This timely book delves into the intricate relationship between tourism and poverty with a specific focus on nature conservation areas, using case studies of island economies in a developed country, Japan, and a developing one, Vietnam. The volume asserts that although the concept of pro-poor tourism has often linked tourism with poverty, limited research has examined this link from diverse perspectives, including those of developed and developing countries where poverty can understand in absolute or relative forms. Notably, the book considers the voices of local residents in these areas, particularly the impoverished living in tourist destinations in Vietnam. This is essential for influencing conservation efforts and making poverty alleviation more achievable. Readers, therefore, gain an understanding of why tourism and poverty alleviation are crucial for every economy within the context of nature conservation areas. This volume is a pivotal resource for scholars in tourism, particularly those focused on teaching and researching tourism geographies and sustainable development. It holds particular significance for scholars examining emerging nations across Asia.

"This timely book delves into the intricate relationship between tourism and poverty with a specific focus on nature conservation areas, using case studies of island economies in a developed country, Japan, and a developing one, Vietnam. This volume is a pivotal resource for scholars in tourism, particularly those focused on teaching and researching tourism geographies and sustainable development. It holds particular significance for scholars examining emerging nations across Asia"--

At head of cover title: Chief Scientist' Office.

The book uses a multi-disciplinary approach to address lessons learned and challenges encountered over the years in different ecological, economic, political and cultural contexts. Protected areas were originally established as recreational spaces and to protect some components of nature; however, today they are also expected to provide an increasing range of benefits to an array of people. Protected areas no longer simply “protect” but they also provide ecosystem services and facilitate poverty reduction via local development, ecotourism, and sustainable resource use. Integrating tourism and conservation with existing local historical, socio-economic, and institutional landscapes is associated with the promotion of local community participation in resource management. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach to understand social-ecological systems that explain the relationship between protected areas, tourism, and community livelihoods linkages. The book provides a platform for dialogue to develop a better understanding of the complex relationships between protected areas, tourism, and community livelihoods linkages. Due to the role tourism plays in poverty alleviation, conservation, empowerment and addressing other environmental and social challenges, the book also connects tourism with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers of tourism, conservation, natural resource management, sustainable development as well as professionals and policymakers involved in conservation policy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation are both important societal goals demanding increasing international attention. While they may seem to be unrelated, the international policy frameworks that guide action to address them make an explicit assumption that conserving biodiversity will help to tackle global poverty. Part of the Conservation Science and Practice Series published with the Zoological Society of London, this book explores the validity of that assumption. The book addresses a number of critical questions: Which aspects of biodiversity are of value to the poor? Does the relationship between biodiversity and poverty differ according to particular ecological conditions? How do different conservation interventions vary in their poverty impacts? How do distributional and institutional issues affect the poverty impacts of interventions? How do broader issues such as climate change and the global economic system affect the biodiversity – poverty relationship at different scales? This volume will be of interest to policy-makers, practitioners and researchers concerned with understanding the potential - and limitations - of integrated approaches to biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation.

In 2002, the Conference of Parties set a target to "achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the cur- rent rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty al- leviation and the benefit of all life on Earth". [...] We have failed to meet the 2010 target, and the latest MDG report notes the grave consequences of this for poor people: "The irreparable loss of biodiversity will also hamper efforts to meet other MDGs, especially those related to poverty, hunger and health, by increasing the vulnerability of the poor and reducing their options for development." The CBD has long emphasised the need for integrating [...] DEPENDENCE OF THE POOR ON BIODIVERSITY This review focuses on the question: which groups of the (differentiated) poor depend, in which types of ways, on different elements of biological diversity? [...] The methodology for the review included an examination of the peer-reviewed literature, as published in journals and books, and an examination of websites and portals of major organisations/forums work- ing on biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation. [...] It may be too simplistic to say that the majority of the world's biodiversity is in the South which is also where the poorer countries of the world are (Schei 2007; Matiku 2008), and it is certainly not the case that significant biodiversity only oc- curs in areas of poverty.