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THE SOCIO-CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF FURAKE VILLAGE AND THE IMPACTS OF ECOTOURISM

Introduction

Furake is a small village of agar cultivators on the far side of Hoga Island from the research base. The traditional community that live there have little or no contact with eco-tourism visitors to Hoga Island.  

The research question is split into two subdivisions. The social- cultural structure of the village will be explored, including the population size, age structure and the number of families. The current economic activity in the village will be examined, with the primary income sources and problems identified. Having determined the general structure of the village the second part of the question can be addressed.  

In gaining an understanding of the village’s culture, it allows for and introduction into how the villagers in Furake can benefit economically from the eco-tourism, limiting the adverse impacts on their culture.  

Changes that have occurred in the structure of the village due to eco-tourism in the Wakatobi marine national park will be examined.  

Julie Roberts (University of London) and Julian Clifton (University of Portsmouth) have previously investigated the impacts of eco-tourism in the Wakatobi marine national park on Hoga Island. Their work included studies of the social, economic, environmental and cultural effects from this tourism. The findings were diverse, ranging from communication problems between the villagers and Operation Wallacea volunteers, to the large benefits from Operation Wallacea developments on the island, whose aims are to increase the involvement of the locals with their conservation activities.   

Aim

To determine the socio-cultural and economic structure of Furake Village and how Operation Wallacea's 2001 eco-tourism plan has affected the local community.

Objectives

• To investigate the socio-cultural structure of Furake Village.
• To examine the economic structure of the local community inhabiting Furake Village.
• To determine the involvement of Furake Village the objectives of Operation Wallacea’s 2001 eco-tourism plan.  
• To examine whether the eco-tourism proposal has had a positive or negative impact upon Furake’s local community.
• To evaluate the future prospects for Furake Village within the involvement in Operation Wallacea.

Methodology

Interviews will be carried out with a member of every hut in the village. Individual households will be interviewed in a structured open-ended form. The interviewer is in control of the interview, with the aid of a translator, through asking questions that are highly structured and standardised. Open-ended questions will also be asked allowing the respondent’s answers to be open with no constraints or categories. Identical questions will be asked to every family, preventing any bias through the free conversations.  

The second technique in order to evaluate economic structure will be a housing survey, which will analyse each hut individually acting as an indicator of wealth with reference to each family. ‘Straight observation’ will be the third technique in the data collection. This will be carried out using a video camera. Thus, allowing for a detached observation of the village. 

In order to evaluate the socio-cultural structure of the village, questions asked within the structured interviews will be specified to giving an overall answer to this. This technique will also be used to determine their involvement in Operation Wallacea’s eco-tourism plan i.e.: to find out how many people are employed by Opwall, how much they earn etc.  

In order to examine the eco-tourism proposal, structured individual interviews ill be carried out with Operation Wallacea employees. An Irritation Index will also be handed out to 12 of the Operation Wallacea staff, in order to determine whether they feel that Opwall has had a negative or positive impact upon the local community.  

Finally, in order to evaluate the future prospects for Furake village with reference to involvement within Operation Wallacea, structured interviews will be carried out with Opwall staff and other interviews will be carried out with other people working on the island that have nothing to do with Opwall. Thus, allowing for a suitable recommendation to be made for Furake Village with reference to new employment opportunities.

Preliminary results

Due to the size of this project, there has not yet been time to provide a detailed analytical report of what exactly has been found. However, it has been found that the people of Furake Village have not had much involvement in Opwall's development with reference to the eco-tourism proposal. Therefore, there is quite a lot of confusion as to what the eco-tourists are actually doing on the island. However, the overall conclusion is that they are happy with us being ion the island and they haven’t felt that culturally affected due to the distance between Furake and the Opwall research base. They are happy for Operation Wallace to continue with their work, just as long as they respect their beliefs and cultural differences.  

It was found that there are only two people in the village employed by Opwall, one person weaves mats and the other works as part of the dive staff. Although this number is small, the majority of the village did specify interest in working for Operation Wallacea i.e.: cooking in the kitchens, carrying water.  

The general economic activities in the village are seaweed farmers (agar agar). There are also a number of fishermen and gardeners. The women generally help the males and act as housewives. The older women weave mats.  

With reference to the social structure of the village, the majority of the locals come from Kaledupa, and either live there permanently or as temporary residents staying in Furake for employment opportunities. Generally, the families are inter-related up to three generations living together or near each other. Many of the children are at school in Kaledupa. Although the majority of the older population are uneducated, and have only acquired basic skill which refer to the choice of employment.  

Culturally their preference is the traditional way of life. They practice Islamic beliefs, however this is more relaxed amongst the younger members of the local community in comparison to the older people. Due to poor economic status, hours dedicated to work tend to override the hours spent on prayer.

Report

A dissertation entitled The socio-cultural and economic structure of Furake village and the impacts of ecotourism will be produced by Harriet Inwood, University of Sussex by March 2003.