Community involvement and tourism revenue sharing as contributing factors to the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Jozani–Chwaka Bay National Park and Biosphere Reserve, Zanzibar

Abstract

Communities surrounding protected areas (PAs) in developing countries bear disproportionate costs of nature conservation, challenging PA managers to apply participatory approaches, deliver benefits and provide alternative livelihoods. This analysis explores in-depth the roles that nature-based tourism can play in this context. Revenues from visitors to Jozani–Chwaka Bay National Park (NP) in Zanzibar are shared equally between regional government and local communities, enabling PA operations, and providing both individual and collective benefits to residents of the larger UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (BR) surrounding the NP. Findings indicate that the structures and processes qualify as good governance. Locals identified many tangible and intangible benefits from the PA to their communities, ranging from direct employment, social capital development to ecosystem services. Nature conservation, mainly through shared tourism revenues, contributes to all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in multiple ways. Benefit sharing mitigated land use conflicts, increased residents’ acceptance of nature conservation and reduced pressures on ecosystems. The study demonstrates the complexity of revenue sharing arrangements necessary for success, and how to harness sustainable tourism, providing benefits beyond the generation of revenues in which community involvement and the institutional interplay between NP and BR governing stakeholders are key factors.

keywords:

• Tourism revenue sharing
• SDGs
• biosphere reserve
• national park
• community involvement
• Tanzania
• Zanzibar

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar, especially DFNR and Zanzibar Research Committee, for permitting this research and to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for the grant received. We thank all key informants for frankly sharing their insights and all facilitators of the field work, in particular Ali Ali Mwinyi, Mgeni Sheha Ali, Tahir Abass Haji and Mzee Khamis Mohammed. Finally, we thank the reviewers for their constructive critiques of an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Interbank exchange rate of OANDA currency converter (https://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/) as of 1 July 2018.

2 Based on own field observations, one can estimate that >95% of visitors stay within the less ecologically sensitive 1 km² around the entrance of the NP which is generally only accessible on foot.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Florian Carius

Florian Carius heads the Communications and Research Department of the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park and Biosphere Reserve Authority, Germany. He lectures on tourism policy and nature-based tourism and previously worked as scientist and advisor on protected area management and governance in German development cooperation.

Hubert Job

Hubert Job is a professor of geography and holds the chair for geography and regional science, University of Würzburg, Germany. His main areas of scientific research are protected areas, tourism and regional development. He is an elected member of the German Academy for Spatial Research and Planning and an appointed member of the German National Committee for the UNESCO programme on MAB.