Research articleChanging perceptions of protected area benefits and problems around Kibale National Park, Uganda
Introduction
Conservation policies in East Africa, particularly those for national parks, have favoured the protectionist approach. This approach is viewed by many conservationists as the most effective means of biodiversity conservation (Chapman et al., 2016, Gray et al., 2016). However over the past four decades, the conservation narrative has evolved to recognize that poverty in communities near protected areas (PAs) may constrain conservation (Adams et al., 2004), and that communities near PAs disproportionally accrue the costs of conservation (MacKenzie, 2012a, Brockington and Wilkie, 2015). As a result, conservation policies have evolved, calling for benefits to incentivize local residents to support conservation while alleviating poverty (Brockington and Wilkie, 2015), partnering with stakeholders (Liberati et al., 2016), and providing payments for ecosystem services (Suich et al., 2015). Although PAs can exist without support from local communities (Holmes, 2013), compliance with PA regulations, conservation attitudes, and support for PA existence are enhanced if needs of local communities are met, if local communities benefits from conservation and tourism, if community members participate in PA decision-making, and if conservation strategies are adapted based upon perceptions of local people (Tessema et al., 2010, Allendorf et al., 2012, Andrade and Rhodes, 2012, Mutanga et al., 2015). Adopting this adaptive community-conservation strategy requires an on-going commitment to local engagement to understand the changing dynamics of local perceptions about the PA (Allendorf et al., 2012). In this paper we examine shifting local perceptions of benefits and problems associated with living next to a Ugandan national park from 2006 to 2012, and the associated implications for PA management.
Despite burgeoning efforts by conservation managers to manage landscapes for both biodiversity and human wellbeing, people perceive widespread negative effects of living near PAs (Sarker and Røskaft, 2011, Namukonde and Kachali, 2015). The creation of PAs can force the displacement of people, resulting in hardship and loss (Brockington and Igoe, 2006, Salerno et al., 2014), and restrictions on resource access can limit livelihood activities (West et al., 2006). Wildlife roam outside PA boundaries, damaging and eating crops, attacking livestock, and even maiming or killing local residents (Dickman et al., 2011, Sarker and Røskaft, 2011, Namukonde and Kachali, 2015). There can also be benefits to living next to a PA that may help offset the costs incurred, such as ecosystem services (Namukonde and Kachali, 2015, Suich et al., 2015) and tourism. Tourism is becoming a promising revenue source for many developing countries and may provide employment and marketing opportunities for communities near tourist destinations (Ferraro and Hanauer, 2014, Naidoo et al., 2016). Other PA benefits include payments for ecosystem services (Suich et al., 2015), sharing hunting and tourism revenues (Naidoo et al., 2016), negotiated access to PA resources (Sarker and Røskaft, 2011), employment as research assistants and planting trees for carbon sequestration (Dempsey and Suarez, 2016), and non-governmental organizational aid for schools, medical clinics and income generation projects (Chapman et al., 2015, MacKenzie et al., 2015).
The extent and magnitude of problems and benefits that PAs confer upon local communities vary (Brockington and Wilkie, 2015), with local geography and PA proximity contributing to varying perceptions of costs and benefits (MacKenzie, 2012a). Close proximity to park boundaries increases the likelihood of crop raiding and livestock predation (Salerno et al., 2016), yet closer proximity may afford greater access to employment or PA-associated services, and access to PA resources, officially sanctioned or not (MacKenzie et al., 2011, Baird, 2014). While conservation strategies typically account for changing forest ecology, wildlife populations, and biophysical conditions, far less consideration is given to changing perceptions of PA neighbors (Berkes, 2004, Allendorf et al., 2012).
The Ugandan Government has made remarkable steps to conserve biodiversity in a country where human population density is increasing at one of the fastest rates in the world (Hartter et al., 2015). Conservation policy in Uganda has evolved from pure protectionism to a PA-neighbor strategy. While the shift in strategy includes efforts to provide benefits to neighboring households, the increasing population densities, declining resource availability, and recovering wildlife populations of some species may serve to exacerbate existing tensions and outweigh benefits. It remains unclear how perceptions and experiences parallel shifts in conservation policy. To address this uncertainty, we combine three data sources to quantify changes in perceptions over time. Although not initially designed for temporal comparison, we compare data from three household surveys collected in 2006, 2009, and 2012 and triangulate that comparison with long-term data to understand the changing perceptions of local people about the benefits accrued and problems encountered as a result of living next to Kibale National Park (hereafter Kibale). We ask: (1) how are household perceptions of PA-based benefits and problems distributed over space, time, and household wealth categories? and (2) what factors are influencing the changing perceptions of benefits and problems? We discuss the implications of our findings for conservation management and how adaptive management at the people-PA interface must be incorporated into conservation planning.
Section snippets
Study site
Kibale (795 km2) is located in western Uganda (Fig. 1), and contains the highest primate density of all PAs in East Africa (UWA, 2015), and one of the highest in the world (Chapman et al., 2010a). It provides critical habitat to eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii), 12 additional primate species, elephants (Loxodonta africana), and a diversity of other species (Chapman and Lambert, 2000). The authority to manage PAs in Uganda belongs to Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) as
Benefits and problems of living near Kibale National Park
Across the three surveys (2006, 2009, 2012), the percentage of households claiming benefit from Kibale has decreased, while the percentage claiming problems has increased (Table 1). Some respondents claimed both benefits and problems from Kibale (2006 = 15%, 2009 = 25% & 2012 = 21%). The binary logistic model of perceiving benefit from Kibale is positively influenced by four of the specific benefits (PA-based employment, tourism, revenue sharing, and resource access), but not by ecosystem
Discussion
Perceptions of people living adjacent to PAs can greatly impact conservation outcomes. For example, decisions regarding illegally taking resources from PAs or supporting wildlife authorities to protect PAs can be informed by the problems faced, and benefits accrued by local residents (Arjunan et al., 2006, Andrade and Rhodes, 2012). Although Kibale is a relatively small forested PA, the challenges faced by conservation management and local residents in many ways exemplify the challenges in
Conclusions
Our findings provide evidence of decreasing perceived benefit and increasing perceived problems associated with the PA over time. However, both of these trends are dominated by increased human-wildlife conflict as a result of recovering elephant numbers. Although conservation policies to provide benefits to local communities, including PA-based employment, tourism development, revenue sharing, and resource access agreements, were effectively increasing the proportion of households claiming
Acknowledgements
Research permissions were given by the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, the Uganda Wildlife Authority, and local leadership around Kibale. We would like to thank our Ugandan assistants, and all survey participants. Funding for the 2006 survey was provided by the National Science Foundation (GRS 0352008). Funding for the 2009 survey was provided by the Theo L. Hills Memorial Fund and McGill Faculty of Science African Field Work Award. Funding for the 2012 survey was provided
References (58)
- et al.
Using residents' perceptions to improve park-people relationships in Chatthin Wildlife Sanctuary, Myanmar
J. Environ. Manag.
(2012) - et al.
Do developmental initiatives influence local attitudes toward conservation? a case study from Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, India
J. Environ. Manag.
(2006) - et al.
Adaptive management for ecosystem services
J. Environ. Manag.
(2016) - et al.
Tropical tree community shifts: implications for wildlife conservation
Biol. Conserv.
(2010) - et al.
Beyond protection: expanding “conservation opportunity” to redefine conservation planning in the 21st century
J. Environ. Manag.
(2016) Accruing benefit or loss from a protected area: location matters
Ecol. Econ.
(2012)Trenches like fences make good neighbours: revenue sharing around Kibale National Park, Uganda
J. Nat. Conserv.
(2012)- et al.
Elephants in the garden: financial and social costs of crop raiding
Ecol. Econ.
(2012) - et al.
Towards harmonious conservation relationships: a framework for understanding protected area staff-local community relationships in developing countries
J. Nat. Conserv.
(2015) - et al.
Population pressure and global markets drive a decade of forest cover change in Africa's Albertine Rift
Appl. Geogr.
(2017)
Ecosystem services and poverty alleviation: a review of the empirical links
Ecosyst. Serv.
Biodiversity conservation and the eradication of poverty
Science
Spatial analysis of tourism income distribution in the accommodation sector in western Uganda
Tour. Hosp. Res.
Protected areas and local communities: an inevitable partnership towards successful conservation strategies?
Ecol. Soc.
Conservation and unscripted development: proximity to park associated with development and financial diversity
Ecol. Soc.
Rethinking community-based conservation
Conserv. Biol.
Evictions for conservation: a global overview
Conserv. Soc.
Protected areas and poverty
Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci.
Poaching is more than an enforcement problem
Conserv. Lett.
Habitat alteration and the conservation of African primates: case study of Kibale National Park, Uganda
Am. J. Primatol.
Understanding long-term primate community dynamics: implications of forest change
Ecol. Appl.
Safeguarding biodiversity: what is perceived as working, according to the conservation community?
Oryx
Providing health care to improve community perceptions of protected areas
Oryx
Planning for sustainable ecotourism: the case for research tourism in developing country destinations
J. Sustain. Tour.
Arrested development? the promise and paradoxes of “selling nature to save it”
Ann. Am. Assoc. Geogr.
A review of financial instruments to pay for predator conservation and encourage human-carnivore coexistence
PNAS
Quantifying causal mechanisms to determine how protected areas affect poverty through changes in ecosystem services and infrastructure
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
Conservation outside of parks: attitudes of local people in Laikipia, Kenya
Environ. Conserv.
The human landscape around the island park: impacts and responses to Kibale National Park
Cited by (65)
Beyond conservation: Assessing broader development outcomes of protected areas in Nepal
2023, Journal of Environmental ManagementTowards equitable conservation: Social capital, fear and livestock loss shape perceived benefit from a protected area
2022, Journal of Environmental ManagementCitation Excerpt :Importantly, the appropriate involvement of local communities is a core component of just conservation in and around PAs (VUCETICH et al., 2018). Relationships between PAs and local communities, however, can be strained, especially if local people perceive excessive costs or insufficient benefits (THONDHLANA and CUNDILL, 2017; ALLENDORF et al., 2012; VON RUSCHKOWSKI, 2009; MACKENZIE et al., 2017). The balance of costs and benefits from nearby PAs can affect economic development and individual well-being (JACOBSEN et al., 2020; ZHANG et al., 2020), as well as the likelihood of local people adhering to PA rules and regulations (LEE et al., 2009; MBANZE et al., 2021).
Genetics and community-based restoration can guide conservation of forest fragments for endangered primates
2022, Perspectives in Ecology and ConservationThe complexity of the conservation-development nexus in Central African national parks and the perceptions of local populations
2022, Journal for Nature ConservationCitation Excerpt :Revenue-sharing and compensation schemes have started to be implemented in the last decades with mixed success (Ogra & Badola, 2008). Communities seem to have positive views (40.5%) on such projects and this could help to raise positive perceptions of conservation measures (McKenzie et al., 2017). We found that human-wildlife conflicts and revenue-sharing schemes have mixed outcomes as they are mentioned as reasons for both better and less well-off situations due to conservation measures.
Perceived benefits, burdens and effectiveness of a buffer zone programme in improving protected area-people relationships
2024, Environmental Conservation