ABSTRACT
In this chapter we describe and discuss some of the innovations that are being tested in southern Africa. As the mandate of park agencies grows, outsourcing is a logical step, and we look at this in terms of tourism enterprises, the support of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and even the contracting of entire parks to the private sector. Second, we look at the contractual inclusion of other landholders into national parks. Third, although there has been surprisingly little experimentation or documentation of the development of management systems used to improve the performance of protected areas, we use two examples from Zambia to show how devolution and paying for services improve effectiveness. Fourth, we look at the potential role for parks as bridgeheads for better land use and engines for rural development. Instead of putting up the barricades, proactive and outward-looking parks can play a powerful role in changing economic and even governance systems in marginal rural areas. There are questions of whether rural development is a step too far beyond the park manager's core business, but this is countermanded by the argument that parks cannot survive as economic black holes disconnected from rural economies. The efforts by several countries to convert wildlife into a sustainable form of land use (see Chapters 3 and 4) have enabled the viability of this sector to be used to expand parks and their buffer zones. Parks are surprisingly well placed to take on this role, and we discuss its implications, as well as the emerging questions of whether parks should be locality focused, should promote a rural developmental role or even, and here we become sacrilegious, become primarily a development tool.
