Firstly, this study uses community asset mapping guided by the community capitals framework (CCF) to explore the linkages between protected areas (PAs), tourism and community livelihoods. Secondly, it assesses changes in community needs facilitated by community participation in wildlife-based tourism in a protected area setting. Thirdly and finally, the study assesses whether the introduction of community wildlife-based tourism in a protected area as a sustainable management tool has led to the spiraling up or down of community capitals. The study adopted qualitative research method approach and made use of data collected through community asset mapping supplemented by data from focus group discussions, households, key informants, and secondary data materials that were analyzed and interpreted in light of community capital framework. The Chobe National Park (CNP) and Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust (CECT); a community living adjacent to CNP in Botswana provides the context on which this study's discussion focuses. Results indicate that the accession of Botswana from colonialism through post colonialism era intertwined considerable institutional arrangement changes in the field of protected area governance that reflects evolutionary management styles. Protected areas, tourism and community livelihoods linkages are based on many inter-dependents of community capitals relationships which are dependent on community socio-economic activities. In assessing changes in community needs, the results indicate that participation in wildlife-based tourism has brought both positive and negative changes that have implications on both the status quo for community livelihoods and protected areas, namely; the influence of changes in community capitals dynamics, mechanization and commercialization of agriculture, government funded infrastructural development, income generation, and the commodification of some of the community capitals. Finally, the increased livelihoods options and diversification dynamics, fragile wildlife-livestock co-existence, heightened human-wildlife conflicts, environmental education and awareness are the emerging themes that explain how the introduction of tourism in a protected area setting affect the spiraling up and down of the community capitals dynamics.

This volume discusses the complex relationship between Protected Areas and tourism and their impact on community livelihoods in a range of countries in Southern Africa. Protected areas and tourism have an enduring and symbiotic relationship. While protected areas offer a desirable setting for tourism products, tourism provides revenue that can contribute to conservation efforts. This can bring benefits to local communities, but it can also have a negative impact, with the establishment of protected areas leading to the eviction of local communities from their original places of residence, while also preventing them from accessing the natural resources they once enjoyed. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, this book addresses the opportunities and challenges faced by communities and other stakeholders as they endeavour to achieve their conservation goals and work towards improving community livelihoods. Case studies from Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe address key issues such as human–wildlife conflicts, ecotourism, wildlife-based tourism, landscape governance, wildlife crop-raiding and trophy hunting, including the high-profile case of Cecil the lion. Chapters highlight both the achievements and positive outcomes of protected areas, but also the challenges faced and their impact on how protected areas are viewed and also conservation priorities more generally. The volume gives these issues affecting protected areas, local communities, managers and international conservation efforts centre stage in order inform policy and improve practice going forward. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of conservation, natural resource management, tourism, sustainable development and African studies, as well as professionals and policymakers involved in conservation policy.

The book uses a multi-disciplinary approach to address lessons learned and challenges encountered over the years in different ecological, economic, political and cultural contexts. Protected areas were originally established as recreational spaces and to protect some components of nature; however, today they are also expected to provide an increasing range of benefits to an array of people. Protected areas no longer simply “protect” but they also provide ecosystem services and facilitate poverty reduction via local development, ecotourism, and sustainable resource use. Integrating tourism and conservation with existing local historical, socio-economic, and institutional landscapes is associated with the promotion of local community participation in resource management. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to understand social-ecological systems that explain the relationship between protected areas, tourism, and community livelihoods linkages. The book provides a platform for dialogue to develop a better understanding of the complex relationships between protected areas, tourism, and community livelihoods linkages. Due to the role tourism plays in poverty alleviation, conservation, empowerment and addressing other environmental and social challenges, the book also connects tourism with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers of tourism, conservation, natural resource management, sustainable development as well as professionals and policymakers involved in conservation policy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

This book examines the connections between natural resources, tourism and community livelihood practices in Southern Africa, highlighting the successes and constraints experienced over the last 50 years. Questioning how natural resources, tourism and community livelihoods relations can positively contribute towards development efforts, this book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to understand socio-ecological systems that characterize the dynamics for sustainable development. It explores the history of conservation and natural resource management in Southern Africa and traces the development and growth of nature-based tourism. Boasting a wide range of tourism landscapes, including national parks, wetlands, forests and oceans, the book draws on case studies from a variety of Southern African countries, including Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, and considers the political challenges for implementing policies and practices. Furthermore, it analyses broader issues such as the impact of climate change, human–wildlife co-existence and resulting conflicts, poor access to funding and poverty in local communities. The book argues that the links between conservation and livelihoods can be best understood by considering the different approaches to reconciling the demands of conservation and livelihoods that have evolved over the past decades. Containing contributions from natural and social sciences the book provides guidance for practitioners and policymakers to continue to shape policies and practices that are in line with the key tenets of sustainable development. It will also be of great interest to students and scholars researching Southern Africa, sustainable tourism and conservation.

This volume discusses the complex relationship between Protected Areas and tourism and their impact on community livelihoods in a range of countries in Southern Africa. Protected areas and tourism have an enduring and symbiotic relationship. While protected areas offer a desirable setting for tourism products, tourism provides revenue that can contribute to conservation efforts. This can bring benefits to local communities, but it can also have a negative impact, with the establishment of protected areas leading to the eviction of local communities from their original places of residence, while also preventing them from accessing the natural resources they once enjoyed. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, this book addresses the opportunities and challenges faced by communities and other stakeholders as they endeavour to achieve their conservation goals and work towards improving community livelihoods. Case studies from Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe address key issues such as human-wildlife conflicts, ecotourism, wildlife-based tourism, landscape governance, wildlife crop-raiding and trophy hunting, including the high-profile case of Cecil the lion. Chapters highlight both the achievements and positive outcomes of protected areas, but also the challenges faced and their impact on how protected areas are viewed and also conservation priorities more generally. The volume gives these issues affecting protected areas, local communities, managers and international conservation efforts centre stage in order inform policy and improve practice going forward. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of conservation, natural resource management, tourism, sustainable development and African studies, as well as professionals and policymakers involved in conservation policy.

Tourism has an essential role in terms of contributing to the financial sustainability of protected areas. In addition, through effective and efficient benefit-sharing, tourism can positively impact numerous stakeholders within and beyond the protected area. Living on the Edge: Benefit-Sharing from Protected Area Tourism highlights the complexity of benefit-sharing, the importance of identifying all relevant stakeholders, the challenges of ensuring equity and sustainability, and the critical importance of good governance. The evolution of benefit-sharing mechanisms over time also emphasizes a continuing need to evolve and adapt to each unique situation as much evidence indicates that little has changed for those living on the edge. Although this book focuses on benefit-sharing from protected area tourism, it is essential to acknowledge that along with these benefits are costs associated with tourism, including possible increased local prices, loss of access to land, human–wildlife conflict, and other related costs. The contributing authors agree that benefit-sharing must include good governance, accountability, equity, transparency, a broad reach of stakeholder engagement, and a robust combination of tangible and intangible benefits – with recognition that benefit-sharing systems need to be adaptive and evolve, as needed, according to the relevant situation. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

My dissertation research is a case study of how the presence of an area protected for wildlife conservation can alter the livelihood options available to nearby rural communities, and an examination of the livelihood strategies that villagers deploy to cope with these conditions. Protected areas have become the primary approach to conserving biodiversity across the planet. While the modern protected areas movement dates back to the nineteenth century, conservation scientists have recently become increasingly concerned with measuring the social as well as ecological effects of land set aside for conservation. The large and growing body of "people and parks" literature examines the costs and benefits of protected areas for local communities. However, the net impact of a protected area is context-specific and is not always clear, and question of how protected areas affect livelihoods and human development remains widely and contentiously debated amongst social and natural scientists. Using a political ecology framework, I explain in this dissertation how the Chobe National Park has influenced rural livelihoods in the northern region of Botswana, a country that is notable for its status as a relatively well-functioning welfare state, and its long history of rural-urban socio-economic linkages. Specifically, I chronicle the agrarian livelihood strategies of smallholder farmers living on the edge of Chobe National Park in northern Botswana--a place where the state has prioritized wildlife conservation but also provides support to residents' livelihoods in a number of ways. In Chobe, agricultural production is becoming increasingly challenging even as the government increases its agricultural subsidies and support to small farmers. I show that it is conservation policy rather than the prioritization of commercial farming that hurts small-scale agriculture and causes some farmers to shift livelihood activities. I also demonstrate how restricted-use rights over wildlife, limited ways to participate in the mandated community wildlife management regimes (called community trusts) and a dearth of realistic revenue-generating wildlife-based opportunities for villagers make wildlife a relatively inaccessible source of livelihood support. Norms regarding wildlife as the property of the state, in conjunction with sources of livelihood support that are easier for households to access - namely remittances from urban kin and state transfers - undermine the creation of effective community-based natural resource management regimes. Throughout my dissertation I emphasize that the Chobe National Park and the Chobe Enclave villages do not exist as bounded insular units of analysis and instead are better understood as nodes in a web of social relations and connections that extend beyond the physical boundaries of the region. This recognition draws directly from insights made by critical geographers that provide a theoretical understanding of place that is extroverted and aware of its links with the wider world. Much of the people and parks research has focused on social and economic outcomes for communities living on the edges (e.g., buffer) of protected areas. However, the economic and social effects of protected areas are not limited to their borders and can affect human dynamics hundreds of miles away. I discuss linkages between rural and urban communities to create a more complete picture of the way in which protected areas can affect human populations, even those living far from park borders. I show that the overall net growth around Chobe NP's edges does not preclude out-migration from certain buffer areas. Human movements towards, away from and within the Chobe National Park buffer zone have altered the demographic composition of rural villages and contributed to a new spatial patterning of people and associated livelihoods. Ultimately, this study looks at how a park affects who lives where, and what the implications of such settlement patterns are for livelihoods, land use, and social relations in a web of interconnected geographical areas. In illustrating these dynamics, this work contributes to a rich body of literature that examines the context-dependent mechanisms through which a protected area can alter socio-economic development and in turn, the ecology and biodiversity of a rural landscape.

Using a rich set of detailed case studies, this volume furnishes the first comprehensive analysis of the role of the private sector in conservation areas. For researchers of tourism, development studies and biodiversity conservation this book is a new and important benchmark in African scholarship. -Christian M. Rogerson, Research Professor, School of Tourism & Hospitality, University of Johannesburg. "This is an impressive book that will make an important contribution to the literature on private-sector involvement in the delivery of tourism services in parks and protected areas in Africa." - Dr. Paul F. J. Eagles, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo. Tourism in Africa's protected and conserved areas involves partnerships and interactions between numerous stakeholders such as governments, communities, NGOs, the private sector and academics. Through the use of 32 comprehensive case studies from 11 African countries, this book presents guidelines to ensure optimal benefits for stakeholders as well as promoting the sustainability of tourism in Africa. It includes descriptions of the various models for the private sector to engage in tourism in conservation areas in Africa, such as pure private sector ownership, joint ventures, tripartite agreements and government leases. End-to-end coverage of the processes used to develop these partnerships is provided, as well as best practices for the private sector engaging in tourism. The book provides guidance on identifying the most suitable private sector tourism options based on guidelines of conditions and desired outcomes, to promote the long-term sustainability of African tourism in protected areas. This book is recommended for academics, students and practitioners working in sustainable tourism, including community, private sector and government stakeholders.

The Handbook on Tourism and Conservation demonstrates the intrinsic nexus between tourism, the environment and sustainable natural resources use. It applies Ostrom’s social-ecological systems (SESs) theory as the analytical framework for reaching a consensus on divergent viewpoints within the context of global environmental change and emerging governance issues.

This book examines the nexus between conservation, land conflicts, and sustainable tourism approaches in Southern Africa, with a focus on equity, access, restitution, and redistribution. While Southern Africa is home to important biodiversity, pristine woodlands, and grasslands, and is a habitat for important wildlife species, it is also a land of contestations over its natural resources with a complex historical legacy and a wide variety of competing and conflicting issues surrounding race, cultural and traditional practices, and neoliberalism. Drawing on insights from conservation, environmental, and tourism experts, this volume presents the nexus between land conflicts and conservation in the region. The chapters reveal the hegemony of humans on land and associated resources including wildlife and minerals. By using social science approaches, the book unites environmental, scientific, social, and political issues, as it is imperative we understand the holistic nature of land conflicts in nature-based tourism. Discussing the management theories and approaches to community-based tourism in communities where there are or were land conflicts is critical to understanding the current state and future of tourism in African rural spaces. This volume determines the extent to which land reform impacts community-based tourism in Africa to develop resilient destination strategies and shares solutions to existing land conflicts to promote conservation and nature-based tourism. The book will be of great interest to students, academics, development experts, and policymakers in the field of conservation, tourism geography, sociology, development studies, land use, and environmental management and African studies.