The study reveals that households in the GLTFCA rely heavily on both legal and illegal natural resource use for income, with illicit extraction often boosting welfare especially for women headed households. Poverty, weak institutions, and human–wildlife conflict drive dependence, underscoring the need for stronger governance and diversified livelihoods.
ABSTRACT
The establishment of Transfrontier Conservation Areas reflects efforts by governments to promote biodiversity-based economic opportunities while curbing illicit environmental resource extraction. Our understanding of the ways in which the biodiversity economy contributes to the livelihoods of communities living near protected areas is, however, constrained by the limited availability of data on illicit environmental activities. Based on a mixed method approach combining descriptive statistics and regression analysis, this study presents a novel approach to bridging this gap, using the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area as a case study. In this paper, our aim is to answer the following research questions: i) How does participation in the biodiversity economy (especially resource extraction) impact household welfare? ii) Does the impact differ across income distributions and according to gender? iii) Are there differences between the treatment effects of licit and illicit resource extraction?
