Protected Areas, Tourism and Rural Community Livelihoods in Botswana

Protected Areas, Tourism and Rural Community Livelihoods in Botswana PDF Author: Moren Tibabo Stone
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Protected areas
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
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.

Protected Areas, Tourism and Rural Community Livelihoods in Botswana

Protected Areas, Tourism and Rural Community Livelihoods in Botswana PDF Author: Moren Tibabo Stone
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Protected areas
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
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.

Protected Areas and Tourism in Southern Africa

Protected Areas and Tourism in Southern Africa PDF Author: Lesego Senyana Stone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100054897X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
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.

Protected Areas, Sustainable Tourism and Community Livelihood Linkages

Protected Areas, Sustainable Tourism and Community Livelihood Linkages PDF Author: Moren Stone
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040145213
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
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.

Natural Resources, Tourism and Community Livelihoods in Southern Africa

Natural Resources, Tourism and Community Livelihoods in Southern Africa PDF Author: Moren T. Stone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000763714
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
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.

Living on the Edge

Living on the Edge PDF Author: Susan Snyman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000384012
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
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.

Conservation's Complexities

Conservation's Complexities PDF Author: Anjali Clare Gupta
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
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.

Sustainable Governance of Wildlife and Community-Based Natural Resource Management

Sustainable Governance of Wildlife and Community-Based Natural Resource Management PDF Author: Brian Child
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351811827
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
This book develops the Sustainable Governance Approach and the principles of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM). It provides practical examples of successes and failures in implementation, and lessons about the economics and governance of wild resources with global application. CBNRM emerged in the 1980s, encouraging greater local participation to conserve and manage natural and wild resources in the face of increasing encroachment by agricultural and other forms of land use development. This book describes the institutional history of wildlife and the empirical transformation of the wildlife sector on private and communal land, particularly in southern Africa, to develop an alternative paradigm for governing wild resources. With the twin goals of addressing poverty and resource degradation in the world’s extensive agriculturally marginal areas, the author conceptualises this paradigm as the Sustainable Governance Approach, which integrates theories of proprietorship and rights, prices and economics, governance and scale, and adaptive learning. The author then discusses and defines CBNRM, a major subset of this approach. Interweaving theory and practice, he shows that the primary challenges facing CBNRM are the devolution of rights from the centre to marginal communities and the governance of these rights by communities, a challenge which is seldom recognised or addressed. He focuses on this shortcoming, extending and operationalising institutional theory, including Ostrom’s principles of collective action, within the context of cross-scale governance. Based on the author’s extensive experience this book will be key reading for students of natural resource management, sustainable land use, community forestry, conservation, and development. Providing practical but theoretically robust tools for implementing CBNRM it will also appeal to professionals and practitioners working in communities and in conservation and development.

Handbook on Tourism and Conservation

Handbook on Tourism and Conservation PDF Author: Joseph E. Mbaiwa
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1839106077
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
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.

Conservation, Land Conflicts and Sustainable Tourism in Southern Africa

Conservation, Land Conflicts and Sustainable Tourism in Southern Africa PDF Author: Regis Musavengane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000585352
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
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.

Institutional Arrangements for Conservation, Development and Tourism in Eastern and Southern Africa

Institutional Arrangements for Conservation, Development and Tourism in Eastern and Southern Africa PDF Author: René van der Duim
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401795290
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This book presents an overview of different institutional arrangements for tourism, biodiversity conservation and rural poverty reduction in eastern and southern Africa. These approaches range from conservancies in Namibia, community-based organizations in Botswana, conservation enterprises in Kenya, private game reserves in South Africa, to sport hunting in Uganda and transfrontier conservation areas. The book presents a comparative analysis of these arrangements and highlights that most arrangements emerged in the 1990s through either a decentralized or centralized change trajectory that was sponsored by donors. They aim to address some of the challenges of the ‘fortress’ types of conservation by combining principles of community-based natural resource management with a neoliberal approach to conservation, evident in the use of tourism as the main mechanism for accruing benefits from wildlife. The book illustrates the empirical relevance of these novel arrangements by presenting their growth in numbers and discuss how these arrangements differ in their form. With respect to the conservation and development impacts of these arrangements, we show that they have secured large amounts of land for conservation, but also generated governance challenges and disputes on tourism benefit sharing, affecting the stability of these arrangements to generate socioeconomic and conservation benefits.