Tourism integrated zoning near salt lick areas for wildlife ecology management of royal belum state park, Perak

Abstract

Zoning of salt licks area is one of the decision-making issues faced in managing biodiversity conservation that is parallel to ecotourism development. There is uncertainty in general method to distinguish areas with the permitted tourism impacts. Previous studies described several management plans that measured the success rate applicable to national parks but there are still lacking in tropical rainforest. The issue regarding the wildlife and their environment has been largely ignored and there is an underestimation about the true contribution of forest to this ecology. The salt licks areas, however, are opened to the visitors, thus risking the wildlife population in the state park. The aim of this study is to develop a tourism zoning nearby the salt licks area in Royal Belum State Park (RBSP) which could improve the sensitivity of environment and the needs of wildlife. This study used two different methods which were qualitative method and quantitative method. The qualitative method was conducted by distribution of questionnaires to the RBSP and Department of Wildlife and National Park staff. This method provides more explanations and assumptions about the characteristics of the salt licks. The survey could help RBSP staff to develop the tourism zoning area. This study applied the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) technique to support tourism zoning at RBSP. There are three protection levels of tourism zoning designation, which are high, moderate, and low level. Different level shows different characteristics, where suitability map highlights the effectiveness of zoning in the protected areas is produced. The zoning system can balance between conservation goals and tourism needs. Another method that has been applied was quantitative method which required sample of wildlife photos taken from the camera traps placed at the fieldwork areas in the RBSP. The analyses were carried out from January 2014 to April 2015. The results of correlation between the wildlife distribution which are distracted by human activities are classified into two different zoning areas; the salt licks area nearby the tourism places and the salt licks area which are far from the tourism places. Both zoning areas tend to have moderate negative correlation. Meanwhile, the range value for the salt licks nearby the tourism places and the salt licks area far from tourism places are -0.305 to 0.373 and -0.539 to 0.398 respectively. As conclusion, the increasing number of tourists will cause the number of wildlife decreases. The produced map could contribute to ease the management of wildlife by the RBSP staff and the entry of tourist in the future.