How can local communities continue to benefit from wildlife if neither tourism nor trophy hunting is a viable option? Over the past 30 years, tourism has funded conservation activities in many countries, especially in the wildlife-rich countries in Africa. Photographic tourism and trophy hunting have provided significant benefits to rural communities that share their land with wildlife.
However, all forms of tourism are highly vulnerable to social, economic or political instability and changes in the international market. The shock to the tourism sector caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the vulnerability of a conservation model based primarily on tourism.
To prepare for a future in which communities might no longer be able to derive benefits from tourism, several partners seek to identify, incubate and promote innovative ways of providing communities with income from wildlife, while managing their natural resources sustainably and improving their collective wellbeing.
For this initiative, the Luc Hoffmann Institute partnered with the World Wide Fund for Nature and the African Leadership University's School of Wildlife Conservation.
What is wildlife worth?
Travel Africa, Jan-Mar 2021 feature mentioning the innovation challenge.
In the face of a global pandemic, how can conservation efforts reduce the chance that poaching will spread disease?
Oct 2020 feature story in Ensia
Beyond tourism: A call for business ideas that protect African wildlife, ecosystems
September 2020 feature story in Mongabay.
Looking beyond hunting and tourism for community benefits
A thought piece by Melissa de Kock, WWF-Norway Senior Advisor: Conservation, Climate and Communities.
Diversifying local livelihoods while sustaining wildlife
A review of 130 business models that provide some form of income to rural communities from wildlife and other natural resources and its associated inventory of incentives for community-based conservation
