The Economics of Tourism, and Wildlife Conservation in Africa

Wildlife tourism can generate significant profits. It has long been a major foreign exchangeearner for many African governments through the revenues accruing from state-ownedprotected areas and national park networks. In recent years the participation of the privatesector in wildlife tourism, and its incidence on private and communal lands in Africa has alsoincreased rapidly.Much of the wildlife in east and southern Africa lies on private and communal lands and itssurvival or destruction depends on the activities of these landholders. Wildlife tourism iscommonly seen as a mechanism for providing incentives to landholders in wildlife areas toconserve wildlife - by creating a demand for wild animals and generating cash revenues itmakes wildlife into a resource that it is in the economic interests of landholders to conserve. Itis also seen as a way of increasing income for the residents of wildlife areas who have fewalternative income-earning opportunities. Simultaneously, a range of factors discriminateagainst wildlife tourism as a profitable land use, including wider policy and legislation in thewildlife sector and other areas of the economy, the mechanisms through which wildlife tourismis implemented and tourism benefits distributed, and the availability of support to wildlifeenterprise development - also have an important influence on whether landholders decide toengage in wildlife tourism.We look at the economics of wildlife tourism for landholders in Africa. We argue thatconventional models of the financial returns to alternative land uses present an overlysimplistic view of the profitability of wildlife tourism. We outline how landholders'participation in wildlife tourism depends on a wide range of factors including the returns ofwildlife tourism compared to agriculture or livestock ranching, the proportion of wildlifetourism revenues which actually accrue to them and on-going trends in land tenure, land useand livelihood patterns which impact on wildlife and their habitat.