ABSTRACT
Chumbe Island is one of the islands located in the Indian Ocean channel off the coast of the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar in Tanzania. A relatively small island, it is Tanzania's first managed Marine Park. As Tanzania and Zanzibar had little interest in marine conservation and were, in the early 1990s, rather focused on attracting investments in tourism, the idea of Chumbe as a privately established and managed Marine Park was originally presented to the government of Zanzibar as a tourist development. After struggles with bureaucracy and fundraising, Chumbe is now recognized as a world-class eco-tourism destination that is funding a nature reserve and has used collaborative partnerships, education and long-term park management and tourism planning to achieve sustainable tourism.
