The impact of protected areas on the livelihoods of local communities at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania”

In many developing countries there are disputes related to the small contribution of Protected areas and other categories of attractions in sustaining livelihoods of the local communities living adjacent to the protected areas compared to other land use practices. This study was done in seven villages located adjacent to Mikumi National Park in order to examine impacts of Mikumi National Park on people’s livelihoods, particularly regarding on the livelihoods of local communities where the economic, social, cultural and environment services provided by MINAPA, therefore, a way out of poverty. Questionnaires, focus groups discussions, field observations and secondary data from different sources were used to collect information. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS and simple descriptive statistics. The results revealed that, local communities have a negative attitude towards protected areas where 54.5% of the respondents said that, there is a little benefits, 27.3% of respondents said that they benefits, 16.9% of the respondents said that, they do not benefit from MINAPA because always there is a lot of conflicts and cases among the park and local communities and even killed by park rangers. 1.3% of the respondent said that, government is the one who benefit because they collect revenues, taxes and other fees which sent direct to TANAPA. Based on the findings in this study, a number of recommendations were made, such as to carry out thorough seminars, workshops and educations with local communities, discussing on how they can alleviate poverty through protected areas and how to solve problems, effective participation of local community in policy planning, management of protected areas.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

The Open University of Tanzania

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Mlay, Gladstone Fanuel

• 330 Economics

Language dc:language

en