Ecotourism: The Modern Predator? Implications of Gorilla Tourism on Local Livelihoods in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

Ecotourism, often hailed as a tool for conservation and local development, may instead perpetuate poverty and dependency in nearby communities. A study analyzing gorilla tourism's impact on rural villagers adjacent to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, reveals that the commodification of wilderness for foreign visitors shifts control to international organizations, creating new forms of vulnerability rather than alleviating hardship. Through a year of ethnographic fieldwork, the research exposes how ecotourism's 'new' relations between people and parks often reinforce existing power imbalances.

Laudati, A. (2010). Ecotourism: The Modern Predator? Implications of Gorilla Tourism on Local Livelihoods in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28(4), 726–743. https://doi.org/10.1068/d15708