Community-based Ecotourism as a Sustainable Development Option in the Taita Hills, Kenya

This study aims at identifying the existing and potential resources, as well as recognizing the hinderances, for community-based ecotourism development in the Taita Hills in south-eastern Kenya. The indigenous mountain rain forests on the hills are rich in biodiversity, but severely degraded because of encroachment caused by the dynamics of increased population, socio-politics and economics. The research problems are based on the hypothesis that there is no tourism in the Taita Hills generating income for the local economy and high population density combined with poverty creates a need for alternative employment opportunities as well as for sustainable ways of forest resource management. The data for this study was gathered during two field trips in Kenya, in January-February 2004 and 2005, as a part of the Taita Project within the Department of Geography at the University of Helsinki. The qualitative methods used consist of RRA and PRA techniques, in-depth interviews, a structured questionnaire and literature analysis as well as attendance on excursions and a workshop with conservation experts and officials. Four case areas in the Taita Hills are studied. The study concludes that alternative livelihoods are needed among the Taita Hills´ rural population and community-based ecotourism is seen as a way of bringing financial benefits for households as well as reviving the fading cultural traditions and indigenous knowledge about forest use. The governmental policies, district level development plans and some NGOs support ecotourism development. The Forest Act 2005 forms base for local participation in forest management. The unique natural features, the welcoming Taita-culture and the location in the coastal tourism circle favour Taita Hills. However, this kind of development has its risks, such as too rapid change of sorest usage level and the exposure of communities to an ecotourism treadmill process. The costbenefit ration of marketing for hard ecotourists is generally low and the tourism infrastructure needs upgrading in the Taita Hills. More tight collaboration is important between the different level stakeholders working for conservation and development. Community-based ecotourism in Taita Hills, when carefully planned and managed, could be one opportunity for Kenya to diversify its tourism product supply and for forestadjacent communities to gain tangible benefits on a sustainable basis from forests.

Migration-Development Nexus in the Malawian Health Sector: European Union Blue Card – circular migration for development?

The European Union has agreed on implementing the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) principle in all policy sectors that are likely to have a direct impact on developing countries. This is in order to take account of and support the EU development cooperation objectives and the achievement of the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals. The common EU migration policy and the newly introduced EU Blue Card directive present an example of the implementation of the principle in practice: the directive is not only designed to respond to the occurring EU labour demand by attracting highly skilled third-country professionals, but is also intended to contribute to the development objectives of the migrant-sending developing countries, primarily through the tool of circular migration and the consequent skills transfers. My objective in this study is to assess such twofold role of the EU Blue Card and to explore the idea that migration could be harnessed for the benefit of development in conformity with the notion that the two form a positive nexus. Seeing that the EU Blue Card fails to differentiate the most vulnerable countries and sectors from those that are in a better position to take advantage of the global migration flows, the developmental consequences of the directive must be accounted for even in the most severe settings. Accordingly, my intention is to question whether circular migration, as claimed, could address the problem of brain drain in the Malawian health sector, which has witnessed an excessive outflow of its professionals to the UK during the past decade. In order to assess the applicability, likelihood and relevance of circular migration and consequent skills transfers for development in the Malawian context, a field study of a total of 23 interviews with local health professionals was carried out in autumn 2010. The selected approach not only allows me to introduce a developing country perspective to the on-going discussion at the EU level, but also enables me to assess the development dimension of the EU Blue Card and the intended PCD principle through a local lens. Thus these interviews and local viewpoints are at the very heart of this study. Based on my findings from the field, the propensity of the EU Blue Card to result in circular migration and to address the persisting South-North migratory flows as well as the relevance of skills transfers can be called to question. This is as due to the bias in its twofold role the directive overlooks the importance of the sending country circumstances, which are known to determine any developmental outcomes of migration, and assumes that circular migration alone could bring about immediate benefits. Without initial emphasis on local conditions, however, positive outcomes for vulnerable countries such as Malawi are ever more distant. Indeed it seems as if the EU internal interests in migration policy forbid the fulfilment of the PCD principle and diminish the attempt to harness migration for development to bare rhetoric.