| Summary: | Internationally, there has been significant growth in conservation landscapes as a land tenure, since the specific creation of the concept of a “national park” at Yellowstone, USA, in 1872. “Protected areas”, as an umbrella designation for national parks, nature reserves and other forms of conservation landscape, now occupy nearly 13% of the world’s terrestrial area (Chape, Spalding and Jenkins 2008). The early North American, Australian and many other national park systems, while focusing on conservation, explicitly embraced tourism (Boyd and Butler, 2000). However, in the decades since World War II, recreational use of national parks has increased enormously, creating entire new industries and in many places conflicting with conservation objectives. More recently, some conservation supporters have differentiated the primary focus of protected areas as the conservation of biodiversity, with tourism and recreation being supported (or tolerated) as long as they do not have negative impacts on the conservation function. The Durban Accord, developed at the Vth World Parks Congress in 2003, emphasised the necessity of engagement with the interests and needs of park neighbour communities (Phillips, 2004). While this approach was immediately both attacked and defended (Andrade, 2005, Terborgh, 2005), the enormous reliance of the international tourism industry on national parks may be a threat to conservation in many places. Many national parks and World Heritage Areas, as particular types of protected area, have become tourism products promoted and sold by the tourism industry (Boyd 2004).
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