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issues relating to participation, land and
resource use, and democracy still need to be
addressed in the context of tourism
development. Local authorities have an
essential role as moderators and facilitators of
empowerment for local communities.
Experience with top-down approaches to
protected area management has demonstrated
that, if they are excluded, local people can
undermine biodiversity conservation efforts
(for example, the Maasai spearing of wildlife
in Kenya‘s Amboseli National Park to protest
removal of their grazing and watering rights
within the park). Likewise, approaches to
tourism development that do not take local
people‘s priorities into account can be
undermined by civil unrest, hostility toward
tourists, and decreased safety for tourists.
The local community is not an undifferentiated
mass, but comprises people of different
economic classes, clans or family groups,
ethnic groups, both genders, and various
special interest groups.
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