Impact Of Tourism On The Landscape And Vegetation Along Tourist Roads In Etosha National Park, Namibia

ABSTRACT

Management of tourism-based protected areas often presents challenges in balancing biodiversity conservation and tourism development. Thus, understanding the interaction of related socio-ecological systems is essential for conservation. This study assessed how tourist roads, being part of tourism infrastructural development, impacts on the conservation efforts in the Etosha National Park, one of Namibia’s hotspot for biodiversity conservation and visitor attractions. For empirical data, stratified, randomly selected transects of 200m were conducted perpendicular to roads for vegetation assessment and soil analysis. This was complemented by the integration, manipulation and analysis of remote sensing and thematic data using Geographic Information Systems and Image Processing packages. Results show that the Park has a tourist road density of 0.25 km / km2 . Approximately 53% of these roads are situated on grasslands, a vegetation community which occupies 11% of the Park area. Moreover, gravel mining for roads constructions left behind at least 187 of unrehabilitated gravel pits on the landscape. Kruskal-Wallis test showed that vegetation foliage cover and species abundance was not statistically related to distance from roads (p > 0.05), whereas the General Linear Model revealed that the concentration of most soil chemical properties was not significantly related to distance from roads (p > 0.05). However, cation exchange capacity, carbon and exchange calcium were significantly higher closer to roads. Overall, impacts of tourist roads on the ecological landscape of the Etosha National Park are associated with vegetation clearance, habitat fragmentation and gravel quarrying. No conclusive evidence emerged to suggest that roads and vehicular emission have a significant impact on roadside vegetation and the concentration of soil chemical properties. The study recommends that siting of road infrastructures in the Park should be done considering various ecological factors, such as ecological sensitivity, endemism, species richness, and entrench a systematic rehabilitation policy of gravel pits.