Contribution of Community Conservation and Ecotourism Projects on Improving Livelihoods and Sustainable Biodiversity Conservation in and around Nyungwe National Park (NNP)

Abstract

The Rwanda Development Board has established the Revenue Sharing Scheme to create a win-win approach in protected areas conservation and management. Through this scheme, RwF 1,133,195,986 have been invested in 152 Community Based Conservation Projects (CBCs) and Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs). This paper provides inputs for improving the prospects of ICDPs by giving consideration to each of the five capitals namely natural, social, human, built, and financial. The language of ICDPs has been adopted by development agencies of all persuasions. There is now some urgency to identify the characteristics of the environment and the community in which success is most likely. This paper assesses the contribution of Revenue Sharing Scheme in strengthening CBCs and ICDPs around Nyungwe National Park. We looked at the efficiency and effectiveness of the mentioned projects. The study was guided by the following key objectives; to examine the social economic impact of tourism revenue sharing program towards the development on local communities, and analyse the challenges faced by local administration and beneficiaries in management of these revenue sharing. To archive the set objectives, a cross sectional research design was used, combined with qualitative and quantitative approach. We collected secondary data from RDB. The study adopted descriptive and statistical approaches in processing data and Special Program for Social Scientist (SPSS) computer program was employed in data analysis. The findings show that above 50% of community conservation projects that were funded through revenue sharing scheme are not any more there because there was no strategy for monitoring and impact evaluation. The findings also show that there is no significant contribution of revenue sharing to reducing the threats to biodiversity in Nyungwe National Park. RDB put a lot of efforts in law enforcement than in community conservation. As a recommendation, RDB needs to increase efforts in community conservation and review the revenue sharing scheme to make it more successful given that it will increase to 10% from the fiscal year 2018-2019.