Linking Tourism and Conservation on Privately Owned Natural Areas: A Systematic Review of English-Language Literature

Tourism commodification and privatization of nature: private protected areas in the Serra de Tramuntana (Mallorca)

“…We show the variegation of PPA and how commodification and privatization of conserved nature is interrelated in different forms, combination, and degrees. We suggest that, in general, privatization prevails over tourism commodification in PPAs in the global north, as opposed to the global south where existing research indicates that commodification for tourism provision is often the central motive for private conservation efforts in contexts with limited financial resources (Müller et al 2023). In this way, the social favoring of the rich and powerful is reproduced, comprising the property class in the global north and the tourist class in the global south.…”

“…PPAs including tourism activities are also found to contribute to local elitism, the marginalization of local groups, or the prioritization of nature over local people's interests and the disruption of employment conditions (Serenari et al, 2016;Wieckardt et al, 2020). Müller et al (2023) demonstrate that private conservation linked to tourism tends to manifest differently in contexts of the global north and south, respectively. While in the global south tourism is often the argument to incentivize conservation on private land, in the global north PPA establishment and the possibility of tourism activity therein are commonly presented as compensation and reinforcement for private engagement in conservation that is in most cases already undertaken.…”

“…Thus far, neoliberal conservation has been studied overwhelmingly by global north researchers operating in the global south (Krüger, 2005;Müller et al, 2023), with the literature most grounded in case studies in Africa (especially in Tanzania), South America and South-East Asia (Apostolopoulou et al, 2021). Consequently, Cortés-Vázquez and Apostolopoulou (2019) call for more critical investigations of neoliberal conservation in global north contexts, a call to which our own investigation responds.…”

“…This idealized image can then be appropriated by capital and commodified as a tourist attraction. The commodification of nature for tourism purposes -as occurs in ecotourism-is one instrument of the so-called neoliberal conservation strategy, which has been studied primarily in global south contexts (Apostolopoulou et al, 2021;Müller et al, 2023). This, together with PAs, has become the dominant approach to conservation utilized by most mainstream organizations.…”

“…Consequently, critics question whether environmental and social wellbeing and justice can be achieved by subsuming nature to capital through such commodification and privatization (Apostolopoulou & Adams, 2019;Benjaminsen & Bryceson, 2012;Büscher & Fletcher, 2014). Existing research concerning PPAs and (eco)tourism, conducted primarily via case studies in the global south (Apostolopoulou et al, 2021;Müller et al, 2023), has largely assumed that processes of commodification and privatization occur hand-in-hand in all PPAs. Yet our investigations demonstrate that not all PPAs are created equal; rather, these processes often occur and combine in different ways in various PPAs, particularly in the global north contexts in which our own research takes place.…”