parks go entirely to the national government and
tour operators. While the tourism industry achieves
considerable profit, few financial resources are allocated
for local development. 11.12 Conservation benefits
to households or community are uncertain and
possibly non-existent. Most of the costs of wildlife
conservation, such as property damage and the
foregone opportunity of not using protected land for
agricultural production, accrue almost exclusively to
rural peasants. 12
The most extreme example of shifting the cost of
conservation and tourism is that cultivators and
pastoralists cannot protect themselves or their property
from wildlife despite considerable injury and
severe damage to farms and livestock, 13,21 State law
prohibits any form of destruction and killing of
wildlife. Consequently, peasants are reduced to
guarding crops and livestock by making noise, beating
drums and lighting night fires so that someone
else may make a profit from tourists willing to view
and photograph an animal local opinion would wish
dead. Hence, local people's attitude towards protected
natural areas varies from that of indifference
to intense hostility.