The local socioeconomic context of protected areas (PAs) is not well documented, especially in Western Africa, despite the existence of priority conservation sites, along with the steady state of poverty in the region. This article presents research that measures the perceived costs and benefits of a conservation project on rural household welfare. The study uses the market price method along with contingent valuation methodology. The analyses provide empirical evidence that although PAs reduce local welfare, there exist locally valued benefits associated with conservation. Those benefits are, however, inadequate to offset the costs incurred by local people. While the results confirm that protected areas reduce local economic welfare in developing areas, our findings qualify the paradigm that states that “protected areas are bad for local people.”