Erhart, Elizabeth M.Stanley, Nathanael B.2014-08-192014-08-192014-08Stanley, N. B. (2014). <i>Three-tiered approach to ecotourism research: Meta-analysis, statistical analysis, and field study</i> (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.https://hdl.handle.net/10877/5270Community-based ecotourism has the capacity to achieve all three sustainability factors: economic, social, and environmental. It is through the emergence of sustainability science that this paradigm has begun to manifest on a large scale. Ecotourism development is a manifestation of the growing ecological paradigm that views humans as having a responsibility to live within, rather than dominate, their natural environment. Through a meta-analysis of 30 different community-based ecotourism enterprises located in terrestrial and marine protected areas in biodiversity hotspots around the world, and through a field study located in the cloudforest of the Peruvian Amazon, this thesis demonstrates support for community-based ecotourism as a method for achieving sustainability. Through analyses in this thesis, it is evident that sustainable development can be achieved through community-based ecotourism, and more importantly through the empowerment of local populations in remote areas of floral, faunal, and marine biodiversity.Text233 pages1 file (.pdf)enCommunity-based ecotourismSustainabilityEcotourismAnthropologyApplied anthropologyEthnobotonyEmpowermentConservationPeruCloudforestEcotourism--Environmental aspectsEcotourism--Social aspectsEcotourism--Economic aspectsSustainabilityThesis