My travel to Papua New Guinea was my first real taste of fieldwork. From September 1999 to April 2000, I went with a fellow student and friend to the middle of nowhere of Papua New Guinea. We spend 7 months there, submerged in the local communities and trying to survive without running water or electricity.
In the Lakekamu Basin, we analysed a small ecotourism project that was set up as part of a ICDP. ICDP stands for Integrated Conservation and Development Project. By introducing ecotourism, the community was offered a possibility to make money while nature was to be conserved. Tourist would be attracted by the richness in biodiversity and the adventure of ‘ living in the wild’. The study looked at how the ecotourism project impacted on the local livelihoods.
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