Opportunities and Challenges of Taking Ecotourism as a Tribal Development Strategy — a case study of Shir-Ding Community in Kenting National Park

Local communities in Taiwan have taken sustainability as an important element of community’s reconstruction. For most villages located in natural areas, setting ecotourism into action is a common means to seek long-term local development. In view of that, this research explores the opportunities and challenges of taking ecotourism as a development strategy in indigenous tribes. The research takes as an example the Shir-Ding community located in Kenting National Park, setting research goals including understanding the community’s recent circumstances of operating ecotourism, as well as finding out the important stakeholders in its interacting system of ecotourism. Then by analyzing both potentiality and dilemmas at present in Shir-Ding, this research desires to give practical suggestions to other communities which also are eager for sustainable development and permanent management.
Through studying the case of Shir-Ding community, we find that in the case are 4 stakeholders, including government, assistant group, tribal organization and local people, and tourists. Besides the fine interaction between stakeholders, some key factors also reflect the success of achieving sustainable goals in Shir-Ding, such as the accompanying by assistant groups, the systematize empowerment, creative methods for effecting sails and the emphasis on controlling environmental capacity. Though the Shir-Ding possesses some advantages in developing ecotourism, it is facing several difficult problems include the preference by young members to work outside the community, and the lack of concrete power in policy decision and resource management.
Hence, in further suggestion we assume that in spite of adopting ecotourism as an effective method to pursue sustainable development at the local level, local communities (tribes) should still self-examine to ensure that they are on the right path to reach their goals, and should also simultaneously think about themselves in holistically in order to carry out true sustainable development.