Policy approaches to elephant conservation in African agricultural regions

¶ … theoretical insights in the Anderson & Hill and Anderson & Huggins books to developing two policy proposals designed to maximize the number of elephants while also protecting the interests of farmers. In these policy proposals, we will assume that traditional, fenced in national parks will exist in African countries along with traditional fence agriculture. Additionally, there will be game ranching/sustainable tourism and private reserves where harvesting of economically valuable natural plants.

Sustainable Tourism in Fenced National Parks and Conventional Agriculture

One should always keep resources that have worked in the past. Sustainable tourism presents possibilities for the conservation of elephant populations. Fenced in game preserves and national parks that promote tourism have been around for years and represent excellent venues to connect with wealthy vacationers who will spend money in the host countries and will hopefully donate to organizations that promote elephant and other wildlife conservation. By increasing tourism, the national governments can get more money to enhance security in the parks and limit poaching.

Many people oppose hunting game under any circumstances. However, a mainstay of conservation in Africa in many countries are wealthy hunters that come in to engage in legitimate hunting on game farms/preserves. The money coming from the sale of hunting licenses, tickets, sales and the hiring of guides and other local employees is pumped into conservation activities and also into the host country's economy to benefit the local population. The goal of this program is to maximize the number of elephants while keeping the wildlife in the precincts of the parks and away from trampling the farmer's crops.

Both of the options above are feasible and have been used successfully in the past. They balance off the needs of wildlife with those of the farmers. Of course, corruption in host countries that siphons off tourism and conservation money degrades the efforts to conserve the numbers of animals such as elephants. Also, a culture of corruption helps to breed poaching (e.g., for elephant ivory) or illegal bush meat hunting that is driving many species such as the African elephant to the edge of extinction.

Conclusion

Both policies have their ups and their downs. They will not work in all countries. Rather governments with higher populations and greater conventional, Western style farming methods will probably find the first option more viable. Lower population countries will likely favor option two. Either of the policies cannot be maximized in any case in countries where there is high corruption.