Mountain gorilla tourism has played an important role in the conservation of mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Significant revenue from mountain gorilla tourism has motivated the government of Rwanda to protect wildlife using strict protectionism measures to conservation. This approach however, amidst high human–wildlife conflicts among local residents’ neighboring parks, has not led to reduced wildlife threats such as poaching. The purpose of this study finds out whether mountain gorilla tourism has benefited communities around the park and generated the support needed for conservation. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with both open-ended and closed-ended questions. Research findings revealed that mountain gorilla tourism through the tourism revenue sharing scheme has not directly benefited local communities and therefore has not addressed human-induced conservation threats. The limitations of mountain gorilla tourism opportunities at Volcanoes National Park to reduce wildlife threats and generate support for conservation were attributed to limited access to tourism benefits including the revenue sharing, high costs of living adjacent to the park, lack of community involvement and participation in the park management and decision-making process.

This paper explores the perceived forms, and drivers of forest dependence at Volcanoes National Park. Using focus group interviews, we explored the perceptions of forest adjacent residents with direct access to conservation incentives, residents with no direct access to conservation incentives, and senior park managers. The paper reveals dominant forms of forest dependence, including, hunting for bushmeat, extraction of bamboo, bean-stakes, grass for cattle feed, and water for domestic use. The paper also reveals the primary drivers of forest dependence, including, food security constraints, and increase in the market demand of forest products. In addition, animal crop raiding was observed to be the main driver of food security constraints at the park. There were several notable variations in the perceptions. While residents attribute forest dependence to food security constraints, park managers attribute it to the increasing demand of forest products, resentment, stubbornness, and lack of jobs. It is argued that varied perceptions between park managers and residents could negatively affect conservation policies. Therefore, active participation of residents in all forms of wildlife conservation is strongly suggested. Several questions for future research are suggested. Notably, could conservation incentives influence increased demand of forest products, forest dependence, and biodiversity loss?

This study supplements spatial panel econometrics techniques with qualitative GIS to analyse spatio-temporal changes in the distribution of integrated conservation–development projects relative to poaching activity and unauthorized resource use in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Cluster and spatial regression analyses were performed on data from ranger monitoring containing > 35,000 combined observations of illegal activities in Volcanoes National Park, against tourism revenue sharing and conservation NGO funding data for 2006–2015. Results were enriched with qualitative GIS analysis from key informant interviews. We found a statistically significant negative linear effect of overall integrated conservation–development investments on unauthorized resource use in Volcanoes National Park. However, individually, funding from Rwanda's tourism revenue sharing policy did not have an effect in contrast to the significant negative effect of conservation NGO funding. In another contrast between NGO funding and tourism revenue sharing funding, spatial analysis revealed significant gaps in revenue sharing funding relative to the hotspots of illegal activities, but these gaps were not present for NGO funding. Insight from qualitative GIS analysis suggests that incongruity in prioritization by decision makers at least partly explains the differences between the effects of revenue sharing and conservation NGO investment. Although the overall results are encouraging for integrated conservation–development projects, we recommend increased spatial alignment of project funding with clusters of illegal activities, which can make investment decision-making more data-driven and projects more effective for conservation.

Although a positive relationship between tourism and quality of life is the premise of using tourism to support biodiversity conservation, tourism scholars rarely assess the relationship between tourism and community livelihoods with rigorous empirical methods, even less so in African contexts. Focusing on communities in the Greater Virunga Landscape in Rwanda and Uganda, we conducted a household survey to acquire empirical data to test novel hypotheses about tourism’s influence on capital assets, household resiliency, and subjective wellbeing. Using inferential statistical analyses (e.g., analysis of variance, chi-square difference test, and independent sample t-tests), we compared the responses from 346 residents who have direct access to tourism livelihoods with responses collected from 224 residents not engaged in tourism. Contrary to expectations, our findings suggest that tourism may not lead to dramatic differences in access to capital assets. However, we did discover moderate influences on household resiliency and subjective wellbeing. These intangible and subjective wellbeing outcomes of tourism-based livelihood programs are challenging to assess empirically. Yet, they may be among some of the most important from a human development standpoint. As a first effort to integrate three theoretical frameworks that have, to date, seen limited application in tourism research, this study has opened the door to further work at the intersections of capital assets, family resilience, and wellbeing theories. In conclusion, we argue that incentivizing the protection of local environments through tourism must be extended to other forms of capital, while also considering more nuanced manifestations of intangible wellbeing outcomes. As such, this paper makes a significant empirical contribution to the ongoing theoretical and practical debates about the tourism-conservation relationship.

This research examined the multidimensional relationship between the subjective quality of life, conservation attitudes, and livelihood vulnerability of communities surrounding the Kilimanjaro Mountain National Parks and Biosphere Reserve in Tanzania. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey in four villages bordering the Kilimanjaro National Park and analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling. The results show that conservation attitudes increase and there are different levels of household livelihood vulnerability as the quality of life improves, indicating a positive relationship between the subjective quality of life and conservation attitude. People with higher livelihood vulnerability show a substantial increase in conservation attitudes as their quality of life improves. People with medium livelihood vulnerability show weaker but still positive relations between quality of life and conservation attitudes. However, when the livelihood vulnerability is lowest, the conservation attitudes change the least with improved quality of life. Furthermore, livelihood-vulnerable people tend to be more supportive of conservation than those with lower livelihood vulnerability, and this difference increases as the quality of life increases, indicating the significance of the quality of life in predicting conservation attitudes in highly vulnerable groups. These results are essential for managers and development practitioners, who focus on achieving win–win scenarios between conservation and development to enhance people’s overall quality of life rather than concentrating on reducing vulnerabilities.