Conservation tourism and landscape governance in Kenya: the interdependency of three conservation NGOs

Summary

Tourism plays an increasingly important role in the way non-governmental organisations govern landscapes, especially in decentralised conservation contexts in developing countries. In this paper, we examine the role of three key conservation organisations (the African Wildlife Foundation, the African Conservation Centre and the Northern Rangelands Trust) in landscape governance in Kenya. Our analysis of organisational strategies and practices between 2007 and 2013 demonstrates how conservation NGOs, as intermediators of various forms of conservation tourism, are subjected to multi-actor interdependencies. Our findings underpin the role of mismatching scale-making that not only hampers organisational objectives, but also contributes to a dynamic reshaping of conservation tourism landscapes. We illustrate our approach to landscape governance in the context of the Naibunga Conservancy Trust where multiple conservation NGOs are required to deal with overlapping and competing orderings.