Contribution of tourism development to protected area management: local stakeholder perspectives

Ecotourism in protected areas plays an important role in establishing mutually beneficial relationships among local people, the protected area, and tourism that are essential in protected area management. However, to properly manage protected areas, local people should be major stakeholders in order to maximize local economic benefits and obtain support for conservation efforts. This study assesses the current status of local people's economic participation in tourism in the Wolong Nature Reserve using a questionnaire survey. Through evaluation of geographic origin, income, and occupational distribution of operators engaged in tourism-related business, we identified and discussed constraints and opportunities for economic participation of local people. Economic inequity was found among local people, as well as between locals and non-locals, due to limited startup capital and operational skills. At present, only a small percentage of local people receive revenue directly from tourism. In addition, economic leakage and local dependence on natural resources still exist in the study area. To promote ecotourism and sustainable development, the relationships among tourism, local people, and biodiversity conservation in the study area must be strengthened. According to the findings, some suggestions are offered to protected area managers to foster better relationships.     

Mapping opportunities and challenges for rewilding in Europe

Farmland abandonment takes place across the world due to socio‐economic and ecological drivers. In Europe agricultural and environmental policies aim to prevent abandonment and halt ecological succession. Ecological rewilding has been recently proposed as an alternative strategy. We developed a framework to assess opportunities for rewilding across different dimensions of wilderness in Europe. We mapped artificial light, human accessibility based on transport infrastructure, proportion of harvested primary productivity (i.e., ecosystem productivity appropriated by humans through agriculture or forestry), and deviation from potential natural vegetation in areas projected to be abandoned by 2040. At the continental level, the levels of artificial light were low and the deviation from potential natural vegetation was high in areas of abandonment. The relative importance of wilderness metrics differed regionally and was strongly connected to local environmental and socio‐economic contexts. Large areas of projected abandonment were often located in or around Natura 2000 sites. Based on these results, we argue that management should be tailored to restore the aspects of wilderness that are lacking in each region. There are many remaining challenges regarding biodiversity in Europe, but megafauna species are already recovering. To further potentiate large‐scale rewilding, Natura 2000 management would need to incorporate rewilding approaches. Our framework can be applied to assessing rewilding opportunities and challenges in other world regions, and our results could guide redirection of subsidies to manage social‐ecological systems.     

Pricing Policy for Tourism in Protected Areas: Lessons from Komodo National Park, Indonesia

Abstract: 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 from 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.     

Trophy hunters’ willingness to pay for wildlife conservation and community benefits

In the face of fundamental land‐use changes, the potential for trophy hunting to contribute to conservation is increasingly recognized. Trophy hunting can, for example, provide economic incentives to protect wildlife populations and their habitat, but empirical studies on these relationships are few and tend to focus on the effects of benefit‐sharing schemes from an ex post perspective. We investigated the conditions under which trophy hunting could facilitate wildlife conservation in Ethiopia ex ante. We used a choice experiment approach to survey international trophy hunters’ (n = 224) preferences for trips to Ethiopia, here operationalized as trade‐offs between different attributes of a hunting package, as expressed through choices with an associated willingness to pay. Participants expressed strong preferences and, consequently, were willing to pay substantial premiums for hunting trips to areas with abundant nontarget wildlife where domestic livestock was absent and for arrangements that offered benefit sharing with local communities. For example, within the range of percentages considered in the survey, respondents were on average willing to pay an additional $3900 for every 10 percentage points of the revenue being given to local communities. By contrast, respondents were less supportive of hunting revenue being retained by governmental bodies: Willingness to pay decreased by $1900 for every 10 percentage points of the revenue given to government. Hunters’ preferences for such attributes of hunting trips differed depending on the degree to which they declared an interest in Ethiopian culture, nature conservation, or believed Ethiopia to be politically unstable. Overall, respondents thus expressly valued the outcomes of nature conservation activities—the presence of wildlife in hunting areas—and they were willing to pay for them. Our findings highlight the usefulness of insights from choice modeling for the design of wildlife management and conservation policies and suggest that trophy hunting in Ethiopia could generate substantially more financial support for conservation and be more in line with conservation objectives than is currently the case.     

Analytical Solutions to Trade‐Offs between Size of Protected Areas and Land‐Use Intensity

Abstract: Land‐use change is affecting Earth's capacity to support both wild species and a growing human population. The question is how best to manage landscapes for both species conservation and economic output. If large areas are protected to conserve species richness, then the unprotected areas must be used more intensively. Likewise, low‐intensity use leaves less area protected but may allow wild species to persist in areas that are used for market purposes. This dilemma is present in policy debates on agriculture, housing, and forestry. Our goal was to develop a theoretical model to evaluate which land‐use strategy maximizes economic output while maintaining species richness. Our theoretical model extends previous analytical models by allowing land‐use intensity on unprotected land to influence species richness in protected areas. We devised general models in which species richness (with modified species‐area curves) and economic output (a Cobb–Douglas production function) are a function of land‐use intensity and the proportion of land protected. Economic output increased as land‐use intensity and extent increased, and species richness responded to increased intensity either negatively or following the intermediate disturbance hypothesis. We solved the model analytically to identify the combination of land‐use intensity and protected area that provided the maximum amount of economic output, given a target level of species richness. The land‐use strategy that maximized economic output while maintaining species richness depended jointly on the response of species richness to land‐use intensity and protection and the effect of land use outside protected areas on species richness within protected areas. Regardless of the land‐use strategy, species richness tended to respond to changing land‐use intensity and extent in a highly nonlinear fashion.     

Considering the needs of indigenous and local populations in conservation programs

Local rural and indigenous communities have assumed increasing responsibility for conservation within and between areas buffering the impacts of agricultural or resource‐extraction zones and protected areas. Empowering local communities as central partners in conservation and climate‐change mitigation has allowed many people to gain access to land and citizenship rights but has provided limited improvements in access to social services and economic opportunities even as expectation about their role as environmental stewards grows. These expectations, however, are inconsistent with reality. We conducted multiple field studies in Brazil since the mid‐1980s to illustrate the discrepancies between conservation programs and local conditions and expectations. We suggest that public policies and conservation programs should not delegate responsibility for managing protected areas to local and indigenous communities without considering local needs and expectations and locals’ attitudes toward conservation. In other words, behavior that maintains or improves the environment should not be treated as traditional based on the expectations of outsiders. Framing local populations as traditional environmentalists creates contradictions and frustrations for local populations and for conservation professionals and policy makers.     

Traditional Ecological Knowledge Trends in the Transition to a Market Economy: Empirical Study in the Doñana Natural Areas

Abstract: Researchers and conservation managers largely agree on the relevance of traditional ecological knowledge for natural resource management in indigenous communities, but its prevalence and role as societies modernize are contested. We analyzed the transmission of traditional knowledge among rural local people in communities linked to protected areas in Doñana, southwestern Spain. We studied changes in knowledge related to local practices in agriculture and livestock farming among 198 informants from three generations that cover the period in which the area transited from an economy strongly dependent on local ecosystem services to a market economy with intensified production systems. Our results suggest an abrupt loss of traditional agricultural knowledge related to rapid transformations and intensification of agricultural systems, but maintenance of knowledge of traditional livestock farming, an activity allowed in the protected areas that maintains strong links with local cultural identity. Our results demonstrate the potential of protected areas in protecting remaining bodies of traditional ecological knowledge in developed country settings. Nevertheless, we note that strict protection in cultural‐landscape‐dominated areas can disrupt transmission of traditional knowledge if local resource users and related practices are excluded from ecosystem management.     

Threats to intact tropical peatlands and opportunities for their conservation

Large, intact areas of tropical peatland are highly threatened at a global scale by the expansion of commercial agriculture and other forms of economic development. Conserving peatlands on a landscape scale, with their hydrology intact, is of international conservation importance to preserve their distinctive biodiversity and ecosystem services and maintain their resilience to future environmental change. We explored threats to and opportunities for conserving remaining intact tropical peatlands; thus, we excluded peatlands of Indonesia and Malaysia, where extensive deforestation, drainage, and conversion to plantations means conservation in this region can protect only small fragments of the original ecosystem. We focused on a case study, the Pastaza‐Marañón Foreland Basin (PMFB) in Peru, which is among the largest known intact tropical peatland landscapes in the world and is representative of peatland vulnerability. Maintenance of the hydrological conditions critical for carbon storage and ecosystem function of peatlands is, in the PMFB, primarily threatened by expansion of commercial agriculture linked to new transport infrastructure that is facilitating access to remote areas. There remain opportunities in the PMFB and elsewhere to develop alternative, more sustainable land‐use practices. Although some of the peatlands in the PMFB fall within existing legally protected areas, this protection does not include the most carbon‐dense (domed pole forest) areas. New carbon‐based conservation instruments (e.g., REDD+, Green Climate Fund), developing markets for sustainable peatland products, transferring land title to local communities, and expanding protected areas offer pathways to increased protection for intact tropical peatlands in Amazonia and elsewhere, such as those in New Guinea and Central Africa which remain, for the moment, broadly beyond the frontier of commercial development.     

Effectiveness of terrestrial protected areas for conservation of lake fish communities

Freshwater protected areas are rare even though freshwater ecosystems are among the most imperiled in the world. Conservation actions within terrestrial protected areas (TPAs) such as development or resource extraction regulations may spill over to benefit freshwater ecosystems within their boundaries. Using data from 175 lakes across Ontario, Canada, we compared common indicators of fish‐assemblage status (i.e., species richness, Shannon diversity index, catch per unit effort, and normalized‐length size spectrum slopes) to evaluate whether TPAs benefit lake fish assemblages. Nearest neighbor cluster analysis was used to generate pairs of lakes: inside versus outside, inside versus bordering, and bordering versus outside TPAs based on lake characteristics. The diversity and abundance indicators did not differ significantly across comparisons, but normalized‐length size spectrum slopes (NLSS) were significantly steeper in lakes outside parks. The latter indicated assemblage differences (greater abundances of small‐bodied species) and less‐efficient energy transfer through the trophic levels of assemblages outside parks. Although not significantly different, pollution‐ and turbidity‐tolerant species were more abundant outside parks, whereas 3 of the 4 pollution‐intolerant species were more abundant within parks. Twenty‐one percent of the difference in slopes was related to higher total dissolved solids concentrations and angling pressure. Our results support the hypothesis that TPAs benefit lake fish assemblages and suggest that NLSS slopes are informative indicators for aquatic protected area evaluations because they represent compositional and functional aspects of communities.     

Rethinking the Effectiveness of Public Protected Areas in Southwestern China

Abstract:  It is internationally recognized that conservation policies should respect indigenous cultures and consider the livelihoods of people affected by conservation restrictions. Countering this are concerns that human occupation and use of natural reserves is incompatible with conservation aims. But in China today the continued use and management of natural areas by local communities is likely to deliver better conservation outcomes than the current drive to establish public protected areas. The effectiveness of many protected areas in China is compromised by institutional conflicts, lack of ongoing financial and technical support, confusion between the objectives of generating revenue and conservation, dubious scientific definitions, lack of community trust in policies, and obscure user rights and land tenures. Southwestern China—one of the most biologically and ethnologically diverse areas on Earth—is a good illustration of a place where culture and biological diversity are closely linked. The indigenous people in this area have shown that local livelihood practices can be advantageous for the long-term maintenance of conservation goals. Rather than creating new protected areas, we argue that China is better advised to support ongoing sustainable use of natural areas by the people who have lived and nurtured these environments for generations .     

Insights for Integrated Conservation from Attitudes of People toward Protected Areas Near Hwange National Park,Zimbabwe

Increase in human settlements at the edge of protected areas (PAs) is perceived as a major threat to conservation of biodiversity. Although it is crucial to integrate the interests of surrounding communities into PA management, key drivers of changes in local populations and the effects of conservation on local livelihoods and perceptions remain poorly understood. We assessed population changes from 1990 to 2010 in 9 villages located between 2 PAs with different management policies (access to natural resources or not). We conducted semi‐directive interviews at the household level (n =217) to document reasons for settlement in the area and villager's attitudes toward the PAs. We examined drivers of these attitudes relative to household typology, feelings about conservation, and concerns for the future with mixed linear models. Population increased by 61% from 2000 to 2010, a period of political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe. Forty‐seven percent of immigrants were attracted by the area; others had been resettled from other villages or were returning to family lands. Attitudes toward PAs were generally positive, but immigrants attracted by the area and who used resources within the PA with fewer restrictions expressed more negative attitudes toward PAs. Household location, losses due to wild animals, and restrictions on access to natural resources were the main drivers of this negative attitude. Profit‐seeking migrants did not expect these constraints and were particularly concerned with local overpopulation and access to natural resources. To avoid socio‐ecological traps near PAs (i.e., unforeseen reduced adaptive capacity) integrated conservation should address mismatches between management policy and local expectations. This requires accounting for endogenous processes, for example, local socio‐ecological dynamics and values that shape the coexistence between humans and wildlife. Percepciones para Conservación Integrada a Partir de las Actitudes de las Personas hacia Áreas Protegidas cerca del Parque Nacional Hwangem Zimbabwe     

Transboundary conservation: Development implications for communities in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Conservation is increasingly promoted as a sustainable development instrument in Southern Africa, particularly for remote rural communities. Conservation and development schemes are marketed as community-based projects providing local empowerment through the creation of jobs and cash stemming from protected areas, as well as increased biodiversity protection by local communities whose jobs are dependent on the resource. Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs), mega Peace Parks that cross international borders, are one of the latest conservation and development paradigms in Southern Africa. TFCAs have gained broad support, including government recognition as a development tool. However, there has been minimal research on the impact of TFCAs on local communities. This paper seeks to provide an empirical case study of a South African community bordering the Lubombo TFCA (South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique). Results are presented that indicate the Mbangweni community in KwaZulu-Natal could experience decreased access to social, natural, and economic resources as a result of the Peace Park.     

What affects perceptions of local residents toward protected areas? A case study from Kure Mountains National Park,Turkey

Local residents’ active participation is essential in protected areas to ensure achievement of conservation goals. One of the important steps for ensuring the active participation of local residents is to determine the perceptions and the factors that influence the perceptions of the local residents toward the protected area. In this context, the researchers of this study try to come up with the perception formed among the local residents toward the protected areas and especially toward Kure Mountains National Park (KMNP), the factors that would influence their perceptions and the ways how their perceptions are influenced. Multivariate linear regression was used to examine the putative influence of variables on perceptions toward protected areas. According to study results, the survey respondents have displayed a positive perception toward the protected areas in the world and in KMNP. It was determined that the respondents formed a positive perception from their economic, environmental and recreational interaction with KMNP. Also, the outcomes of this study showed that the perception developed by local residents toward the protected areas in the world and KMNP are influenced by gender, the level of satisfaction derived from the national park, duration of their residence in the national park, and that the perception that KMNP conservation are beneficial for the source values of the area, the current protection works in the world, as well as its impacts on their living conditions.     

Effects of national forest‐management regimes on unprotected forests of the Himalaya

Globally, deforestation continues, and although protected areas effectively protect forests, the majority of forests are not in protected areas. Thus, how effective are different management regimes to avoid deforestation in non‐protected forests? We sought to assess the effectiveness of different national forest‐management regimes to safeguard forests outside protected areas. We compared 2000–2014 deforestation rates across the temperate forests of 5 countries in the Himalaya (Bhutan, Nepal, China, India, and Myanmar) of which 13% are protected. We reviewed the literature to characterize forest management regimes in each country and conducted a quasi‐experimental analysis to measure differences in deforestation of unprotected forests among countries and states in India. Countries varied in both overarching forest‐management goals and specific tenure arrangements and policies for unprotected forests, from policies emphasizing economic development to those focused on forest conservation. Deforestation rates differed up to 1.4% between countries, even after accounting for local determinants of deforestation, such as human population density, market access, and topography. The highest deforestation rates were associated with forest policies aimed at maximizing profits and unstable tenure regimes. Deforestation in national forest‐management regimes that emphasized conservation and community management were relatively low. In India results were consistent with the national‐level results. We interpreted our results in the context of the broader literature on decentralized, community‐based natural resource management, and our findings emphasize that the type and quality of community‐based forestry programs and the degree to which they are oriented toward sustainable use rather than economic development are important for forest protection. Our cross‐national results are consistent with results from site‐ and regional‐scale studies that show forest‐management regimes that ensure stable land tenure and integrate local‐livelihood benefits with forest conservation result in the best forest outcomes.     

The Human Dimension in Conservation Biology Curricula in Developing Countries

The social sciences and humanities are essentially absent from most conservation biology or wildlife management courses in the developing world. This is a critical shortcoming because of human dependence on natural resources within protected areas and the escalating conflicts between humans and wildlife and between local communities and state agencies over access to resources. We call for increased input from the social sciences and the humanities in conservation biology and wildlife management curricula in the developing world. We suggest some materials and methods that should ideally be a part of such curricula.     

Positioning human heritage at the center of conservation practice

Conservation projects subscribing to a community-based paradigm have predominated in the 21st century. We examined the context in which the phrase was coined and traced its growth over time. Community-based conservation first appeared in the literature in the early 1990s; but grew little until after the 5th World Parks Congress in 2003. Thereafter, publications describing community-based conservation approaches increased exponentially. The conference theme was Benefits Beyond Boundaries, and its goal was to provide an economic model based on revenue accrued from conservation fundraising and ecotourism to support ecosystems, wildlife, and people, particularly in the Global South. Such models tended not to incorporate, as a core principle, the heritage of local human communities. Human heritage varies substantially over time and space making generalization of conservation principles across scales challenging. Pitfalls that have grown out of the community-based conservation approaches in the Global South include fortress conservation, conservation militarism, consumptive and nonconsumptive ecotourism, and whiz-bang solutions. We propose 10 tenets in a human heritage-centered conservation framework (e.g., engage in conservation practices using local languages, thoughtfully propose and apply solutions consistent with human heritage, provide clear professional development pathways for individuals from local communities, and promote alternative revenue-generating programs centered in local communities, among others). Progressive philosophies can derive from authentic and ethical integration of local communities in conservation practice.     

Countering resistance to protected‐area extension

The establishment of protected areas is a critical strategy for conserving biodiversity. Key policy directives like the Aichi targets seek to expand protected areas to 17% of Earth's land surface, with calls by some conservation biologists for much more. However, in places such as the United States, Germany, and Australia, attempts to increase protected areas are meeting strong resistance from communities, industry groups, and governments. We examined case studies of such resistance in Victoria, Australia, Bavaria, Germany, and Florida, United States. We considered 4 ways to tackle this problem. First, broaden the case for protected areas beyond nature conservation to include economic, human health, and other benefits, and translate these into a persuasive business case for protected areas. Second, better communicate the conservation values of protected areas. This should include highlighting how many species, communities, and ecosystems have been conserved by protected areas and the counterfactual (i.e., what would have been lost without protected area establishment). Third, consider zoning of activities to ensure the maintenance of effective management. Finally, remind citizens to think about conservation when they vote, including holding politicians accountable for their environmental promises. Without tackling resistance to expanding the protected estate, it will be impossible to reach conservation targets, and this will undermine attempts to stem the global extinction crisis.     

Systematic Temporal Patterns in the Relationship Between Housing Development and Forest Bird Biodiversity

As people encroach increasingly on natural areas, one question is how this affects avian biodiversity. The answer to this is partly scale‐dependent. At broad scales, human populations and biodiversity concentrate in the same areas and are positively associated, but at local scales people and biodiversity are negatively associated with biodiversity. We investigated whether there is also a systematic temporal trend in the relationship between bird biodiversity and housing development. We used linear regression to examine associations between forest bird species richness and housing growth in the conterminous United States over 30 years. Our data sources were the North American Breeding Bird Survey and the 2000 decennial U.S. Census. In the 9 largest forested ecoregions, housing density increased continually over time. Across the conterminous United States, the association between bird species richness and housing density was positive for virtually all guilds except ground nesting birds. We found a systematic trajectory of declining bird species richness as housing increased through time. In more recently developed ecoregions, where housing density was still low, the association with bird species richness was neutral or positive. In ecoregions that were developed earlier and where housing density was highest, the association of housing density with bird species richness for most guilds was negative and grew stronger with advancing decades. We propose that in general the relationship between human settlement and biodiversity over time unfolds as a 2‐phase process. The first phase is apparently innocuous; associations are positive due to coincidence of low‐density housing with high biodiversity. The second phase is highly detrimental to biodiversity, and increases in housing density are associated with biodiversity losses. The long‐term effect on biodiversity depends on the final housing density. This general pattern can help unify our understanding of the relationship of human encroachment and biodiversity response. Patrones Sistemáticos Temporales en la Relación entre Desarrollos Urbanos y la Biodiversidad de Aves de Bosque