Effects of protected areas on welfare of local households: The case of Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya

Livelihood Diversification and Residents' Welfare: Evidence from Maasai Mara National Reserve

The contradiction between environmental protection and livelihood development is becoming increasingly serious for most protected areas in developing countries. Livelihood diversification is an efficient way to increase household income to alleviate poverty related to environmental protection. However, its impacts on household welfare in protected areas have rarely been quantitatively explored. This article investigates the determinants of four livelihood strategies in the Maasai Mara National Reserve and explores the association between livelihood diversification and household income and its heterogeneities. Based on the sustainable livelihoods framework and the information collected from 409 households through face-to-face interviews, this study adopted multivariate regression models to obtain consistent results. Results show that the determinants of the four strategies differed. Natural capital, physical capital, and financial capital had significant associations with the probability of adopting the strategy of livestock breeding. Physical capital, financial capital, human capital, and social capital were associated with the probability of adopting the joint strategy of livestock breeding and crop planting and the joint strategy of livestock breeding and off-farm activities. The probability of adopting the joint strategy of livestock breeding, crop planting, and off-farm activities was associated with all five kinds of livelihood capital except for financial capital. Diversification strategies, especially those involving off-farm activities, played greater roles in raising household income. The findings indicate that the government and management authority of Maasai Mara National Reserve should provide the households around the protected area with more off-farm employment opportunities to increase the welfare of local residents as well as to utilize natural resources appropriately, especially for those located far away from the protected area.

Does the establishment of nature reserves increase rural residents' income? : Empirical evidence from China based on PSM-DID

Clarifying the impact of nature reserves on rural residents' income is of great significance to the organic integration of environmental protection and rural residents' income improvement. Based on the panel data of 600 counties from nine provinces in China, ranging from 2010 to 2019, this study employs the quasi-experimental method of Difference in Difference and Propensity Score Matching (PSM-DID) to examine how rural resident's income is influenced by the establishment of nature reserves. It is found that (1) Nature reserves, with a positive impact on rural resident's income, bring more earnings to the rural residents. (2) The impact varies with the heterogeneity of natural reserve types. That is, national and natural parks can increase rural residents' income, while the ones with wildlife or remote desert ecosystem play a limited role. (3) The increased income is mainly originated from the development of tourism, the improvement of facilities and the enhancement of ecosystem services. On this basis, multiple methods are proposed to promote rural residents' income and livelihood security of local communities. Policy recommendations are brought forth as well, including the focus on guaranteeing the livelihood security of rural residents nearby nature reserves where wildlife and remote desert ecosystem are protected.

Protected Areas and Rural Depopulation in Spain: A Multi-Stakeholder Perceptual Study

Protected areas (PAs) are thought by some to contribute to local wellbeing and socioeconomic development, whereas for others PAs remain a regulatory burden that hampers rural development. Here, we sought to ascertain the perceived causes of rural depopulation and the potential impact of four Natura 2000 sites on the wellbeing and depopulation figures of four protected rural municipalities in Spain that were selected as extreme case studies. We used phone surveys to elicit experts’ views (n = 19) on the topic and convened eight in-person workshops to garner local residents’ insights (n = 40) using structured questionnaires. We complemented perceived wellbeing data from PAs with surveys to residents in neighbouring unprotected municipalities (n = 28). Both experts and workshops’ attendees from protected municipalities overwhelmingly attributed depopulation figures to structural causes linked to transport accessibility, basic service provision and the existence of job opportunities, which they perceived to be unrelated to the PAs’ regulations or management. Local residents did generally not perceive any impact on their collective or individual wellbeing from those PAs, and most who did, expressed a negative impact chiefly due to socioeconomic restrictions. Four-fifths of the experts and half of the workshops’ attendees from protected municipalities, however, expressed that PAs’ administrations could help improve depopulation figures in their towns mainly through promoting tourism and greater compatibility of land uses, including housing and infrastructure development. While the assessed Natura 2000 sites certainly have scope for tourism promotion, their lenient legal regimes make it largely unfeasible to broaden land use compatibility without damaging protected features.