in Central America. It is
against this background that one needs to
interpret these results.
As it was said before, the three com-munities
socio-demographically the three
communities, share some common fea-tures:
small, located at the gateway of
important national parks, inhabited by
rural residents very concern with jobs
and income betterment and looking to the
tourist as a form of "life saver". Even
thought the results in terms of the three
basic socio-demographic indicators col-lected,
age, level of education and income
were quite similar. However if one walks
thru these communities, accepting the
major country differences, the three sites
appear to be similar.
The similarity/differences dichotomy is
important, because of what it could mean
for the development of regional strate-gies,
for protected areas management so
fashionable these days. Even Nicaragua,
with all of its basic human related needs
seem to be similar when the community
Nindiri, is dealing with the issue of "vi-cinity
to national parks". Perhaps the
only element that is in need of attention
is the educational levels in Nindiri, mean-ing
perhaps that some of the more tradi-tional
written information and educa-tional
techniques may not work as good in
Nicaragua as they would in Costa Rica
and Panama with higher overall educa-tional
level than Nicaragua.
The differences among communities
begin to emerge as one move into the
perception area. The study clearly show,
that Bagazit of the three communities is
the one with better relations with the
40% of the community neighbors have
some involvement with the park, 60%
feels the park is part of the community,
100% thinks that the park creation was
the best land use decision, 52% feel train
to serve tourist,100% that visitor respect
the community and even thought 60%
does not feel they as a group ate taken
into account in park decisions, there
ranking for the state of relations shows
that 76% give the relations a rating be-tween
4 and 5. This is a community that
seems to be content with the relations
with the park.
This is very interesting since; Bagazit
is a product of a land invasion, of the cat-tle
ranch that was confiscated to create
the park, roughly some 20 years ago.
However, for several "utilitarian" reasons,
the park decided to allow grazing in the
park ,during the dry season for the cattle
of the community, help with irrigation
water for the community from the park
aquifers, and for the women of the com-munity
to extract cat-tail plants for mak-ing
souvenir to be sold to the tourist to
the park, in return for help during the
dry season to put down forest fires, so
common in the pacific slopes of Central
America during the dry season, this went
along with the creation of a permanent
park-community committee as part of the
park strategy to improve relations. The
community at large may not be informed
but the park/community committee cer-tainly
is, and that help works out tension
Juan Antonio Aguirre 367
PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 4(3). 2006 ISSN 1695-7121
and misconceptions. The results are
"good" relations, that need improvement
but that certainly are not bad as those of
Nindiri in Nicaragua.
Portobelo, on the other hand, is a com-munity
that as site of Panama, most im-portant
catholic sanctuary housing the
"Black Christ of Portobelo" is perhaps the
one community, of the three, more aware
of what tourism is, since it is literally
taken over for almost three days by the
"pilgrims" coming from all over Panama
once a year. What is interesting is, if one
looks at the results of table 6, is that al-most
all the perception variables seem to
be approximately distributed somewhat
even among the (1 to 5) categories, in
terms of what the "Portobelians" seem to
believe about the park relations with the
community are, what they should be and
what tourism cans do for them and may
not be doing at this time.
However is interesting to note three
things: the park is not seen as part of the
community, 92 % of those interviewed
said so, 57% are not involved with the
park, and 57% said that their work is not
related to tourism. These findings are
somewhat of a contradiction, since the
town is one of Panama, most historic
communities and receives tourist all year
round. However when the final tally is
made, 45% rate the relations with a four
or a five, which means that they are not
happy like Bagazit but not unhappy like
Nindiri.
Nindiri is the extreme case, with 62%
of those interviewed giving to the com-munity
park relations a ranking of one or
two, this send a clear message of unhap-piness
to the park authorities. The un-happiness
maybe summarized by: 74%
believe that community improvement
over the past decade have little or noth-ing
to do with the park actions, 77% has
little or no involvement with the park,
79% reported that their work has little to
do with tourism, 49% that businesses do
not exist to care for the tourist and 60%
said that visitor to the park does not con-tribute
to the economic development of
the community, and 62% said, that rela-tions
are almost non existent.
The problem is, that the park main en-trance
is almost "across the street" from
the town entrance. Nevertheless, they
still seem to think that the park is part of
the community, that its creation was a
good idea, that whatever visitors they
receive of those visiting the park, in gen-eral
respect the community. The impres-sion
they gave the author during the sur-vey
was that the community was, waiting
for the park to do something toward the
betterment of the relations, what, they
were not sure, but they expected some-thing.
The overall message verifies in each of
the three sites when the stepwise stan-dardized
modeling is analyzed was more
participation, along with more tourist due
to the fact that in Portobelo the most im-portant
variable in explaining the state of
the relations, was the existence in the
community of businesses that can takes
care of visiting tourist properly followed
in a second place by the opinion that com-munities
have about the level the com-munity
is taken into account.
If one looks at Nindiri it is logical for
them, to ask to be taken into account in
the decisions the park makes that affect
them, today all the evidence gather is
that, they are outside the park even
thought they are located across the street.
The second variable in importance is the
level of education. In Nindiri, survey ob-servations
indicated that community
members, with better schooling wanted
the park, to ask them for some sort of
participation in park activities.
If one looks at Bagazit, the most im-portant
variable is the level of education,
in a country like Costa Rica; this results
should not be surprising. Higher level of
education seems to be a positive "plat-form"
for better relations. However in
community already having good relations
with a park, and collaborating with the
park, the second variable in importance,
desire for the park to help with the com-munity
problem is a logical results. Baga-zit
wants more help in their critical de-velopment
needs. One interesting thing
about Bagazit, is the idea that they want
the park to help with training of the com-munity
members, in how take care of
tourist.
The lesson from Bagazit, in compari-son
with what one gets from Nindiri and
368 Linking National Parks with its Gateway Communities for Tourism Development ...
PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 4(3). 2006 ISSN 1695-7121
Portobelo is that good relations, seem to
have some common denominators: like
being taken into account, a functioning
committee, common interest, mutual
benefits, support by the park in concrete
things of mutual benefit, and tourism
appears currently to be a good element to
coordinate and develop good relations
around.
Curiously, the government and the
park personnels are perceived as the key
beneficiaries by all three communities. In
the case of Nindiri this findings is even
more dramatic, since nobody said that the
community benefits, as if the people sur-vey
recapitulated in one comments all the
previous findings. In the case of Bagazit,
all the park has done, appears to be di-minish
in impact, in the eyes of the com-mon
person, with four percent of those
surveyed, seen the community as a bene-ficiary.
Why?. This is something that the
park needs to look into seriously, since it
seems that what is being done is not fil-tering
down to the common person. The
committee is probably not communicating
to the rest of the community what the
park seems to be doing. This is easy to fix,
more information and communication
appears to be needed.
Finally, what the common person
seems to perceive as what they maybe be
getting out of all this tourism develop-ment
taking place are income and em-ployment
and in communities with the
level of unemployment and recurrent
economic crisis this numbers should come
as no surprise. The real problem is that in
Portobelo and Nindiri over 20 percent of
the people seem to think that the com-munity
is not getting any benefits is
something to be concern about, because
that perception may evolved into a feeling
of neglect, and neglect may lead to the
idea of getting even, and that feeling is
not a good one for the safeguard of the
park integrity.
Perhaps one last comment is in order.
As we close this discussion, comes to our
minds what WWF said in 2004, "One
depressingly consistent problem is a
failure to manage relations with
people…" (WWF, 2004). Therfore, the
overall conclusion of this three studies ,
maybe that :What is needes is less talk,
and real desire to joint efforts for the sake
of the future generations and that goes
for all the three sites and maybe
everywhere.
Conclusions.
• The relations among the three com-munities
seem to be at this time, in
the case of Bagazit appropriate, Porto-belo
with definite need for improve-ment
and Nindiri somewhat antago-nistic.
• The study found in relation to the
socio-demographic variables, that
there were no significance differences
at the 95% probability level in all four
variables, age, sex, education and
monthly income of the family.
• Level of education enter into the final
standardized stepwise regression
models estimated in the case of Nin-diri,
and Bagazit. From the findings
reported educational level seem to be
the socio-demographic variables affect-ing
more the state of relations.
• The perception variable being taken
into account in the decision that affect
the communities and responsibility to
help with community problems are
present in two of the three models, in
the case of Bagazit and Portobelo, not
in the case of Nindiri a community
that seems to have the lowest level of
relations with its neighbouring park.
• The perception variables related to
tourism, feel trained to take care of
the tourist and existence of businesses
that can cater to tourist are present in
the model estimated for Portobelo and
Bagazit and not in Nindiri the com-munity
that basically has no relations
with the park or feels that receives
benefit form tourism visiting the park
at this time.
• Nindiri, first and foremost seem to
want participation and be involved in
park activities, hoping perhaps that
through these two mechanism, they
can go on to better things and more
benefits from the tourist that comes to
the park.
• Tourism related economic activities
appear to be playing today and in the
years to come a crucial role in the
Juan Antonio Aguirre 369
PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 4(3). 2006 ISSN 1695-7121
shaping of the park/community rela-tions
and that seems to be the percep-tions
that all three community mem-bers
seem to have currently about the
conditions of the state of the relations
and the impact of tourism in the local
communities social organization.
• Socio-economic differences between
the three communities probably exist,
but at this time do not seem to be im-pacting
profoundly the state of the re-lations,
the hypothesis on socio-economic
differences at this time is be-ing
rejected
• Community participation in park deci-sions
or to be taken into account by
the park in important decisions that
affect the community, is a very impor-tant
element shaping community/park
relations at this time, hypothesis re-lated
to participation was accepted
base on the total results of the three
analysis conducted.
• The economic health of the tourism
related activities seems to be essential
in shaping the futures of the commu-nities/
park relations in all three sites
confirming the hypothesis on that is-sue.
As in the previous studies reported by
the author, participation in decisions and
the economic health tourism related ac-tivities
in small farming communities
seem to play a key role in determining
the “health” of the relations between the
protected areas and its surrounding
gateway communities as one would ex-pected.
However what is interesting is
that such conclusion may apply as well, to
other Central American countries with
different cultures, ethnic composition and
economic base.
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Recibido: 27 de marzo de 2006
Aceptado: 20 de junio de 2006
Sometido a evaluación por pares anónimos