Abstract

Trophy hunting (TH) tourism plays an important and often controversial role in wildlife conservation and community livelihood in many African countries. Despite its potential social and economic benefits, TH can have a negative impact among the locals and pose critical challenges in governance. However, research on the local community perspective of TH and how it is linked to empowerment of locals and wildlife conservation in Namibia remains limited. Therefore, to address these gaps, our study explores how communities of Namibia’s Bwabwata National Park perceive TH and how TH supports or hinders empowerment of local communities and their relationship with wildlife. Through semi-structured interviews with community members, this study elucidates the economic benefits and inequities, cultural impacts from lack of traditional hunting, perceived relationship to poaching, and limitations of governance and distrust among stakeholders. This research innovatively applies empowerment theory to TH tourism and thus, can strengthen and inform sound governance and sustainable practices of TH at local, national, and international levels by providing the local perspective that has largely been absent from the TH debate.

摘要

战利品狩猎 (TH) 旅游在许多非洲国家的野生动物保护和社区生计中发挥着重要且经常引起争议的作用。尽管 TH 具有潜在的社会和经济效益，但它可能会对当地人产生负面影响，并对治理构成重大挑战。然而，关于 TH 的当地社区观点以及它如何与纳米比亚当地人的赋权和野生动物保护联系起来的研究仍然有限。因此，为了解决这些差距，我们的研究探讨了纳米比亚 Bwabwata 国家公园的社区如何看待 TH，以及 TH 如何支持或阻碍当地社区的赋权及其与野生动物的关系。通过对社区成员的半结构化访谈，本研究阐明了缺乏传统狩猎带来的经济利益和不平等、文化影响、感知与偷猎的关系，治理的局限性和利益相关者之间的不信任。本研究创新地将赋权理论应用于 TH 旅游，因此可以通过提供 TH 辩论中基本上没有的地方视角，在地方、国家和国际层面加强和告知健全的治理和 TH 可持续实践。