Wildlife tourism policies

Wildlife tourism, in common with other forms of tourism, occurs within a political and social setting. Such settings reflect and influence the extent of interest in sustainable tourism enterprises as well as the cultural, economic and historic concerns of the society within which the tourism activities are occurring. The focus of this chapter is wildlife tourism policies, which are an expression of the intersection of politics, society and management. This chapter begins by defining policy and refining these definitions so they are applicable to wildlife tourism. In contrast to many other approaches to studying policy, this book covers both public and to a lesser extent ‘private’ policy, the latter encompassing policy developed by the tourism industry and its members. Most books concentrate on one or the other but not both. Few policies specific to wildlife tourism exist and as such international, supranational, national, state, regional and local policies associated with but not specifically addressing wildlife tourism are reviewed. Much of the chapter is devoted to exploring policy instruments, the tools available to those making and implementing wildlife tourism policies. As with other parts of this chapter, the description of policy instruments takes into account the limited attention paid to-date to the development and analysis of wildlife tourism policies. Where wildlife tourism policy instruments exist they are described. If they do not, but there are interesting developments underway in the related areas of biodiversity conservation, protected area management or tourism policy, the situation is reviewed and its applicability considered in relation to sustainable wildlife tourism. The last part of the chapter reviews the factors influencing the choice of policy instruments and provides criteria for evaluating these choices