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Ecotourism and Conservation Finance
Making tourism pay its way
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| Eduardo Avaroa National Fauna Reserve, Bolivia © Steffen Reichle/TNC |
Over the long term, the future of national parks and other protected areas depends on their ability to be financially self-sustaining. Funds are needed for the management of conservation lands and waters as well as for ensuring the health and well-being of nearby populations. The Conservancy helps partners design and implement a range of financial mechanisms that support on-site management of protected areas and provide incentives for landscape and national level conservation.
Through consultations with park service staff, conservation organizations, communities and tourists, we work with partners to develop and test strategies for using tourism as a source of funding for conservation. Entrance fees, dive fees, tourism concessions and tourist donation funds are examples of revenue-generating strategies that are proving successful. As a critical complement to developing these initiatives, we work to ensure that the funds are well managed supporting key conservation objectives.
Testing the Park Entrance Fee Concept
Sometimes called Bolivia's Yellowstone, Eduardo Avaroa Reserve is a landscape of hot springs, geysers and fumaroles surrounded by volcanoes and 16,000-foot mountains. Its fresh water and saltwater lakes hose year-round flocks of pink flamingos and other birds, while nearby 23 types of mammals and almost 200 species of plants flourish in the desert-like environment. With over 40,000 visitors per year, the park is Bolivia's most visited.
When a conservation planning initiative determined that tourism was a major threat to the reserve, we worked with the Bolivian National Park System to develop a visitor fee system. The program, which has generated over half a million dollars in new funds, will allow the Reserve to address these tourism-related threats. Together, we are now extending this system across the Bolivian Park System. It is estimated that the national protected areas system could generate more than $3 million per year in new income for conservation.
More about the Conservancy's ecotourism strategy:
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Generating income from tourism for conservation
To find out other ways we share best-practices, click on sharing lessons learned. For a list of free, on-line ecotourism resources, visit our resources page.
