Ecotourism has the potential to boost the energy of a village as it pays keen attention to the ecosystem and the residents of the village. It is empowered by participation of and cooperation among stakeholders who are closely involved in ecotourism. However, many of them express difficulty in striking a right balance between development and conservation with regard to promoting ecotourism. Against this backdrop, this research paper investigates the structure of conflict that the stakeholders, especially those in Stork Village in Yesan County, South Chungcheong Province of Korea, experience during the process of establishment of government-led ecotourism. In addition, this study examines the problems of government-led ecotourism model and how they can be addressed. To analyze conflict structure, this paper used Q methods and found out that the budget-related stakeholders are largely divided into four groups as who; a) complain about how business profits are distributed; b) secure profits by expanding programs; c) consider human settlement, and; d) broaden people's participation. The biggest contributor to the conflicts is found that compensation was given discriminately to different jurisdictions. The second finding is that residents became less cooperative when the financial compensation did not live up to their expectation. For instance, they would demand the tourism facility physically expanded, repeatedly complain about the process of the work, and even accuse the government of degrading ecosystem. In other words, unless the compromise is reached with the residents regarding financial compensation, it could be difficult to encourage their participation and develop as a program-oriented tour. Lastly, the tour program needs to induce voluntary participation of the residents and deliver proper information on ecosystem and natural resources so as to last as sustainable ecotourism. The success of ecotourism will be subject to the cooperation of stakeholders in a region, conservation of our fragile ecosystem, and realization of sustainable growth through sharing economic benefits. This study looks into the cause of the conflicts of ecotourism sites and their structure. If this paper can bring about cooperation of stakeholders, the management and operation of ecotourism sites would be more sustainable.
The purpose of this study is to develop promotion strategies for revitalizing mountain eco-villages through social economic support. In order to fulfill this purpose, this study analyzed operation conditions, income creation structures of 240 mountain eco-villages formed by Korea Forest Service, and reviewed systems for social economic support. As summarized in research outputs, this study confirmed that the activities of organizations for joint projects had not been properly implemented due to the absence of supporting systems following the construction of mountain eco-villages. In addition, 159 villages formed as experience villages could not be qualified for enterprise systems due to aging population and absence of network systems. As for income creation, as indicated by comparing net incomes for joint projects calculated based on the classification of village management evaluation, the average net income of 51 highly-rated villages was 22 million Won and that of 128 moderately-rated villages was 3.5 million Won. Experience-based projects and the sales of processed forestry products made by young adult associations or women's societies were major sources of income, and the absence of inner economic bases or villages' jobs caused young adults and returned farmers to focus on working for outside economic activities. Finally, this study developed strategies for mountain eco-village's social economic promotion and suggested four stages of social economic revitalization provisions.
Eco-village has been regarded as an alternative to accomplish sustainable development for rural village. This study has intended to develop comprehensive planning indicators to establish an eco-village based on such aspects of sustainable development as economy, environment, and society. To reach this objective, this study has set up six goals as follows: 1) ecological production activities for agriculture, 2) resource circulation and energy independence in the economic domain; 3) building cultural and historical succession and community activation, and 4) living together with surrounding regions in social domain; and 5) maintaining environmental habitat, and 6) restoring natural ecosystem in environmental domain. Based on these goals, this study has developed the planning indicators to build an eco-village through case study, literature review, survey for suitability, and factor analysis. This study has found 17 strategies and 47 planning indicators in accordance with the six goals.
The green craze has hit all the world lately. The green revolution which means immense changes for sustainable development under the new environment-economy system is foretelling that we should have new angle to the environment and economy. This paper is about the development of the model and indicators for construction of ECO(Energy Circulating Organic)-Village which is the green growth option of local community. This model is composed of three concepts - SPDC (about procedural methodology of Model), Virtuous Circle (about functional relationships of three requisites), Network (about spatial relationships between communities) - and evaluation indicators. Environment, tourism, industry (Energy & Organic Agriculture) are set as the three requisites for green growth of local community. Nations of the world plunge into the green war which is silent, general, sweeping changes. We can not win this war with the existing thinking system and policy. We need revolutionary changes reconsidering of environmental value and sustainable development strategy of the region. Each of us should go through the changes and this work would be the one among those efforts.
This study has intended to find strategies improving rural amenity through establishing eco-village. This research presented eco-village establishment as an alternative to solve the problems that current rural villages face, such as FTA farming crisis, aging, weakening of farming competitiveness. Thus, this study has set up ecological rural amenity strategies, based on the principles and cases of both eco-village development and rural amenity through suitability analysis and statistical analysis with survey analysis. This study has defined the eco-rural amenity and set up such categories as environment, history-culture, society, image, and economy. Based on the definition and categories, this study has found the strategies to improve ecological rural amenity in accordance with categories.