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Revenue sharing from tourism in terrestrial African protected areas
Tourist impact management in ecotourism destinations requires an accurate description of tourists’ spatiotemporal behavior patterns and recreation preferences to minimize the ecological environmental impact and maximize the recreation experience. This study classified tourist behaviors into five typical behavior patterns based on the digital footprints of tourists visiting Ziwuyu of the Qinling Mountains, including 348 traveling tracks and 750 corresponding geotagged photographs: short-distance, traversing, reentrant, large loop, and small loop. Furthermore, each behavior pattern’s recreation preference was identified using photograph analysis. Tourists with large-loop and reentrant behavior patterns have 89.8% and 30% chances of visiting Jianshanding, respectively. Key protected areas are faced with the risk of ecological environmental damage. Based on the behavior pattern differentiation and preference of tourists, this paper provides a decision-making basis for the classified management and guidance of tourists in ecotourism destinations. It has reference value for the management of similar ecotourism destinations.
This thesis analyzes institutional challenges related to the transboundary protected area management (TBPAM) policy strategy, with a special focus on the role of local communities. TBPAM is an influential biodiversity conservation strategy that suggests joint management of adjoining protected areas across national boundaries. The thesis uses Mt. Elgon in Uganda and Kenya as a case for analyzing the TBPAM strategy in East Africa. The work is rooted in contemporary classical institutional theory used to generate subsequent theoretical frameworks and methodological tools for the individual studies presented. The thesis comprises four individual but interrelated studies that address distinct aspects of the TBPAM institutional challenges.
The findings revealed that protected area governance on Elgon involves complex formal and informal institutional structures, with significant interplays between institutions at different levels of governance which has had major impacts on both policy goals and outcomes. In the colonial period, external agents used quite decisive coercive powers to gazette the protected areas. The protected area regimes have evolved over time in path-dependent trajectories where institutions have been constituted and reconstituted, reflecting the multiple actors’ asymmetric powers and interests. There is a distinct historical evolution that has strong bearings on the present-day TBPAM considerations. There are currently five different formal protected area regimes on Elgon that have quite different and partly conflicting management goals and capacities. There are clearly quite disparate strategies towards local community involvement and their access to resources within these protected areas. In addition to the formal protected areas regimes, there is a multitude of other institutional arrangements at different levels on Elgon that shape, and are shaped by, human activities in the area. This complex institutional arrangement is an outcome of an evolutional process of power struggles beginning long before the colonial period.
The thesis concludes that bringing protected area governance in the two countries to a joint integrated TBPAM regime is a highly challenging institutional exercise and the perceived gains seem vague. TBPAM is driven by the interests of powerful international pro-conservation actors, a top-down driven process, where there is a great risk that local community interests will be further neglected. This might include stronger focus on conservation enforcement and further deprivation of local community rights and livelihoods. The thesis suggests an institutional disaggregated view on TBPAM. This implies disaggregation of the protected area governance by the type of activities and role of stakeholders, unfolding the properties of the resources itself and the heterogeneous interests of the actors involved. TBPAM is thus no panacea, even if two protected areas happen to adjoin. These issues demand careful analytical scrutiny.
Approximately 2.5 billion barrels of commercially-viable oil, worth $2 billion in annual revenue for 20 years, were discovered under the Ugandan portion of the Albertine Rift in 2006. The region also contains seven of Uganda’s protected areas and a growing ecotourism industry. We conducted interviews and focus groups in and around Murchison Falls Protected Area, Uganda’s largest, oldest, and most visited protected area, to assess the interaction of oil exploration with the three primary conservation policies employed by Uganda Wildlife Authority: protectionism, neoliberal capital accumulation, and community-based conservation. We find that oil extraction is legally permitted inside protected areas in Uganda, like many other African countries, and that the wildlife authority and oil companies are adapting to co-exist inside a protected area. Our primary argument is that neoliberal capital accumulation as a conservation policy actually makes protected areas more vulnerable to industrial exploitation because nature is commodified, allowing economic value and profitability of land uses to determine how nature is exploited. Our secondary argument is that the conditional nature of protected area access inherent within the protectionist policy permits oil extraction within Murchison Falls Protected Area. Finally, we argue that community-based conservation, as operationalized in Uganda, has no role in defending protected areas against oil industrialisation.
This paper presents a case study from Mount Elgon National Park, Uganda, examining and deepening an understanding of direct incomes and costs of conservation for local people close to protected areas. In the early 1990s, collaborative arrangements were introduced to Mount Elgon National Park to improve people-park relations and enhance rural livelihoods after a period of violent evictions and severe resource access restrictions. In areas with such arrangements – including resource access agreements, Taungya farming, and beekeeping schemes – we observe a marginal increase in annual incomes for involved households. Other incomes accrue from tourism revenue sharing schemes, a community revolving fund, and payments for carbon sequestration. However, these incomes are economically marginal (1.2% of household income), unevenly distributed and instrumentally used to reward compliance with park regulations. They do not necessarily accrue to those incurring costs due to eviction and exclusion, crop raiding, resource access restrictions and con icts. By contrast, costs constitute at least 20.5 % of total household incomes, making it dif cult to see how conservation, poverty alleviation and development can be locally reconciled if local populations continue to bear the economic brunt of conservation. We recommend a shift in policy towards donor and state responsibility for compensating costs on a relevant scale. Such a shift would be an important step towards a more substantive rights-based model of conservation, and would enhance the legitimacy of protected area management in the context of both extreme poverty and natural resource dependence.
Tourism revenue sharing (TRS) has become a popular strategy for integrated wildlife conservation and rural development in Africa. In Rwanda, 5% of tourism revenue is invested annually in communities adjacent to protected areas. However, the conservation impact of the TRS strategy has been challenged. Previous studies have revealed structural constraints of TRS, which partially explain TRS shortfalls. The TRS application is complex and needs deeper understanding of both conceptual and structural constraints. In this paper, we examine local perceptions of TRS, and use the Sustainable Livelihoods framework to conceptually understand the livelihood capability, equity and sustainability constraints of TRS at Volcanoes National Park (VNP). Results suggest that TRS has had minimal conservation impact due to acute food insecurity and limited livelihood capabilities among the poorest residents in proximity to VNP. This is exacerbated by several TRS structural constraints, such as the association membership fee requirement for TRS benefits, political influence, poor conservation linkages, and limited participation of the most socially and economically disadvantaged residents in proximity to VNP. This paper recommends restructuring of the TRS decision-making process to ensure consideration of both short-term and long-term conservation goals, wildlife conservation linkages and participation of the most economically disadvantaged residents in proximity to the park boundary.对卢旺达火山国家公园的旅游收入分配影响的看法：一个可持续生计框架旅游收入分配（TRS）已成为一种在非洲对综合性野生动物保护和农村发展的流行的策略。在卢旺达，旅游收入的百分之五每年投入到毗邻保护区的社区里的。然而，TRS策略的保护影响已经受到了挑战。以前的研究已经揭示了TRS的结构限制，这部分解释了TRS的足。TRS应用是很复杂，需要对概念和结构的限制更深入的了解。在本文中，我们将考察TRS的地方观念，并使用可持续性生计框架来概念性地理解TRS在火山国家公园（VNP）的生活能力，公平和可持续发展的制约。结果表明，由于在靠近VNP的最贫穷居民中严重的粮食不安全和有限的生活能力，TRS已将保护的影响最小化。这是由几个TRS结构性制约因素决定的，例如，TRS利益的协会会员费要求，政治影响力，不良的保护连接，和对接近VNP的社区里社会和经济弱势居民有限的参与。该文章建议TRS决策过程的重组，以确保在靠近公园的边界考虑短期和长期的保护目标，保护野生动物的联系，和经济最弱势的居民的参与。
Several models of public private partnerships have emerged focusing on wealth creation from high value resources, risk distribution through cost and benefit sharing, and prevention of loss of biodiversity through collaboration among members of the public and private sectors and local communities. However, there remain many information gaps underlying their social-ecological system performance. A case study of Liuwa Plain National Park (3,660 km 2), western Zambia, to demonstrate the relationship between social capital and operational management by multiple partners between 2004 and 2011 was carried out. Literature review, expert knowledge and interviews of 57 informants with historical perspectives of the area were employed. We determined that social-economic-ecological gains and benefit distribution were influenced by the capacity of partners to negotiate collective interests. Intra and inter-partnership networking, social learning and differential capacity were also important factors.
Over the past decade Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a remark- able turnaround in economic performance. After years of stagnation, economic growth has spurted—gross domestic product (GDP) grew from an annual average rate of less than 2 percent in 1978–95 to nearly 6 percent over 2003–08. Inflation is half its level of the mid-1990s. Private capital flows have risen to $50 billion, exceeding foreign aid. Exports are growing, as is private sector activity. The number of dem- ocratic regimes has risen and the security situation has improved. The poverty rate is falling by 1 percentage point a year. Countries such as Ethiopia, Ghana, Mauritania, and Rwanda are on track to reach many of the Millennium Development Goals. Nine African countries have achieved or are on track to achieve the target for extreme poverty (World Bank and IMF 2011). Among other encour- aging trends are more fair and effective leadership, an improving business climate, increasing innovation, a more involved citizenry, and growing reliance on home-grown solutions. More and more, Africans are driving African development.
In recent years, wildlife policies that consider the participation of stakeholders have been promoted. An understanding of the stakeholders' attitudes towards conservation and existing policies are critical in designing new policies or sustainable conservation strategies. This paper examines stakeholders' (local people, park staff and professional hunter guides) attitudes, towards the Bénoué Wildlife Conservation Area (BWCA) and towards Cameroonian wildlife policy. The BWCA encompasses the Bénoué National Park and its surrounding hunting concessions that also include some villages. Both the Park and the hunting concessions are two categories of protected areas. Data were collected using informal interviews and questionnaires administered to 114 households from three communities, 17 park staff and seven professional hunter guides. Local people's attitudes towards protected areas depended on the management category of the particular protected area. Local people were positive towards the existence of the Park, but negative towards the system of hunting concession areas. There was local variation between communities concerning these attitudes. Local people were generally positive to maintaining the present Park area, but preferred a reduction in the size of the hunting concessions. Both Park staff and professional hunter guides expressed concern about present management strategies and the extent of illegal resource exploitation. Despite having poor knowledge of the current Cameroonian wildlife policy, most of the local households expressed support for it, but called for increased local involvement in management, off-take and the harvesting of benefits from both Park and hunting concession activities. The Park staff were sceptical about local participation in this context and saw such endeavours as a threat to a sound biodiversity management scheme. The findings indicate the need to strengthen current wildlife policy, promote the involvement of local people and empower the Park staff, both in terms of resources and in terms of skills in interacting with local people. The revised policy should be designed so as to vary according to the category of protected area and allow site-specific adaptations. Local people must experience reduced incurred costs and increased incomes from the Park. An environmental education programme is recommended to extensively disseminate the policy to user groups in the area.
This paper examines the livelihoods and experiences of local people after two decades of living close to a strict Protected Area (PA). A total of 290 local PA neighbours and 60 key informants were interviewed. Findings reveal a limited access to assets and low incomes. An average PA neighbour earns USD0.5 per adult equivalent unit/day. PA proximity is associated with lower incomes, mainly because of wildlife damages that cost an average household up to 10% of its annual income. Other recurrent PA costs include the “invisible” costs incurred to cope with crop raiding, and restricted access to PA resources, that jointly amount to 16% of an average household’s annual income. PA benefits include the sharing of tourism revenues, integrated conservation and development projects, and park related employment. In total, benefits constitute 3.5% of the total annual income of an average household, a figure higher than the contribution of other PAs in Uganda. However, overall, an average household accrues a net annual loss of 12.5% of its total income or a total loss of USD1.54 million for the 11875 households, yet the park sends up to USD7 million to the central treasury. This highlights need for policy revisions of the political economy of PA management.
Tourism-conservation enterprises (TCEs), such as eco-lodges, are a relatively new strategy of the African Wildlife Foundation for enhancing community livelihoods and wildlife conservation in wildlife-rich areas outside state-protected areas in sub-Saharan Africa. This article investigates the extent to which TCEs succeed in meeting these objectives by focusing on two enterprises in Kenya: the Sanctuary at Ol Lentille and the Koija Starbeds. Empirical data were gathered between October 2010 and March 2013 through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, literature review and document analysis. Both TCEs demonstrated significant contributions to employment, education, healthcare and security. Compared with the Starbeds, the Sanctuary realised a much larger conservation area and more pronounced biodiversity recovery. The analysis showed that the contribution of TCEs to livelihoods and biodiversity conservation depends on the nature of the partnership arrangement, as well as the local, national and international contexts in which they operate.
Local communities’ participation in tourism benefit-sharing is central to tourism development. While there is a well-established literature on benefit-sharing from the perspective of wildlife protected areas and adjacent local communities, there is little emphasis on how other tourism businesses do this. Using a case study of Barabarani village, Tanzania, this paper examines how other tourism businesses share benefits with the neighbouring communities. It explores this using: in-depth semi-structured interviews with tourism businesses, NGOs, and key decisionmakers within the community; a two-month period of field observations coupled with the researcher’s experience with the wider community; informal discussions with some members of the local community; and document analysis. The findings show that tourism businesses in Barabarani village have schemes that favourably benefit local people, but the extent to which a particular business has developed its schemes differed from one business to another depending on the nature of business, ownership, and objectives. In some businesses such schemes were automatically created as a ‘by-product’ of particular decisions they make. Overall, public businesses had more systematic benefit sharing schemes than private businesses. Thus, there was no guarantee local communities would receive benefits from private businesses, and if any, they were executed on an ad hoc basis.
The majority of Africa is characterised by high levels of poverty, high population densities and limited economic development. Botswana is, however, different in having the highest gross domestic product per capita in Africa, relatively low population densities and high levels of socio-economic development. Inequality, however, remains high. A community-based natural resource management programme was introduced in 1989 to ensure that local communities benefit from the country’s abundant natural resources, with the hope that they will then protect them. Partnerships between the private sector and local communities evolved from this. Okavango Wilderness Safaris, a private sector ecotourism operator, has relationships with three community trusts: Okavango Community Trust (OCT), Sankuyo Community development Trust and the Khwai Development Trust. This paper looks specifically at the partnership with the OCT. Based on ecotourism staff and non-staff interview results, an analysis of this relationship reveals that there are socio-economic benefits to be received, but the distribution of these is limited. Socio-economic benefits to individual community households can be substantial, but overall community benefit distribution needs to be reassessed. Overall socio-economic impacts of the partnership are examined and suggestions for enhancing private sector/community relationships are put forward, based on the interview results and personal observations.
More examples of positive and negative outcomes of community-based conservation initiatives aimed at benefit sharing are surfacing globally, and there is increasing interest in who wins and who loses at multiple scales. However, the term “benefit sharing” is not well defined in the context of protected areas, hindering the effective implementation thereof. We define benefit sharing as the process of making informed and fair trade-offs between social, economic, and ecological costs and benefits within and between stakeholder groups, and between stakeholders and the natural environment. We explore identifying appropriate benefits in certain contexts and monitoring benefit sharing initiatives using relevant qualitative and quantitative indicators. Finally, we use an illustrative case study of mopane worm harvesting from the Kruger National Park in South Africa to explore how benefit sharing as defined in the article can be implemented using a strategic adaptive management approach during the planning, assessment, and reporting phases.
This article discusses the research relevance of benefit sharing and its implications for natural resource policy research in developing countries. It argues that the research challenge is how to improve understanding of benefit sharing policies by way of identifying the basic principles which underlie these policies. While benefit sharing is to a large extent context dependent, the central question we raise is whether we can identify a set of principles to enable one to describe, explain, understand and predict outcomes in relevant policy settings. © content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
The concept of benefit sharing has seen growing adoption in recent years by a variety of sectors. However, its conceptual underpinnings, definitions, and framework remain poorly articulated and developed. We aim to help address this gap by presenting a new conceptual approach for enhancing understanding about benefit sharing and its implementation. We use the coast as a lens through which the analysis is framed because of the intricate governance challenges which coastal social–ecological systems present, the increasing development and exploitation pressures on these systems, and the growing need to improve understanding about the way in which greater equity and reduced inequalities could reduce conflicts, protect coastal ecosystems, and ensure greater social justice. Key elements of the framework include the range of actors involved, the natural resources they access and use, the interventions introduced to redistribute benefits, and the benefits and losses that result from these interventions. The framework underscores the importance of process in determining who gets what, as well as the wider institutional, political, social, and economic context. Power relations and imbalances underpin many of these elements and remain the central reason for benefits being distributed in the way that they are. The framework has relevance and application for coastal livelihoods, rural governance, and resource sustainability in a context in which community rights are increasingly undermined through land grabbing, unequal power relations, and externally driven development interventions.
Key words
coastal communities; governance; inequality; power
Tourism and the sharing of the associated revenues with local people have been increasingly fronted as key instruments for maintaining protected areas (PAs) globally. This paper focuses on a tourism revenue sharing scheme employed in Uganda′s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, involving rural farmers. We find that the scheme faces difficulties in integrating with the existing local historical, socio-economic, and institutional landscapes. Similar experiences from other cases suggest that these challenges are generic, and relate to lack of real local participation; an insignificant scale of economic returns to local people relative to costs; inept institutions in charge of planning, managing and evaluation efforts; and an institutional complexity that constrains most activities. We conclude that although tourism revenue sharing is an appealing concept, and its oft-quoted logic of promoting conservation and rural development is difficult to ignore, it is challenging to plan and implement in competent ways. We do not suggest abandoning tourism revenue sharing, but rather believe that a more concerted effort to overcome the mechanism′s economic and institutional shortcomings, as identified in this paper, may be more appropriate. The overall findings indicate that problems are not with tourism revenue sharing as an ambition, but with the difficulties encountered in putting it into practice.
For many protected areas, sharing benefits with local indigenous communities is an important management requirement. This paper explores indigenous involvement in and benefits from tourism, using a study of Australia's World Heritage–listed Purnululu National Park and the nearby Warmun Aboriginal Community. Interactions between the Community, the Park and tourism were explored using semi-structured interviews. The results illuminate an ongoing cultural connection to the Park providing indigenous people with intrinsic, non-financial benefits. Significant financial benefits are possible through art sales to tourists but are currently limited. Physical difficulties in visiting the Park, issues related to skills, resources and motivation, and problems with joint management all contribute to this limited benefit accrual, as well as fostering a sense of separation from the Park. The findings have broader relevance to efforts elsewhere to engage indigenous people in meaningful ways in the benefits accruable from protected areas and associated tourism. Identifying and further enhancing intrinsic benefits and addressing perceptions of separation are promising areas for attention as part of efforts to progress sustainable tourism. The paper also raises the important fact that some indigenous people may not wish to engage in tourism and that underengagement may be a part of the achievement of sustainable tourism.
Ecotourism is often suggested as a tool for pro- moting conservation but evidence for its usefulness is mixed. The success of conservation projects is widely recognized to depend upon the positive attitudes of local communities and thus it is important to know if ecotourism affects local perceptions of natural resources and conservation, as these can be important determinants of conservation behaviour. Rapid Rural Appraisal and questionnaire-based interviews were used to investigate this issue in the village of Grande Riviere, Trinidad. This has a community-based ecotourism programme for leatherback turtles Dermochelys coriacea, and is also one of the few sites where the Critically En- dangered endemic Trinidad piping-guan Pipile pipile may be sighted. Topics addressed were knowledge and awareness of local conservation issues, focusing on attitudes to the en- vironment in general, turtles and the Trinidad piping-guan. Ecotourism significantly affected perceptions. Villagers showed more awareness and support for turtle conservation than for the piping-guan or any other wildlife. Moreover, those households directly benefiting from the ecotourism industry had better knowledge of local natural resources and greater general awareness of conservation issues (not limited to turtles). Other socio-economic factors such as education and income also affected attitudes and knowledge but the ecotourism effect was still present after accounting for these. Hunting was seen as the main threat to wildlife but was also a popular pastime, illustrating the potential for mismatch between attitudes and conservation behaviours.
Nature-based tourism is widely considered a conservation strategy because it can provide benefits for local people and thereby increase support for conservation and contribute to development. However, concerns have been raised over the uneven distribution of benefits. Here we use access analysis to investigate the distribution of tourism benefits at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, and the underlying factors constraining access to benefits. We introduce two new categories of engagement in tourism: active (for example through employment) and passive (for example through revenue sharing). Benefits from active engagement were often monetary, and access to them was often tightly constrained. In contrast, benefits from passive engagement were often nonmonetary and were more widely accessible. By analyzing together multiple active and passive pathways to tourism engagement, the study reveals that tourism benefits in some form can reach a wide range of local people, even where access to individual pathways is tightly constrained.
Waza National Park, Cameroon, is representative of trends towards more participatory protected area management in Africa. It has no transition zone and interactions with the surrounding human population are complex. A recently adopted management plan allows experiments with limited consumptive use of natural resources, in exchange for people's collaboration. In order to determine which resources are desired and which resources are liabilities, people in the Park's vicinity were interviewed. Respondents' attitudes towards conservation were positive, motivated by both use and intrinsic values, and with reference to future generations. Attitudes were significantly related to locally perceived benefits. Respondents found most of the Park's resources useful but differences between user groups were significant. User groups also differed in their complaints about human-wildlife conflicts, but overall they considered the animals most important for tourism as the main nuisance. This case study shows that local aspirations cannot all be met, but indicates that limited outreach can improve existing public support for conservation measures.
The Community Baboon Sanctuary is held by the Belizean government to be a model for participatory ecotourism development. Membership in the Sanctuary is voluntary and involves a commitment to protect riverine resources as habitat for black howler monkeys (Alouattanigra). While most local residents understand the intrinsic, aesthetic and material values of this important resource and recognize that protection of it can provide opportunities for promoting ecotourism activities in their communities, some members are dissatisfied with the project and threaten to withdraw their membership. This study aimed to define residents attitudes about the project, namely, the extent of local participation, representative organization, sound management structure, effective management capabilities, fairemployment allocation, and education opportunities for community residents regarding the howlers, protection of their habitat, and the value of resource conservation.
Attempts to establish local support for wildlife and conservation through the sharing of revenues and empowerment of local communities to manage their wildlife have proliferated over the past two decades. Data from two neighbouring Maasai group ranches in the wildlife dispersal area of Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks (Kenya) indicated one ranch generated considerable wildlife revenues from a tourist operation and community trust while the other received no direct benefits from wildlife. The overall attitude to wildlife on the ranch with wildlife revenues was significantly more positive, but attitudes within the ranch varied significantly, depending on both costs from wildlife and perception of the distribution of wildlife revenues. Ordinal logistic regression analyses showed that it was not the amount of revenue received or the scale of costs from wildlife which determined people's attitudes, but simply the presence or absence of wildlife benefits. The importance of addressing inequitable distribution of benefits is emphasized.
Protected areas (PAs) are one way of conserving biodiversity, and ecosystem services and human well-being and are now recognized as an integral part of sustainable development strategies. Over the past four decades there has been a ten-fold increase in the number of protected areas globally. Increasingly however, park management agencies do not have sufficient funds to finance their conservation management activities, and most governments do not fund PA budgets fully. Furthermore, efforts to determine how much money is spent or required for PA financing has been hampered by significant data shortages, especially in the most underfunded countries as many are still unable to quantify the relative adequacy of their levels of conservation finance. This research assesses the extent to which tourism contributes towards biodiversity financing for PA management in southern African countries. It analyzes Fifth National Country Reports (produced in 2014/2015) submitted to the Convention for Biological Diversity produced for all southern African countries to determine the actual contribution of tourism to overall PA financing. It highlights that although tourism is a significant revenue source for PA authorities in southern Africa, how it is retained and reinvested back into conservation management remains ambiguous. The incompleteness and inconsistency of national level reporting presents a missed opportunity for justifying greater financing support.
Inclusive business is described as private sector-led business initiatives that aim to profitably engage low-income populations across productive value chains. This paper aims to quantify the impact of businesses implementing inclusive business strategies to determine the value to local communities as well as the tourism business. The research reviews the direct impact of the business on communities, determines the value proposition to the businesses as well as comparing the partnership structures between the operators and communities. Practical examples from Namibia and South Africa are provided of how different strategies may, or may not, generate a tangible impact for both parties. The research contributes to the limited literature about inclusive business models in the tourism sector.
Ecotourism is frequently put forward as a potential solution for local development and biodiversity conservation in developing countries. Numerous researchers have looked at the various impacts of ecotourism on development and on conservation. There are, however, few studies looking at the role of stakeholders and the impact they are having on local development. We look specifically at the role of private sector stakeholders in local ecotourism development in southern Africa. We focus on one ecotourism operator, Wilderness Safaris, and our results are based on a desktop analysis of various reports, field work and data from a Ph.D. study looking at the socio-economic impact of private sector ecotourism on local communities. The results show that the private sector has an important role to play in local socio-economic development in terms of employment creation, skills training and development, the payment of lease fees as well as through philanthropic development projects. Recommendations are put forward as to how the private sector can further effect positive change in the areas where it is operating and ensure long-term sustainability.
Financial sustainability of conservation areas is one of the cornerstones for enabling effective conservation management. However, the current status of conservation area funding is widely detached from the need, and this disparity is intensified in developing countries. Therefore, identifying and valuing the revenue streams and finance needs of conservation areas is an important step in the process to become financial sustainable. This paper assesses the revenue potential of conservation areas in Mozambique national parks and reserves. The analysis describes the revenue generation of 93 conservation areas in Mozambique in 2013 to (i) the economy, (ii) the Government of Mozambique and conservation area management authorities, as well as (iii) respective communities bordering conservation areas. The analysis determined that the total annual revenue generation within the conservation area network was USD 24.4 million in 2013 from tourism-linked activities. The component of total revenue that accrued to either national Government of Mozambique or conservation area management was USD 3.33 million in 2013, and USD 606,500 of this accrued to communities surrounding conservation areas. The research has demonstrated that revenue generation of the conservation area network contributes approximately 10% to the tourism sector’s total contribution to the economy of Mozambique. In addition, this research highlights the difficulties of revenue generation from conservation areas in least developed countries and the effects of a lack of data on justifying the value of a conservation area network from an economic perspective.
African wildlife represents a unique type of terrestrial biodiversity whose current and future importance should not be underestimated. However, the future of wildlife in Africa is threatened as the largely protectionist approaches to conservation of this resource, which have been used for many years, are no longer viable. Local communities have had little or no role to play in the conservation of wildlife although they suffer from the inconveniences of sharing the same ecosystem with wildlife and receive a negligible share of the benefits that accrue from wildlife. Consequently, there is growing conflict between local communities and wildlife, whereby wildlife is not considered a priority form of land use since it does not offer immediate benefits to the local communities. In this paper we examine the issue of equitable sharing of benefits (and costs) of wildlife conservation in Africa, and the problems associated with local participation in the management of this resource with specific reference to Kenya and Zimbabwe. We further explore the issue of wildlife ownership and how this affects the local people's willingness to provide land for wildlife and hence its sustainable conservation. It is concluded that involvement and support of local communities in wildlife conservation is a prerequisite to effective and long-term conservation of wildlife and wildlands as part of the terrestrial biodiversity conservation. We propose that it is possible to reconcile the conservation of wild resources with economic development and human welfare so as to ensure that African countries with these resources have an incentive to ensure their long-term management and survival. New strategies for sustainable management of wildlife must address the issues of ownership as well as effective institutions and mechanisms of ensuring equitable sharing of benefits that accrue from wildlife.
Protected areas are under increasing pressure to provide economic justification for their existence, particularly in developing countries where demand for land and natural resources is high. Nature-based tourism offers a mechanism to generate substantial benefits front protected areas for both governments and local communities, and ecotourism is increasingly promoted as a sustainable use of protected areas. The extent to which ecotourism offsets the costs of a protected area has rarely been examined. We used financial data from Komodo National Park, Indonesia, and a willingness-to-pay questionnaire of independent visitors to (1) examine the financial contribution of tourism in offsetting the costs of tourism and wider management and (2) assess the effect of hypothetical fee increases on park revenues, visitation patterns, and local economies. Although only 6.9% of park management costs were recovered, visitors were willing to pay over 10 times the current entrance fee, indicating a substantial potential for increased revenue. The potential negative effect of large fee increases on visitor numbers and the resultant effect on local economic benefits from tourism may limit the extent to which greater financial benefits from Komodo National Park (KNP) can be realized. Our results suggest that a moderate, tiered increase in entrance fees is most appropriate, and that partial revenue retention by KNP would help demonstrate the conservation value of tourism to both visitors and managers and has the potential to increase visitors' willingness to pay.
Eco-tourism is acknowledged for playing a central role in conservation of natural resources and improvement of livelihoods especially in biodiversity-rich areas of developing countries. Theoretically, support for conservation from rural residents who live next to protected areas is maximised if they benefit economically. Using Amani Nature Reserve (ANR) in Tanzania, as a case study, this paper examines whether and to what extent eco-tourism improves local livelihoods and hence conservation. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, Participatory Rural Appraisal and interviews with key stakeholders. Findings indicate that, over Tanzanian Shillings (TAS) 12 million (≈ US 1 = TAS 1300 in November 2007) are generated by ANR annually as revenue from eco-tourism. About 20% of this is distributed equally to the 18 villages that surround the reserve. Despite an increase in revenues, there was discontent among residents regarding the percentage share and other benefits they receive from eco-tourism. On average, eco-tourism contributes 9.6% of total annual household income but only 22.7% of the households earn income from eco-tourism. The paper concludes that, in ANR, eco-tourism provides little benefits to local residents and suggestions for appropriate mechanisms of sharing benefits and enhancement of peoples' participation in eco-tourism are underlined.
Sustainable tourism (ST) development in Zanzibar is considered as one of the vital activities that could generate income for day-to-day management of protected areas through benefit-sharing. This paper examines the potential of benefit-sharing from sustainable tourism in the Kiwengwa-Pongwe tourism zone (KPTZ) in Zanzibar from two major routes: water services and tourist attractions from Kiwengwa-Pongwe forest reserve (KPFR). Nine (9) out of thirteen (13) hoteliers and 35 tourists participated in a willingness to pay (WTP) survey conducted in August 2006. Data were obtained through questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions and field observations. Great potential exists for the Kiwengwa-Pongwe tourism zone in Zanzibar to generate significant economic benefits from tourism business. However, the inexistence of an appropriate benefit-sharing mechanism makes the attainment of this goal difficult. If a benefit-sharing mechanism is properly instituted to allow an equitable economic, social and environmental benefit-sharing, tourism stakeholders and the surrounding communities would be able to generate enough revenue for financing a number of local sustainable development initiatives.
Presently, the mountain gorilla in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is endangered mainly by poaching and habitat loss. This paper sets out to investigate the possible resolution of poaching involving the local community by using benefit sharing schemes with local communities. Using a bioeconomic model, the paper demonstrates that the current revenue sharing scheme yields suboptimal conservation outcomes. It is, however, shown that a performance-linked benefit sharing scheme in which the Park Agency makes payment to the local community based on the growth of the gorilla stock can achieve socially optimal conservation. This scheme renders poaching effort by the local community, and therefore poaching fines and antipoaching enforcement toward the local community unnecessary. Given the huge financial outlay requirements for the ideal benefit sharing scheme, the Park Agencies in central Africa could reap more financial benefits for use in conservation if they employ an oligopolistic pricing strategy for gorilla tourism.
Sharing of benefits from nature conservation is widely regarded as a way to enhance local residents’ support for protected areas. While in past years, the effectiveness of such approaches has been investigated in detail, governance processes underpinning benefit sharing have received less attention. This study examines the legislation and implementation practice of a revenue sharing scheme in southern Ethiopia, an area that is currently undergoing substantial social and environmental changes that threaten livelihoods and ecosystems. Based on qualitative data from interviews, group discussions and workshops, four main areas of shortcomings in the current legislation and implementation practice were identified: information provision; imbalanced roles and responsibilities; compromised accountability; and the lack of connection between revenue and wildlife tourism in the minds of the recipients. While some of these factors fostered misunderstandings and misuse of the monies, others meant that even where revenue was disbursed it was not connected with wildlife conservation, and thus did not have the intended effect. A comparison between these factors and those in the literature on the evaluation of comanagement arrangements revealed substantial overlap. Revenue sharing may be regarded as part of the comanagement of wildlife areas, but to be successful the management of these areas needs to be shared, and not just the financial benefits.
Community-based natural resource management is frequently proposed as a solution to poverty in rural Africa. The extent of Namibia's CBNRM programme's success in terms of joint ventures between the private sector and communities has not been comprehensively analysed. Tangible benefits from joint venture partnerships play an important role in development and poverty reduction, with intangible benefits improving social welfare and local economic development. Questionnaire surveys of staff employed at Damaraland Camp in Torra Conservancy and of households in Torra Conservancy provided insight into the potential benefits of joint ventures. The direct benefit of income from jobs in ecotourism and associated household income diversification opportunities highlight the importance of permanent employment in these remote, rural areas. An analysis of spending patterns, attitudes to tourism, non-governmental organisations and the conservancy illustrated the level of success achieved by joint venture partnerships in terms of poverty reduction, local socio-economic development and changes in attitudes.
The spatial distribution of protected area direct benefits and losses were mapped for twenty-five villages around Kibale National Park, Uganda. Benefits included park-based employment, tourism revenue sharing, integrated conservation and development projects, and resource access agreements. Losses were caused by park-protected animals raiding crops and preying on livestock. Local perceptions of benefit and loss associated with the park were collected from focus groups and a household survey. Valuation data were derived from interviews, the survey, and measurement of crop losses. Eight villages accrued an annual net benefit as a result of the park, while 17 villages accrued a net loss. Net benefitting villages were located near park-based employment and resource access associations involved in beekeeping. Households within 0.5km of the park boundary accrued the highest losses, while benefits distributed up to 15km away. The Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) needs to focus benefits closer to the park boundary to support those who lose most from park-protected animals, and away from areas with park-based employment to more evenly distribute benefits around the circumference of the park. Attitudes toward the park appear to be shaped by loss aversion, suggesting UWA and conservation agencies should focus on loss mitigation, rather than benefit provision.
This research focuses on residents' perceptions of personal benefits from tourism, identifying not only the relationships between personal benefits from tourism and residents' attitudes toward tourism but also the nature of benefits associated with tourism. The study was conducted in a small rural community where tourism is still at its emerging stage. It was found that residents' perceptions of personal benefits from tourism were closely associated with their attitudes toward tourism in a positive direction. The significant contribution of this study falls on the recognition of noneconomic perspective of tourism benefits for residents in a community where tourism has not yet explicitly emerged. In particular, the data lend support for social exchange theory and improve its understanding in tourism investigations.
An investigation of ecotourism at Masoala National Park, a forested coastal area in northeastern Madagascar and the country’s largest national park, focused on ecotourism benefits and the role of local guides in promoting conservation awareness. Interviews, participant observation, and archival research were used to investigate the park’s guide association, resident attitudes toward Masoala National Park, and ecotourism as a method of park and rural development. Many factors make Masoala National Park a prime ecotourist destination, including the possibility of viewing its endemic species, such as red-ruffed lemurs. The park has a strong local guides’ association and currently combines conservation and development through a programme that returns a portion of tourism revenue to local communities. Actual or potential benefits received from the park, including ecotourism revenues, were found to influence the positive and negative perceptions of Masoala National Park held by residents living in the park periphery. However, limitations on ecotourism development include poor infrastructure and difficult access, a challenging climate including a hurricane season, and past national political instability.
Taking tourism in Namibian rural areas as an empirical case study, this paper analyses the main factors that explain the economic outcome in a negotiation process in which local communities and private operators bargain over the distribution of income generated through a partnership lodge. While much research has focused on the required preconditions (especially property rights) and efficiency effects of tourism partnerships, a Nash bargaining model allows us to assess the distributive effects of such contracts. In particular, variables such as insecure community land tenure, and the resulting reduced value of land, the remoteness of lodges and the community's impatience and attitude towards risk could explain why rural communities have not so far captured the lion's share from tourism activities in communal lands. Finally, the paper shows that future research will be needed to complete the model in order to provide an account of the contractual problems that limit the efficiency of tourism partnerships in rural areas - transaction costs and underinvestment.
Debates on how to deliver conservation benefits to communities living close to protected high-biodiversity areas have preoccupied conservationists for over 20 years. Tourism revenue sharing (TRS) has become a widespread policy intervention in Africa and elsewhere where charismatic populations of wildlife remain. This paper analyzes TRS policy at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP), Uganda, from a policy arrangements perspective. It is based on data collected at BINP and three surrounding parishes, using qualitative methods. It concludes that the governance capacity of the TRS policy arrangement at BINP is low due to the structural incongruence of the dimensions of the policy arrangement (analyzed in terms of actors, resources, rules of the game and discourses). Despite the participatory rhetoric of policy reforms, the Uganda Wildlife Authority remains the most powerful actor: it has control over resources and consequently determines the rules of the game. Local communities do not feel adequately compensated for conservation costs. This issue is exacerbated by weak communications with local people, problems of fair distribution locally and nationally, corruption claims and powerful local elites. To maximize TRS’ ability to contribute to conservation through development, inequities in the design of the TRS and dispersion of benefits need to be addressed. Bwindi(BINP): (PAA) 20(TRS) Bwindi(BINP)TRSBINPBINPTRS(): TRSTRS
Two issues of central importance to conservation are developing an improved understanding of the relative roles of state protected areas and local institutions and developing effective strategies for creating community-based incentives for conservation. We provide a case study of northern Tanzania’s Maasai Steppe to explore these issues in the context of a savannah ecosystem where wildlife is mobile and depends extensively on community lands for seasonal habitats. We compare the impacts and outcomes of four approaches to developing local incentives for wildlife conservation on community lands: protected area benefit-sharing, trophy hunting donations, village–private tourism concession contracts, and a direct payment scheme for habitat conservation. Tourism and direct payment concession areas have resulted in large areas of community land being protected for wildlife by villages as a result of the conditional and contractual nature of these ventures. By contrast, other approaches that provide economic benefits to communities but are not conditional on defined conservation actions at the local level demonstrate little impact on wildlife conservation on community lands. In spatially extensive ecosystems where protected areas cover limited areas and wildlife relies heavily on community and private lands, strategies based on maximizing the direct income of communities from wildlife are fundamental to the sustainability of such systems.
This study investigates the attitude of communities adjacent to the Chobe National Park in Botswana and the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia with regard to local stewardship over natural resources and associated revenues implemented via community based natural resource management (CBNRM). This included measuring the extent to which community expectations were met. The survey revealed a general incongruence between community perceptions and expectations of the purpose and roles of the Community Resource Boards in Luangwa and the Community Trusts in Chobe and those of the respective wildlife authorities. After 2 decades of implementation there appears to be significant confusion among communities regarding CBNRM that seems to translate into unfulfilled expectations and frustrations. These factors highlight inadequacies in implementation with regard to outreach and inclusion.
In recent years there has been a proliferation of projects aiming to integrate human development needs with conservation objectives, and to establish mutually beneficial relationships for the management of natural resources between rural communities and the state. This paper presents data from a case study of human-wildlife interactions in villages along the northern boundary of the Selous Game Reserve in south-east Tanzania. Since 1989, this area has been the site of a project working to promote community wildlife management (CWM). Questionnaire survey data were used to examine villagers' conservation attitudes towards wildlife, the Game Reserve, and the activities of the CWM project and state wildlife management authority. Despite local support for the conservation of wildlife, many respondents were either unaware or held negative views of the activities of the wildlife management institutions. Logistic regression analyses show that while access to game meat from the CWM project has had a positive influence on perceptions of wildlife benefits and awareness of the project's activities, it has had no significant effect on local perceptions of the Game Reserve and the activities of the state wildlife management authority. The factors underlying the observed pattern of conservation attitudes were identified as the inequitable distribution of benefits from the CWM project, and the limited nature of community participation in wildlife management. The importance of institutional issues for the future progress of participatory approaches to conservation with development is emphasized.
Throughout much of the tropics, human-wildlife conflict impedes local support for national parks. By channelling tourism revenue to local residents, conservationists hope to offset wildlife costs and improve local attitudes toward conservation. To date tourism revenue-sharing (TRS) programmes have met mixed success. Local conditions and national policies that shape the success of TRS programmes were identified by comparing the experiences of both implementers and beneficiaries of pilot TRS programmes at three parks in western Uganda. Between 1995 and 1998, communities around these parks used a total of US $83 000 of tourism revenue to build 21 schools, four clinics, one bridge, and one road. In 1996, the Ugandan parliament passed legislation that changed both the amount of money available for TRS and the institutions responsible for sharing the money. The programme was suspended at all three parks while the implementing agency (Uganda Wildlife Authority) struggled to design a programme that complied with the new legislation. TRS funds collected before 1996 were shared through 1998, but since then no revenue has been shared. However, a revised TRS programme is expected to resume in 2001. In semi-structured interviews, both implementers and beneficiaries evaluated local TRS programmes and compared them to other benefit-sharing projects, particularly those promoting sustainable use of non-timber products within park boundaries (n = 44). Both groups of respondents listed revenue-sharing as the most important advantage of living next to a national park. Seventy-two per cent of respondents indicated that they thought TRS had improved attitudes towards the protected areas, and 53% thought TRS was more important then sustainable use of non-timber forest products. Although respondents were generally positive about TRS, in informal discussions respondents repeatedly mentioned four potential obstacles to TRS success, namely poorly defined TRS policies and unsteady implementing institutions, corruption, inadequate funds, and numerous stakeholders with differing priorities. From this survey and literature from experiences in other African countries, there are four key components of successful revenue-sharing programmes: long-term institutional support, appropriate identification of the target community and project type, transparency and accountability, and adequate funding. With firm institutional support and realistic expectations, TRS can play an important role in improving local attitudes towards conservation.