ABSTRACT
Many of the poorest people in the world rely directly on natural resources for their livelihoods. In many areas the sustainability of this use is highly questionable. This chapter presents a case study, Koh Pitak, to describe such a situation in a coastal community in Thailand. In the late 1980s and 1990s, there started to be increasing fishing pressure, especially from commercial trawlers from elsewhere coming close to the island, and fishing became increasingly uncertain. Leadership was instrumental in developing the Koh Pitak tourism initiative. Tourism started with a total service charge of 100 Thai baht (THB) per night, including boat transport, accommodation and food. The tourism initiative that now forms important supplementary economic support for the village was really an outgrowth from the efforts to improve environmental management in the village in general, and specifically regarding enhancement and protection of fishery resources and development of more effective waste management systems.
