Community Participation in Ecotourism Project: A Case in Caramoan, Camarines Sur, Philippines

Along with Caramoan’s popularity and perceived ecotourism sustainability, the dynamics of community participation in its ecotourism projects must be understood to analyze its significance in sustaining or maintaining them. This study aimed to determine how the community participates in the ecotourism project of the local government unit of Caramoan, Camarines Sur. Self-administered questionnaires were provided to 97 family heads in Barangay Paniman to collect data. The association between the socio-demographic characteristics of the household heads, level of awareness, kind of participation, and level of participation was tested using the Chi-square test of independence with a 0.5 level of significance. The results indicated that the nature of participation of the household heads could be described as mere followers of the leaders and supervisors of the project. The extent of community participation in Barangay Paniman is classified as participation through consultation, which is the third level of participation. As a result, there is a low degree of community participation in the area. The respondents' socio-demographic factors were significantly associated to their nature of engagement among the variables investigated for a probable association. Furthermore, the level of participation of the respondents was found to be strongly connected exclusively to their membership in organizations.