Editing Ecotourism (section)

=== Who benefits? ===
Most forms of ecotourism are owned by foreign investors and corporations that provide few benefits to the local people. An overwhelming majority of profits are put into the pockets of investors instead of reinvestment into the local economy or environmental protection leading to further environmental degradation. The limited numbers of local people who are employed in the economy enter at its lowest level and are unable to live in tourist areas because of meager wages and a two-market system.<ref name="Tuohino and Hynonen"/>

In some cases, the resentment by local people results in environmental degradation. As a highly publicized case, the [[Maasai people|Maasai]] nomads in Kenya killed wildlife in national parks but are now helping the national park to save the wildlife to show aversion to unfair compensation terms and displacement from traditional lands.<ref name="Cater"/> The lack of economic opportunities for local people also constrains them to degrade the environment as a means of sustenance.<ref name="Tuohino and Hynonen"/> The presence of affluent ecotourists encourage the development of destructive markets in wildlife souvenirs, such as the sale of coral trinkets on tropical islands and animal products in Asia, contributing to illegal harvesting and [[poaching]] from the environment. In [[Suriname]], sea turtle reserves use a very large portion of their budget to guard against these destructive activities.