article · Tourism Recreation Research
Kenya's national parks and safari tourism form a major source of revenue and foreign exchange, yet their origins stem from colonial models that deliberately excluded indigenous populations from decision-making. These historical approaches have prioritised Western conservation models, resulting in persistent human-wildlife conflict, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity loss. Although modest progress has occurred, unequal power dynamics and the exclusion of indigenous communities, such as the Maasai, continue to shape the political economy of the country's tourism sector. Resolving these challenges requires reforming tourism certification schemes and environmental indicators. Future frameworks must explicitly account for postcolonial realities by embedding social and cultural sustainability. This involves empowering local communities through direct ownership and active participation in managing wildlife and tourism assets, rather than treating them as passive bystanders in conservation initiatives.
Traditional conservation and safari tourism often displace or marginalise the very communities living alongside wildlife. Demonstrating how historic colonial policies continue to fuel local conflict and habitat loss highlights the need for fairer practices. Reforming conservation models to empower local residents ensures that tourism supports human livelihoods alongside environmental preservation, leading to more sustainable and equitable wildlife management across protected regions.
This work provides conceptual guidance for tourism standard bodies, certifiers, and eco-rating organisations seeking to refine certification programmes and indicators for safari destinations. The proposed focus on community ownership and social sustainability offers an early-stage framework rather than an off-the-shelf tool. Implementing these criteria requires standard-setting organisations and commercial operators to design and pilot new social compliance metrics, placing the research at an early stage relative to practical industry deployment.
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AbstractKenya's national parks and game reserves form the pillar of the country's tourism industry, and wildlife viewing and safari tourism are significant generators of income and foreign exchange. The promulgation of pioneer national parks in Kenya in the mid-20th century followed colonial practices of "exclusion" and "divide and rule" which marginalized local communities in decision-making processes and initiation of tourism programmes and wildlife conservation initiatives. Government supported policies and programmes that focused on wildlife protection and promotion of safari tourism also accentuated human-wildlife conflicts and contributed to species loss and habitat fragmentation. This study examines the evolution of Kenya's wildlife conservation policies and safari tourism programmes, and argues that safari tourism in Kenya has privileged Western models of tourism development and wildlife conservation, with historic exclusion of indigenous communities still ongoing today, though some improvements are evident. Postcolonial legacies influence the political economy of tourism in regard to the Maasai in Kenya; inequitable power relations are illustrated with the help of a literature review as well as a case example. The study offers suggestions to guide the development of future tourism certification programmes and indicators related to protected areas and safari tourism. Such programmes should be cognizant of Kenya's postcolonial context and attend to social and cultural sustainability, including issues of inclusion, exclusion and empowering local communities to participate directly in the management and ownership of environmental and tourism resources.Keywords: wildlife conservationsafari tourismpostcolonialismpolitical economyexclusioncommunity participation This article is part of the following collections: Tourism Recreation Research Best Paper Award
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DOI: 10.1080/02508281.2011.11081673
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