Wildlife paying its way?

For several decades, the conservation community has sought ways to transform the burden that wildlife represents to rural livelihoods into a benefit, particularly in areas where humans and wildlife come into conflict. Rural communities across Africa have witnessed the proliferation of community-based models of conservation – models intended to ensure that protected areas and species yield an economic return for local people in particular and the wider economy in general (Adams and Hulme 2001). Unlike those former protectionist strategies that have often been termed ‘fortress conservation’ (Brockington 2002), community conservation is based, in theory, on local participation and partnership. The model predicts that if communities are given management responsibility over their local natural resources and obtain economic benefits that exceed the costs of management, they will be encouraged to use these resources sustainably, so that both conservation and development goals can be met.