Impacts of Wildlife Tourism on Rural Livelihoods in Southern Africa - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 156

Conclusion
Research on the economic impacts of wildlife tourism is patchy across southern
Africa: in terms of geographical location, number of studies and the type of infor-
mation that is reported.The benefits accrued by employees and host communities
vary widely, depending on the institutional structures, partnership arrangements,
business viability of a particular venture, the indigenous wildlife and location.
Also, the policy framework and political environment heavily influence the struc-
ture and delivery of community-based natural resource management,
community-based tourism and joint-venture activities. These factors make
comparisons between regions difficult, and also complicate the extraction of
sound recommendations.
Wildlife that directly contributes to livelihoods is most important to the poor,
and is the main determinant of people's attitude towards wildlife. The more liveli-
hood benefits that are obtained (or the higher the user value), the more widely
wildlife is appreciated. If wildlife does not generate benefits or the benefits do not
reach the rural population (for example, due to a skewed distribution of the direct
use value), people are unlikely to appreciate and conserve it (Arntzen, 2003).
Emerton (2004) argues that the livelihood benefits from wildlife tourism are not
always sufficient to make up for the costs of living with wildlife, and that both the
costs and benefits are unequally distributed.Therefore, generating broad develop-
ment benefits does not ensure that wildlife will produce net local economic gains,
and it is not the same as providing economic incentives for conservation. Local
people often suffer costs from living with wildlife and close to protected areas, due
to crop-raiding, damage to infrastructure and even danger to their personal safety.
Therefore, when people can generate benefits from wildlife tourism - for
example, through community levies, revenue sharing or employment - this can
lead to more positive attitudes (Lindberg et al, 2003).
Therefore it is clear that a business model approach should be adopted
wherever possible, to ensure that tourism enterprises are commercially viable, and
individuals perceive benefit. Maximizing opportunities for local employment and
training, promoting local ownership or equity in enterprises, enhancing local
procurement of goods and services to support tourism, conserving viable popula-
tions of wildlife, promoting good governance and decision making structures, are
all factors that can improve the net benefits accrued by host communities. Also,
more systematic and standardized evaluations of wildlife tourism, and dissemina-
tion of their findings, would make the positive and negative impacts of this activity
more widely understood, and would allow future initiatives to learn from prior
experiences.