Tourism, Environmental Sustainability, and Community Governance in Federally Protected Wetland Areas of Nigeria: A Multi-Site Case Study

This study examines the intersection of tourism development, environmental sustainability, and community governance in federally protected wetland areas of Nigeria, generating a grounded framework for sustainable wetland tourism governance in the West African context. Nigeria's significant wetland tourism assets, including the Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands, Apoi Creek Forest Reserve, Cross River mangrove systems, and Oguta Lake environs, face mounting pressure from unregulated tourism activity, agricultural encroachment, and extractive industry proximity. A multi-site case study design encompassing four protected wetland areas across North West, South South, and South East geopolitical zones is adopted with data generated through 56 in-depth interviews with community governance institutions, tourism operators, conservation officers, and wetland-dependent livelihood communities, supplemented by participatory mapping exercises and environmental transect walks with community guides. Institutional analysis and development framework constructs are applied to examine the governance rules, norms, and enforcement mechanisms shaping wetland tourism sustainability outcomes. Findings reveal that informal community-based governance institutions demonstrate stronger conservation compliance capacity than formal state regulatory structures in all four sites, but face legitimacy erosion from tourism commercialisation pressures and generational norm shifts. Tourism revenue benefit-sharing arrangements are identified as the most significant determinant of community-level conservation motivation. The study develops a Nigerian Wetland Tourism Governance Framework proposing co-governance arrangements that formally integrate customary institutions with state regulatory authority. Theoretical contributions to the commons governance, conservation tourism, and African political ecology literature are articulated. Keywords: wetland tourism, environmental governance, community institutions, Nigeria, sustainability