Tracing the cost/benefit pathway of protected areas: A case study of the Kruger National Park, South Africa

The sustainability of protected areas is dependent on societal support. Protected area relevance (meaning and value) to society is based on vested interest grown through conservation related benefit accrual that outweighs costs. Protected areas generally don’t report on their total societal impact in part due to a lack of an appropriate framework that accounts simultaneously for positive and negative, tangible and intangible components. We develop a framework and pathway that (1) includes ecosystem dis-services provided by protected areas, and (2) provides a tool for protected area managers to report on benefit sharing as a whole towards managing cost-benefit trade-offs. Ecosystem services and products from Kruger National Park were classified into themes, followed by a quantitative inventory of cost/benefit processes for the KNP. We demonstrate the skewed nature of costs versus benefits, with most beneficiaries living far from the park. Most local residents receive few benefits and are often recipients of costs. The framework highlights the need to understand the impact of benefit sharing on human well-being; the lack of an understanding of the outputs and outcomes from direct ecosystem service flows from parks; and the need for an understanding of the links between benefit accrual and conservation-related outcomes.