Conservation—Tourism Partnerships in Western Australia

The diversity of Western Australia's landscapes and the high degree of endemism of the State's plants and animals make their protection important on a world scale. Currently over 20 million hectares of the State are protected in national and marine parks and nature reserves, areas that continue to attract increasing numbers of tourists. Given the vastness of Western Australia, the size of its parks and reserves, their wide dispersal, and relatively small population of taxpayers—external funds and resources have been essential to the management of parks and wildlife and provision of recreation facilities by the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM). Nature-based tourism is one significant area of partnership through which the Department can attract resources to meet its mission.CALM is working in a number of arrangements with a range of partners to support conservation and tourism. Partnerships have been established with a large number of organisations including federal, state and local governments, industry bodies, community groups, education providers, indigenous peoples and non-profit associations. Conservation partnerships have been undertaken in the natural, cultural and heritage environments and include heritage conservation, volunteer program and conservation card. Some of the established tourism partnerships include the development of leases and licences, wildlife viewing centres, and ecotour programs. In addition CALM has held two ecotourism seminars in WA together with the Ecotourism Association of Australia, which have been discussed in this paper.