The focus of this paper is to examine how changing institutional arrangements and policies affect poor people’s livelihoods and access to natural resources. It addresses tourism in South Africa, and the growing role of the private sector in natural resource management. Six different scenarios are analysed to demonstrate how government, NGOs, the private sector and rural communities have influenced rural livelihoods through tourism practices. The scenarios have been illustrated with seventeen case studies from South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The driving forces for initiatives and the degree to which the poor have influenced them are explored through the case studies, as are the costs, benefits and constraints of the scenarios.