Transitioning farmland into wildlife tourism zones, often hailed as a green 'win-win,' actually increases land ownership inequality.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
Wildlife-based Dourism and its Distributional Consequences in Namibia: A Quantitative Assessment of Private Farmland
SSRN · 6343482
The Takeaway
In Namibia, shifting from livestock production to eco-tourism has led to a consolidation of land control by fewer, wealthier owners. While marketed as a sustainable development success, the transition reinforces post-colonial patterns of exclusion rather than providing broader economic access.
From the abstract
Post-colonial societies continue to grapple with private land conservation's growing influence on land access and ownership dynamics. In Namibia, private farmland has been transitioning from livestock production toward wildlife-based land uses, which is widely promoted as an appropriate response to environmental and national development challenges. However, wider implications of this transition remain poorly understood. This paper examines the relationship between conservation, wildlife-based to