By William Wolmer and Caroline Ashley

IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003

In rural southern Africa, access to wild resources is critical to livelihoods and various attempts have been made by policy-makers to increase the income derived from them by poor communities. This article examines the resulting existing and emerging institutional arrangements in the tourism/safari hunting and forestry sectors and assesses their impact on livelihoods. Case studies of wildlife and forestry management initiatives involving communities are drawn from the Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa programme study areas: Eastern Cape (South Africa), Chiredzi District (Zimbabwe) and Zambézia province (Mozambique). Broadly speaking, four types of initiative, with different emphases, can be identified. These are community participation; partnerships or joint ventures between communities and the private sector; ecoregional conservation; and redistribution or restitution. To an extent these reflect different national priorities and contexts and these categories are rarely totally differentiated; overlaps and continuities exist. However, a key trend, particularly in South Africa (which is returned to and looked at in more detail in article 6 in Part III of this Bulletin) is the emergence of a number of policy approaches that seek to link private sector tourism and forestry operations with community or local involvement, usually with an emphasis on “pro-poor” commercial investment.