1.Front section - IUCN

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Friends for Life: New partners in support of protected areas
Craft shop in Maasai village, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania.
© Paul F.J.Eagles
biological, cultural, religious and political – and
provide incentives to support indigenous people’s
traditional customs and values; protect and respect
sacred sites; and enhance the legitimacy of traditional
knowledge. The tourism industry is therefore a critical
component in fostering global support for heritage
conservation, poverty alleviation and community
well-being.
On the other hand, if poorly planned and managed,
the ecological, social and cultural consequences of
tourism can be considerable. Tourism development
that does not aspire to the goals of sustainable
development can contribute to the deterioration of
cultural landscapes, threaten biodiversity, contribute
to pollution and degradation of ecosystems, displace
agricultural land and open spaces, diminish water and
energy resources, and drive poverty deeper into local
communities.
Providing financial support for protected
areas
While national and local governments worldwide
provide the base funding for protected areas, in recent
times, many governments have reduced their funding
support. Tourism is frequently viewed as an alternate
and supplementary source of funding. Income from
visitation and tourism in protected areas can be
generated through donations, entrance and user fees,
levies, concession fees and licences, taxes on retail
purchases by visitors and increased general tax
revenues from economic activity associated with
tourism. Natural resource management agencies can
run their own tourism operations, collecting fees for
entrance, guided tours, camping, accommodation,
sales in shops and cafes. They may also sell licences
and permits to tour companies or contractors to
provide any of these visitor services; provide longterm
leases to tourism operators who develop
infrastructure within protected areas, or have a range
of partnerships, such as public-private transboundary
conserved areas; or private funding of full-time park
staff to run visitor services. The other model that is
increasingly common is private reserves that use
tourism to fund conservation activities on private land.
Private safari parks in Africa, for example, often have
a strong conservation mandate.
Unfortunately, the environmental costs of tourism
development are typically externalized by operators
and visitors wanting access to the resource, and often
place unreasonable expectations on park agencies or
are unaware of the primacy and high cost of
conservation in these places and complain when asked
to make modest financial contributions.
The need for external funding creates pressure for
higher visitation and the granting of more concessions
and licences. This demand raises a number of issues,
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