A study on the dilemmas of resource utilization and tourism in Africa

This paper explores,explains and discusses issues around the dilemma between local conservation of natural resources(often,endangered species and habitats)and tourism needs in Africa.Often and in constitutional terms,local people have a right to exploit and use resources endowed in their local area.However,tourists often are interested in viewing the vegetation and animal resources undisturbed.Inevitably,there is an undeclared animosity of values and interests between local communities and tourists and state agencies.As a result,the dilemma is thus of governance.The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the governance dilemma of resource utilization and tourism in Africa in a bid to create an informed stewardship framework for sustainability.This is achieved by way of case studies and narratives from Africa.As such,this paper will be a review literature on how different communities perceive tourism and derive livelihoods from their immediate environment.It also explains how the external factors influence local needs and interests.A more sustainable and operational framework that reduces friction among stakeholders is suggested.     

Throughflow analysis: A stochastic approach

Ecological network analysis (ENA), predicated on systems theory and Leontiev input–output analysis, is a method widely used in ecology to reveal ecosystem properties. An important ecosystem property computed in ENA is throughflows, the amount of matter/energy leaving each compartment of the ecosystem. Throughflows are analyzed via a matrix representing their relationships to the driving input at the boundary. Network particle tracking (NPT) builds on ENA to offer a Lagrangian particle method that describes the activity of the ecosystem at the microscopic level. This paper introduces a Lagrangian throughflow analysis methodology using NPT and shows that the NPT throughflow matrix, , agrees with the conventional ENA throughflow matrix, , for ecosystems at steady-state with donor-controlled flows. The matrix is computed solely from the pathways (particles’ histories) generated by NPT simulations and its average over multiple runs of the algorithm with longer simulation time agrees with the Eulerian matrix (Law of Large Numbers). While the traditional NEA throughflow analysis is mostly used with steady-state ecosystem models, the Lagrangian throughflow analysis that we propose can be used with non-steady-state models and paves the way for the development of dynamic throughflow analysis.