Edited by Herbert H.T. Prins Jan Geu Grootenhuis Thomas T. Dolan Kluwer Academic Publishers Copyright 2000 PREFACE: This volume represents important data on a critical subject: Wildlife Conservation by Sustainable Use. The contents offer a broad spectrum of data with interpretations and analysis from a most varied list of experts. The editors Herbet Prins, Jan Geu Grootenhuis, and Tom Dolan are to be congratulated. The debate on what is the best approach to conserve wildlife will undoubtedly rage on for years and I am sure that twenty years from now, conservationists will have the chance to either look back on the end of the 20th century and marvel at how wrong we were or hopefully, applaud our success in some challenging situations. I fear greatly that to a large measure, we will get it wrong quite often. From my perspective, the greatest challenge is to incorporate economic and political and demographic realities into conservation strategies. We must recognise the influences of under-development, poverty, the world market and unemployment. Politicians of today, grasping at democracy, have little choice if they are to be re-elected but to deal with the short term strategies. Seldom will such an approach be positive for conservation. Traditional life styles have changed: yes there are still pastoral nomads but many have children in college or working as professionals. This puts a strain on the income and cash needs of a family and alternative land use patterns will emerge. I believe that in time, the ASAL (arid and semi-arid lands) zones in East Africa will undergo fundamental change in terms of use and the larger part of these areas will have diminishing numbers of both human and domestic animal residents. The value of wildlife will perhaps then become clearer and re-stocking of abandoned range with selected wildlife species is likely. This volume offers an insight into many of the issues. The inevitability of socio-economic changes has to be a constant background to many of the observations and concepts. Wealth creation is surely going to take time if it is to have depth in society and in my opinion, only the moderately well off can actually sustain wildlife use as a primary land use option. The contributions that follow set out some of the experiences and parameters of this debate. Richard E. Leakey CONTENTS Preface Richard Leakey Contributors List Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: The Value of Priceless Wildlife 1 Herbert H.T. Prins and Jan Geu Grootenhuis 2. The Machakos Wildlife Forum: The Story from a Woman on the Land 13 Jane Stanley 3. Ranching: An Economic Yardstick 21 Brian Heath 4. The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya: A Case Study 35 Peter Szapary 5. Competition Between Wildlife and Livestock in Africa 51 Herbert H.T. Prins 6. Wildlife, Livestock and Animal Disease Reservoirs 81 Jan Geu Grootenhuis 7. Wildlife Damage in Rural Areas with Emphasis on Malawi 115 Floris Deodatus 8. Functional Relationships Between Parks and Agricultural Areas in East Africa: The Case of Nairobi National Park 141 Helen Gichohi 9. Functional Relationships Between Protected and Agricultural Areas in South Africa and Nambia 169 Rudi C. Bigalke 10. Wildlife and Livestock Population Trends in the Kenya Rangeland 203 Wilber K. Ottichilo, Jesse Grunblatt, Mohammed Y. Said and Patrick W. Wargute 11. The Effects of a Century of Policy and Legal Change on Wildlife Conservation and Utilisation in Tanzania 219 Nigel Leader-Williams 12. "Ownership" of Wildlife 247 Graham Child and Langford Chitsike 13. Wildlife Land Use and the Great Experiment 267 David Hopcraft 14. Financial Feasibility of Game Cropping in Machakos District, Kenya 277 Daan Bos, Jan Geu Grootenhuis, and Herbert H.T. Prins 15. Hunting and its Benefits: An Overview of Hunting in Africa with Special Reference to Tanzania 295 Robin Hurt and Pauline Ravn 16. The Economics of Wildlife Tourism: Theory and Reality for Landholders in Africa 315 Allan Earnshaw and Lucy Emerton 17. Making Wildlife Pay: Converting Wildlife's Comparative Advantage into Real Incentives for Having Wildlife in African Savannas, Case Studies from Zimbabwe and Zambia 335 Brian Child 18. Traditional African Wildlife Utilization: Subsistence Hunting, Poaching, and Sustainable Use 389 Robert K. Hitchcock 19. Compelling Reasons for Game Ranching in Maputaland 417 John Hearne and Margaret McKenzie 20. Madikwe Game Reserve: A Partnership in Conservation 439 Richard Davies 21. Application of the Southern African Experience to Wildlife Utilization and Conservation in Kenya and Tanzania 459 Brian Child 22. Wildlife Utilization: A Justified Option for Sustainable Land Use in African Savannas 469 Jan Geu Grootenhuis and Herbet H.T. Prins Index 483 FROM BACK COVER: One of the major challenges of sustainable development is the interdisciplinary nature of the issues involved. To this end, a team of conservation biologists, hunters, tourist operators, ranchers, wildlife and land managers, ecologists, veterinarians and economists were convened to discuss whether wildlife outside protected areas in Africa can be conserved in the face of agricultural expansion and human population growth. They reached the unequivocal - if controversial - conclusion that wildlife can be an economic asset, especially in the African savannas, if this wildlife can be sustainably utilized through safari hunting and tourism. Using the African savannas as an example Wildlife Conservation by Sustainable Use shows that in many instances sustainable wildlife utilization comprises an even better form of land use than livestock keeping. Even when population pressure is high, as in agricultural areas or in humid zones, and wild animal species can pose a serious cost to agriculture, these costs are mainly caused by small species with a low potential for safari hunting. Although ranching has a very low rate of return and is hardly ever profitable, the biggest obstacle to the model of sustainable wildlife use outlined in Wildlife Conservation by Sustainable Use is from unfair competition from the agricultural sector, such as subsidies and lack of taxation, resulting in market distortion for wildlife utilization. This book thus gives valuable evidence for a different way of working, providing arguments for removing such distortions and thereby facilitating financially sound land use and making it a rationally sound choice to conserve wildlife outside protected areas. The expert team of authors, most of whom came together at a workshop to thrash out the ideas that were then developed into the various chapters, have written a superb account of recent research on this complex subject, resulting in a book that is a major contribution to our understanding of sustainable use of land. The important conclusion is that wildlife conservation can be possible for landholders and local communities if they have a financial interest in protecting wildlife on their lands. WHERE TO ORDER: Kluwer Academic Publishers Order Department P.O. Box 358, Accord Station Hingham, MA 02018-0358, USA Tel: (781) 871-6600 Fax: (781) 871-6528 E-mail: kluwer@wkap.com http://www.wkap.com Price: $165.00 ISBN: 0-412-79730-5 (hardbound)
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