“outside businessmen” even though they were the ones who were often encroaching and trying to expand their plantations. In the more recent Mu Ko Ranong and Koh Rah-Koh Phrathong NMPs, boundaries were created to try to exclude plantations and areas that were owned by local people. Participants in Koh Chang felt that the national park had done a reasonable job of excluding plantations so there would be no impact on local plantation owners. In Koh Ra-Koh Phrathong, however, DNP attempts to consider plantations and ownership did not seem to assuage local people's concerns that plantations would be included within the boundaries of the national park thus undermining local livelihood options for diversification both now and in the future.
Two potential alternatives to these extractive livelihood strategies that could emanate from the creation of the NMP were related to tourism and management. For tourism, survey results indicated an overall neutral perception of whether NMPs would “improve tourism jobs and financial benefit for the local