Wildlife-friendly tourism is associated with lower wildlife availability in the Nam Ha National Protected Area

A model system of community-based ecotourism has been operating in the Nam Ha National Protected Area of Lao PDR since 1999 when the award-winning Nam Ha Ecotourism Project under UNESCO supported creation of trekking and kayaking routes for guided tours through forest habitats. We hypothesized that tourism might create a refuge from fear of hunting for wildlife and if so, camera traps set near tourism should capture more images of wildlife and a more diverse wildlife community. We analyzed data on large and medium mammals from camera trapping records collected from 2013 through 2018 at 58 stations. Modeling the association between distance to tourism and predicted availability of each species for camera capture using Royle-Nichols multispecies models, the posterior predicted mean species richness of available medium and large mammals for stations more than 1 km from tourism was 8.39 (SEM = 0.0425) species, while those nearer to trekking trails and kayaking routes had a mean of 4.58 (0.023), for a mean predicted difference of −3.81 (0.023, 95% HPDCI −5.55 to −2.14, posterior predicted probability of greater than zero < 0.000001, Hedge’s g effect size = -1.54). Availability of Sambar Deer (Rusa unicolor, p < 0.0001), Wild Boar (Sus scrofa, p = 0.0067) and Crab-eating Mongoose (Herpestes urva, p = 0.005) declined significantly near tourism and no species examined showed an increase near tourism. The models consistently indicated no support for the hypothesis that tourism created a refuge from fear. Instead, the data is consistent with the alternative hypothesis that wildlife avoided routes used for wildlife-friendly tourism.