Malaysia’s richness of biodiversity has become one of the valuable tourism products which has able to attract millions of visitors each year. Owing to this overwhelming demand for nature types of tourism, the Malaysian government has initiated various sustainable development agendas to ensure conservation of Malaysia’s natural and cultural heritage. Specifically mentioned in the agendas and initiatives is the enforcement of public participation at planning and development plans. Despite this requirement, the practices is not carried out properly, in Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary. There are lacking of formal public participation practices being recorded. Thus, this study attempt to first; explore the local community’s opinions on the public participation practices and second; to identify the weaknesses of the current practice. A total of 366 local community were randomly selected, from 4 types of villages in the Lanchang district. Results were tabulated descriptive statistic; count and percentage. Findings revealed that the practices is currently ineffective, the approach used is not suitable for the locals and practices were done basically to satisfy some obligatory requirements and failed to address the main reason of true and effective public participation process. The findings calls for an urgent attention to improve the practices to ensure sustainable tourism development in the area.
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In-Text Citation: (Gani, Mahdzar, & Razak, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Gani, A. A., Mahdzar, M., & Razak, I. R. A. (2018). Local Community’s Opinions on Public Participation Practices at Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary, Pahang. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(16), 356–366.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
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