Inside the commons of ecotourism development in Ethiopia: Strategic communal empowerment or marginalization? Evidence from Wenchi community based ecotourism

Abstract

This paper examines the quest of empowerment and disempowerment, the way community based ecotourism created the marginalized community throughout its development phase in Ethiopia with evidence from Wenchi Ecotourism development. Descriptive research design was employed where as random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used to determine the sample size. The sample representative for the study was 221 samples (196 for local community, 12 guides, 3 experts and 10 community representatives). Interview, focused group discussion, questionnaire and participant observation were used as a data collection instruments. In order to collect the data, community, government officials, and community representatives were a source of data where the sample size was determined by simple random sampling for local community and purposive sampling for the rest. Despite its significant contribution to livelihood augmentation, the finding indicated that Wenchi community based ecotourism created a two group of community: the empowered and the marginalized on the commonly owned resources. Even though the lake is a common pool resource, those members of the community who are beneficiary from ecotourism were the key player and powerful in decision making concerning the lake and its surroundings. Besides, out of 400 households around the lake, only 334 households were incorporated to the ecotourism association which was the reason for the formation for empowerment or disempowerment and resulted in formation of minority on commonly owned resources. Moreover, social network, norms and social trust that facilitates coordination and mutual benefits for environmental conservation and protection is being eroded. Key words: Ecotourism, empowerment, commons, marginalization, Wenchi.