Misrepresenting communities: The politics of community-based rural ecotourism in Gales Point Manatee, Belize

While the celebration of community in conservation provides legitimization to contest centrist and coercive protected area management strategies, repr esentations of community in resource management writings and in particular strategies such as ecotourism, are often based on simplistic images and gen eric models that ignore politics. Based on research in a community-based ru ral ecotourism project in Gales Point Manatee, Belize, from 1992-1998, the paper provides concrete examples of how the politics of class, gender, and patronage inequities limit the co-management of ecotourism associations, eq uitable distribution of ecotourism income, and support for conservation reg ulations across the community. Attention to multiple interests and identiti es within the rural community and their relationships to external actors, p olitical institutions, and national policies are critical to understanding the challenges facing community-based conservation in Belize and demonstrat ed the relevance of such attention elsewhere.