Abstract:

Wildlife-focused tourism activities make a significant economic contribution to wildlife management in developed countries. A large part of the revenue is transferred to the protection work. This study assessed the statistics of fishing tourism in Turkey between 2000-2018 years, the number of visitors to protected areas and the conversations with domestic and foreign tourists visiting some protected areas in the Eastern Black Sea Division between 2016-2018 years. The topics that tourists most complain about are the lack of formal or voluntary guides to get information about the area, the lack of alternative ecoturism activities and the negative environmental conditions. When we compare our country with the developed countries in this area in terms of revenues only from hunting tourism, the United States (US) earns about 6500 times our hunting tourism and Germany about 2500 times our annual income. Revenue from ecoturism or wildlife-focused tourism activities that have contributed significantly to the economies of developed countries in the world and the interest of tourists increases every day is far behind the desired level in Turkey and the potential of our country. Today, the most important reason for the income we get from wildlife-oriented tourism is the lack of the importance to wildlife education at the university level in our country and the lack of qualified staff who have been trained on wildlife. Consequently, all stakeholders should fully fulfill their roles and responsibilities in the management of natural resources and encourage, as far as possible, education at university level related to wildlife and the appointment of qualified staff in the relevant institutions. It is then that, by doing the necessary work on the management and protection of wildlife in Turkey, the wildlife-oriented tourism income can be raised to the desired level, and significantly economic contributions to rural development and protection work can be provided.

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