Impacts of Wildlife Tourism on Rural Livelihoods in Southern Africa - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 135

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Impacts of Wildlife Tourism on Rural
Livelihoods in Southern Africa

Anna Spenceley

Introduction

Background to the paper
'Wildlife tourism' is defined as a form of nature-based tourism that includes the
consumptive and non-consumptive use of wild animals in natural areas (Roe et al,
1997). Non-consumptive wildlife tourism may be undertaken through guided or
self-drive excursions in vehicles, or through guided walks, where wildlife is not
physically killed. Wildlife tourism becomes consumptive when wildlife is killed,
which usually takes place during hunting tourism.
Table 7.1 summarizes the national statistics for nature-tourism in five south-
ern African countries: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The data indicate that in 2000-2001 South Africa had the greatest number of
nature-based tourists, and highest income from nature-tourism in southern
Africa.The data also illustrate that Namibia generates the highest average income,
per nature-tourist in the region (~US$688 per arrival) (Scholes and Biggs, 2004).
Tourism can have many different types of impact on poor people's liveli-
hoods, and the relative importance of these varies enormously from place to
place. Broadly, impacts can be categorized as follows (Ashley and Elliott, 2003):

• financial, where the poor may earn cash from (i) waged jobs, (ii) sales of

goods and services by entrepreneurs or informal sector traders, (iii) shares of
collective community income;