OMSLAG 5.indd - IUCN

ecause the communities are so far apart, because of the non-hierarchical
nature of the political system and because the communities are so close to
the hotspot areas.
9. Establish a monitoring and control system
Long-term monitoring and assessment are necessary in proportion to
the impact of tourism, and will need to take into account the timescale
for ecosystem and social changes to become evident.
See steps 5 and 6.
10. Adapt management
Learn from experience and adapt actions accordingly.
The new system of information management provides the opportunity
to give feedback and adapt management accordingly in a more structured
way. Because of the coordinating framework of the CBD guidelines, the
stakeholders can be more pro-active and deal with opportunities as well as
threats.
The project initiators, CODESTA, said that using the CBD guidelines
was very valuable. The guidelines provide a framework that ensures the
participation of all stakeholders. This is very important in an area such as
Kuna Yala, where the local stakeholders are very diverse and spread out.
The guidelines are also compatible with the traditional system of self-governance.
They can be applied at various levels, from project site to regional
management level, and they can be understood and used by everybody,
even by people who are inexperienced in these matters. This way tourism
development can become a sustainable way to use the natural and cultural
resources that have been a part of the Kuna people’s birthright for hundreds
of years.
An important part of the CBD guidelines is monitoring and adapting the
management accordingly. In many of the other projects that were supported
by IUCN NL there was little emphasis on monitoring. The practical
problems are usually – and understandably – the first to be tackled.
Especially when there is a shortage of capacity and funds, project initiators
tend to start by creating visitor facilities rather than formulating indicators
for monitoring. However, a good monitoring system provides the project
initiators with the knowledge they need to make management decisions.
Setting up a monitoring system is a long-term investment, because most
projects are supposed to continue and bring benefits for many years. By
collecting information about the impact of the developments right from
the start of the project, they can be steered in the desired direction.
Comarca de
Kuna Yala
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Management
in practice
The cases in this chapter show that there is no real blueprint for effective
management of tourism for conservation purposes. But there are a number
of methods that have proved their usefulness. Involving all stakeholders is
an important factor for obtaining broader support for the projects. Allocating
different areas for different levels of use (zoning) increases the level of
control over the impact of tourism development. It is also important to invest
time and money in interpretation and the way information is provided.
This can stimulate the involvement of tourists and can actually diminish
the impact. A final method involves setting up a monitoring system to be
able to make the necessary changes in management and to make them in
time.
Conservation and community development organizations can choose from
a whole range of existing tourism management techniques and tourism
management guidelines. Even though each local situation is different and
each framework has to be adapted to the specific situation, it is useful for
every project to work with a management framework. It offers a way to
structure developments and working with guidelines or frameworks also
means avoiding oversights. This improves the results considerably.