Protected areas as vehicles in population development: lessons from rural South Africa

André Pelser (), Nola Redelinghuys and Nontombi Velelo

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2013, vol. 15, issue 5, 1205-1226

Abstract: Protected areas in developing countries are increasingly expected to move beyond biodiversity protection so as also to contribute to poverty reduction and the economic development of their surrounding communities. The purpose of this article is to report on the key findings that emerged from the assessment of a poverty alleviation programme at the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in South Africa and the lessons learned from that particular programme. Designed around outcomes analysis as an analytical framework for programme evaluation, a mixed-method approach of semi-structured interviews and focus-group sessions was used to collect data from amongst programme beneficiaries, the park management and members of the park’s advisory board. The findings indicate that although programmes of this kind can indeed impact positively on poverty levels, their direct impacts do however remain limited to a relatively small proportion of households in neighbouring communities. The article concludes that by conceptualising poverty as a multidimensional state of well-being, this allows for the exploration of a much broader range of potential social, cultural and economic benefits available from protected areas. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Keywords: Protected areas; Poverty alleviation; Community-based conservation; Population development; Conservation benefits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10668-013-9434-4 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:15:y:2013:i:5:p:1205-1226

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-013-9434-4

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().