Evaluating Conservation and Development Impacts of Serengeti National Park

National Parks often have multiple stated objectives to fulfill: protecting wildlife, providing safe and attractive tourist destinations, and supporting economic development of surrounding communities. Lately, with increasing... [ view full abstract ]

National Parks often have multiple stated objectives to fulfill: protecting wildlife, providing safe and attractive tourist destinations, and supporting economic development of surrounding communities. Lately, with increasing threats to global biodiversity and limited budgets, parks are called on to justify the return on investment of their community development programs. The Serengeti ecosystem is surrounded by more than 120 villages, each of which views the costs and benefits of living near protected areas differently. Since 1992, Serengeti National Park (SENAPA) has supported community development in the form of social infrastructure with the aim of changing attitudes toward conservation in adjacent communities. SENAPA recently adopted a new benefit-sharing model: “The Serengeti Conservation Challenge,” a competitive conservation and development program aimed at rewarding those villages adjacent to the Park that are contributing to the conservation of natural resources. In order to empirically assess the future impact of this program, this study focuses on 34 villages which are eligible to apply to SENAPA for development projects in the form of social infrastructure, land-use planning, and micro-credit training. Nine-hundred and ninety-six randomly selected households were interviewed between December 2016 and February 2017 using a community based participatory research approach. Local enumerators were trained to conduct structured household interviews in order to provide a baseline against which to measure change in attitudes, perception and benefits resulting from National Park investments. We first assess the impact of financing previous infrastructure projects on attitudes toward SENAPA and wildlife in general. Preliminary results of regression analyses indicate that households held a widely positive view of SENAPA despite reporting personal costs incurred far outweighing benefits received. Neither village infrastructure projects nor loss of crops due to wildlife had a significant impact on attitudes toward conservation, however loss of livestock due to predation, while less common, significantly influenced attitudes toward the Park. We suggest that in addition to ensuring that benefit-sharing is more directly linked to conservation outcomes, certain types of interventions - specifically increasing off-farm opportunities through employment and entrepreneurship - likely result in the greatest potential return on investment in improving local attitudes toward conservation.