Lema, Godwin AdielSigallah, Huruma LSambaiga, Faustine RichardVendelin, SimonShemaghembe, Emmanuel2022-12-012022-12-012015-05-2716. Lema, G.A., Huruma L. Sigallah, Richard F. Sambaiga, Vendelin Simon, Emmanuel Shemaghembe “Political ecology of tourism & livelihood in Zanzibar”, Sustainability, Tourism and Africa: A natural link, Thematic proceedings of ATLAS Africa Conferences, Volume 9 Edited by René van der Duim, Guido Klep, Evangelia Konstantinidou, Wilber Ahebwa978-90-75775-75-4http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11810/5928The article exposes drivers of tourism in Zanzibar explaining the contested natural, cultural heritage, revolutionary regime, neoliberal structural adjustment, legislations and policy changes in the archipelago shaping our understanding of tourism theory and practices overtime and spaceZanzibar has recorded significant growth in tourism development in the last three decades. Large tourist resort hotels were built on the island from the 1990s, partly due to the decline of agriculture particularly clove cultivation after the establishment of Structural Adjustment Programme SAPs in the 1980s and associated free market economy and liberalization policies. Hotels increased from less than 10 in the 1980s to about 250 hotels by 2010 (ZTC, 2010). The number of international tourists rose from 19,368 in 1985 to 134,954 in 2009. Natural and cultural resources and their environs are increasingly targeted as prime tourism attractions and are increasingly protected or conserved, primarily for tourist seeks/tourism purposes. Pro-poor tourism proponents hold that tourism is benefiting and sustaining local people’s livelihood, the claim is supported by the WTO- seven ways through which tourism contribute net benefits to the poor (WTO, 2006). Empirical evidence to substantiate the claim is less clear, the claim affirmed by critical perspective and post structuralists. Poverty and inequality is increasing in the rural areas, as such, hope for sustainable tourism livelihood policy and practice is dwindling.enDrivers of tourism, political ecology, policy, legislations, ZanzibarConference Proceedings