Tourism, livelihoods and protected areas: opportunities for fair‐trade tourism in and around National parks

The development and implementation of ‘alternative livelihood projects’ by donor agencies and conservation organisations has become one of the most commonly‐applied management prescriptions to alleviate existing or potential conflicts between protected areas and local livelihoods. The use of these projects is a common feature of so‐called Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs). In most cases, the promotion of these initiatives are undertaken as extensions of protected area programmes and often take place in buffer zones. Examples of projects that seek to improve local livelihoods in and around protected areas are common, and many of them have a tourism component. However, the results of tourism components of ICDPs have often been disappointing with local people benefiting little from tourism revenues. Nevertheless, many national parks are major tourist attractions in rural, and often marginal, areas and do offer significant opportunities for indigenous enterprise development. People living in and around these protected areas often have high expectations of what tourism could offer them. Using data collected in the south east lowveld of Zimbabwe for the DFID Tourism, Conservation and Sustainable Development project an analysis of local people's expectations of tourism is presented. The survey covered nine villages and there are significant differences in the responses. Local people were asked about their experience of tourism and their aspirations, including their preferred ways of earning money from tourism. Finally an analysis of their perceptions of the barriers to their involvement in the industry is presented. The paper then addresses the ways in which a national park or conservancy might respond to these aspirations and seek to involve local people in tourism enabling them to secure all or part of their livelihood from tourism related employment or entrepreneurial activity. An analysis of the preferences of tourists surveyed in Gonarezhou about activities, which they would wish to participate in if they were available, is presented. The paper concludes with an analysis of the opportunities for the managers of state, communal or privately owned land to create and support opportunities for local people to participate in the tourism industry and to benefit from fairly traded tourism. These strategies include marketing and business development support, regulation and price management.