Implementing tourism-conservation enterprises: mixed contributions to inclusive growth

Since the early 1990s, nature conservation organizations in Eastern and Southern Africa have increasingly attempted to integrate their objectives with those of international development organizations, the land-use objectives of local communities and the commercial objectives of tourism businesses, leading to diverse institutional arrangements for the protection of nature and wildlife outside state-protected areas. The African Wildlife Foundation, an international nature conservation organisation, has contributed to this trend of market-based institutional arrangements by developing the tourism-conservation enterprise (TCE) model. However, the implementation of TCEs highly depends on the context in which they are established. In this presentation we discuss our analysis of the implementation of three TCEs in Kenya. Based on a content analysis of data from individual semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews, site visits, as well as document and literature review, we demonstrate the commonalities and differences in the institutional arrangements and the performance of the three lodges at the local level in terms of contributions to biodiversity conservation and community livelihoods. We also identify a range of longer term governance challenges, such as the need to address local political struggles, the relations between partners, and transparency and accountability in the arrangement and conclude that TCEs have mixed contributions to inclusive growth.