Figure 7 Conceptualizing economic differences between the bio-experience and commodity economy in drylands.
For ecological and economic reasons, the bio-experience economy is a legitimate development option.
An important conservation success, this new bio-experience economy also creates social well-being through economic growth and job creation.
Bold policy facilitated a transformation to an economy based not on commodities but on experiences - the wildlife and bio-experience sector.
However, wildlife provides the foundation for a bio-experience economy that has a decided comparative economic advantage over agro-extractive commodity production (like beef) in drylands.
However, similar trends on private land in Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana confirmed the coming of age of the wildlife bio-experience sector.
It is in these three-tier environments that the bio-experience economy has a comparative economic advantage over agro-extractive commodity production.
In the end, institutional adaptation and the development of new markets by farmers, not production technology, provided commercial solutions for ranchers through a shift from agro-extractive beef commodity production to a bio-experience economy.
Land use trends on private land, together with the data summarized in this paper, confirm that the bio-experience economy based on the multiple uses of wildlife is an increasingly serious industry.
Global terms of trade are moving in favour of the bio-experience economy; the wildlife sector is a new industry with considerable potential for adding value through product diversification and development, and it is synergistic with ecosystem services like water and carbon that are as undervalued as wildlife was several decades ago.
They may also want a written artist statement, bio, exhibition experience.
