The value of wildlife tourism: perspectives from sub-Saharan Africa

摘要

Various authors have used different categories to estimate the value of wildlife, e.g. direct and indirect use values, option values, ethical values, etc. In this paper, the authors address the value of wildlife-based tourism. With the development ofthe world tourism industry, the value of nature-oriented tourism is increasing on all continents, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The value of such tourism is often understood as the direct economic benefits that come from "the tourist dollar' andcontribute to the generation of income for the country and its inhabitants. However, there are other ways to value wildlife which are not sufficiently taken into account, i.e. the diverse benefits provided by ecosystem services, such as the ecological value of species to a healthy ecosystem, their nutritional value and cultural value, etc. Wildlife tourism in sub-Saharan Africa is largely supported by Protected Areas (PAs), with their broad range of different categories, which are clearly the backbone of the industry.One leg of wildlife tourism is the wildlife-viewing tourism in natural habitats. In sub-Saharan Africa, this type of tourism mainly occurs in PAs of the public domain, principally national parks (NPs). It also occurs at a few other locations, such as game ranches which are privately owned, or communal conservancies which are community-based, both found mainly in Southern Africa. With a few notable exceptions, a majority of NPs are struggling to fulfil their conservation mandate, due to a lack of financial and human resources for their management: very few of them attract enough tourists to cover their management costs. At present, most NPs require external funding to support their day-to-day running and achieve their conservation aims. This is nothingnew. Protected areas cannot be justified solely by their direct economic outputs; the entire range of benefits that they provide must be considered.The other leg of wildlife tourism is hunting tourism. This type of tourism mainly occurs in publicly owned PAs, which are officially gazetted and earmarked as hunting areas (HAs) under various names (e.g. game reserves, hunting blocks, Coutadas, Zones deChasse, Domaines de Chasse, etc.). In a few Southern African countries, hunting tourism is also carried out on private and communal land. These HAs, overall much bigger than NPs, often act as buffer zones around and ecological corridors between NPs. They are usually privately managed and financed and thus their contribution helps to reduce the financial burden on the government, of conserving and managing its biodiversity assets in these areas. Government budgets for conservation are often under-resourced, being low on the list ofnational development priorities. Thus, improved professionalism and efficiency in the hunting tourism industry could substantially increase the ability to conserve huge tracts of natural habitat, with all of their biodiversity and ecosystems services, while increasing economic benefits to the local people and Government.However, most PAs are under threat from humans, caused by growing populations and their increasing need for land and natural resources. In developing countries, concerned with food security and poverty alleviation, poaching is a widespread threat to PAs.The often massive quantity of bushmeat taken from both inside and outside PAs represents a kind of 'hidden' value, since it is largely unknown, overlooked and often illegal. When this direct consumption of game for food becomes unsustainable, due to over-harvesting the resource, its value becomes negative and counter-productive to wildlife tourism. Agriculture encroachment is a severe threat to PAs because it is converting natural habitats, destroying biodiversity and compromising ecosystem services. Pastoral encroachment is a relatively new threat to NPs and HAs, and this issue is often neglected in management schemes although it is happening more frequently. The two different types of PAs