Impact of community participation on sustainable development of marine protected areas: Assessment of ecotourism development

Abstract This study aims to investigate the role of community participation and its impact on economic, environmental, and social sustainability in marine protected areas (MPAs) in Malaysia through the development of ecotourism. A structured questionnaire was employed for collecting data and analyzed using the partial least square method. The results indicate that community participation explains a significant amount of variance in ecotourism development. The findings reveal that ecotourism development contributes toward economic, social, and environmental sustainability directly and indirectly. This implies that ecotourism development and community participation are of paramount importance in achieving sustainable development in MPAs.