Balancing conservation with development in small-scale fisheries: Is ecotourism an empty promise?

This paper uses a political ecology approach to examine whether ecotourism along the Pacific Coast of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico promotes stewardship of marine resources, which have been devastated in recent years by uncontrolled commercial harvesting. This case illustrates how conflicts over access to common-pool resources that fueled the demise of area fisheries are now emerging in the rapidly growing industry of recreational whale watching. Even if ecotourism provides a significant new source of income through environmentally friendly, nonconsumptive resource use, it may not be sufficient to discourage local people from engaging in other. more destructive forms of consumptive resource use. But resource conflicts malt not preclude efforts To promote conservation through ecotourism. Along the shores of Baja's gray whale calving lagoons there are nascent, community based organizations that could serve as vehicles for mobilizing local people into conservation efforts, if local access rights to marine resources were both secure and accorded preference over outside claims to the same.