Wildlife Management in the Tropics - An Overview · Wildlife Management in the Tropics - An...

Wildlife Management in the Tropics - An Overview

Johannes Bauer*Australian Carbon Co-operative Ltd., Bathurst, Australia

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of wildlife management (WM) as it is currently conducted in differenttropical regions of the world. These are divided into four WM realms as defined by natural and politicalgeography. It examines, with the benefits of hindsight, what Dasman, one of the seminal American writerson WM, stipulated for the tropics in the early 1960s and how his model of western intervention has beenapplied around the tropical world as it changed from colonies to independent states. It exposes howwestern myths have, often negatively, affected that management and how collapses of many traditionaland indigenous wildlife management systems, the proliferation of firearms, conflicts, wildlife trade butalso the spread of the environmental and protected area movements and tourism have further affected thatworld. It concludes that wildlife continues to play a crucially important role, in particular for poor anddisadvantaged people, for many of which it has however become inaccessible through legislation andglobal society trends. It also shows, however, that models have started to emerge, often not from the westand community based, which hold promises for the future. What should a forester working in the tropicsknow about wildlife management? In this chapter for the 2nd edition of the Tropical Forestry HandbookI have chosen the wide view because I believe that our increased specialization and expertise has come at acost. The understanding of why these things are being done, who does them, what they will do, and, mostimportantly, what we will achieve by that is what really matters, and that understanding is not so readilyavailable. In order to provide that I have divided this chapter into five sections. In the first one I will showthe differences we deal with when we talk about various regions of the vast tropical belt as it stretchesaround our globe. In this section I have tried to dwell on the specific, aware of the many similarities thoseregions share. In the second section I have given an overview of the crisis resulting from the growingimpacts modern society has on the wildlife in the tropics. In the third section I will present some of theresponses to this wildlife crisis by a growing number of parties and stakeholders. This section describes agrowing arsenal of tools to better manage wildlife. It shows that global and national communities havedeveloped not only science but, more importantly, frameworks, conventions, programs, networks, anddatabases, for an informed and unified response. In the fourth section I will identify the programs andapproaches where we have made real progress but also will be critical where I think the internationalresponses can – need to – be improved. In that section I will also examine Dasmann’s (1964) premise withthe benefits of 50 years of hindsight. In the last chapter I will “reimagine” wildlife management for thetropical world where the new meets the not-so-conventional and where I suggest we have to change ourapproach. If I have managed to make the reader realize that wildlife management in the tropics is not somuch about the application of western science but about the development of sustained visions andactivities by a growing number of empowered and collaborating actors, I have succeeded.

*Email: [email protected]

Tropical Forestry HandbookDOI 10.1007/978-3-642-41554-8_172-1# Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

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Keywords

African wildlife; Asian wildlife; Oceanic tropical islands;Wildlife and biodiversity management (W&BDManagement); Global change and W&BD Management in Africa; Global change and W&BD Manage-ment in Asia; Global change and W&BD Management neotropics; Global change and W&BD Manage-ment oceanic tropical islands; Non timber forest product; Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve

Introduction

In trying to define the relationship between wildlife and people, Dasmann (1964) distinguishes betweenits commercial, recreational, aesthetic, ethical, and scientific values and introduces the concept of wildlifeas a natural resource. This natural good can be, like soils, “mined” and destroyed but also cared for andpermanently maintained. He suggests that “the world can now be divided into two areas: the first: wherethe greatest damage to land and natural resources has been done in the past and where conservationmovements are now firmly established”. He puts ‘Anglo-America, Western Europe, the Soviet Union,Japan, Australia, New Zealand’, and “a few other areas” into this category. The other regions, he goes on,are where: “the levels of public education are so low, poverty. . . so widespread, or the pressure ofpopulation . . . so great, that destruction of natural resources is still going on at a rapid rate”. He concludesthat “conservation practices, although known to some, are not generally applied” and “Many of thecountries that are in this category cannot do much about conservation problems themselves, but must relyon outside assistance from the more fortunately situated lands”.

What are these lands? He suggests that “Much of Africa, Asia, Latin America is in this area”, where“rapid population growth” (South America), “governmental indifference” (SE Asia), “political turmoil”(Africa), and “widespread destruction of natural areas and native wildlife” (Oceania) are widespread. Inshort, he means the tropics!

In contrast to this rather somber assessment of the tropical world, Dasmann suggests that the status ofwildlife conservation in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand is satisfactory. The situation in NorthAmerica, his homeland, he calls ‘generally satisfactory’ however affected by “rapid populationgrowth” also.

If we read this assessment of wildlife management in the tropics now, some 50 years later, we areembarrassingly aware how easy it is, then and now to adopt such a patronizing, colonial view of wildlifeand conservation for the “Third World” where in Dasmann’s eyes a combination of high populationgrowth, governmental indifference, and generally a lack of “enlightened attitudes by government”destroyed wildlife and natural ecosystems at an alarming rate. We also realize, however, how that viewof the world has been implemented across the tropics as the “outside assistance” from “more fortunatelysituated lands” Dasmann suggested. And now we must ask ourselves the question whether that“approach,” or should we say “western intervention,” had been the one which was successful, and bothmorally defensible and required and, if not, how to correct that.

In this book chapter I will assess the outcomes of the “wildlife intervention” by the western world in thetropics and attempt to chart a future of wildlife management, which learns from the many often disastrousmistakes made but also gives credit to the ones which worked. I will also, reflective of Dasmann’spremise, “that the tropics must rely on outside assistance from the more fortunately situated lands,” try tofind answers as to whether wildlife and poverty in the tropics need that unqualified assistance hesuggested, or whether there are answers emerging from within and not based on western assistance.And last but not least I will also look at the role of science in that, asking some uncomfortable questions.


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Definitions and Terminology

Over the years a great many terms and definitions in ecology and wildlife management, often expressed asacronyms, have been established, and those have been further confused by “new” terms such as “Non-(Wood) Timber Forest Products” (NWFP/NTFP) and biodiversity. I have added to that confusion byintroducing a number of terms which generally appear in the text as acronyms. Although I do share anaversion to those, as many of my readers do suspect, they do save space; they also might focus our minds.

From Hunting to “Game Management” to “Wildlife Ecology” and “WildlifeManagement”The science of game management as used by the American Aldo Leopold in 1933 has been the Americanequivalent of humanity’s oldest land use and what was, for example, in Germany, “The Science ofHunting” (Jagdwissenschaft), synonymous with land use terms such as agriculture or forestry and/orfishing. In much of the conservation discourse, hunting and to a lesser extent fishing have been replacedby the term “Wildlife Management,” which is more general, some think more “scientific,” and lessconflict laden nowadays.

I have based the logic of this book chapter on the term WM as the overarching land use activity, whichneeds to be based on sound science (through research), the development of sensible and harmonized(internationally, between states, between land uses) policies, and national and international legislation.These guideWM systems as implementation tools of the above. Most importantly in the tropics and whenapplied to wildlife-dependent indigenous people, the overarching framework needs to be developedaround what is (or has been) already in place as traditional/indigenous systems. These it needs to protectand harmonize with new forms of wildlife use and land management (e.g., tourism, protected areas, etc.).

The Four Elements of Wildlife Management (WM)It was Caughley (1977) who suggested that in WM we have three major processes we want to manage.We want to maintain populations as they are, we want to increase them because they are too small, or wewant to reduce them because they are overabundant. I have added to this additional processes as follows(Table 1):

Wildlife and/vs Biodiversity

We suggest that the current fad of biodiversity inventories will pass rather soon as a central focus of conservation.Ricklefs and Renner (1994)

Ricklefs and Renner (1994) were only partially right in their prediction, so it seems. Twenty years later,the “fad” might have somewhat faded but it still around wherever one looks – it has become mainstream.While my own assessment of the contents of biodiversity studies (Bauer, unpublished) as opposed to

Table 1 The four types of management aims in Wildlife management

WC WildlifeConservation

We want to retain wildlife in currently healthy wildlife populations

WH Wildlife Harvest We want to harvest a wildlife surplus we would like to sustain +/�WPC Wildlife Pest

ControlWe want to reduce wildlife which by high abundance threatens our other aims, this mightinclude the extermination of invasive/alien species

WR WildlifeRehabilitation

We want to increase the low numbers of wildlife (+), most dramatically we want to reintroducewildlife, which has either disappeared locally (translocations), or gone extinct (CaptiveBreeding Programs (CBP)


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wildlife studies would suggest that it is often little more than a revamp of old themes under newterminology, there is also more to it. Obviously they have underestimated the political tenacity of theterm and the domination of biodiversity research through politically and economically motivated researchgrants (in Australia the great majority one might get). They also have, perhaps, underestimated the needfor a generalized inventory and planning tool. What were their reservations? I suggest it is instructive todiscuss this briefly.

They challenged the term on two grounds: first, the intrinsic value of species lists (the major target ofmany “biodiversity inventories”) for conservation (which they find questionable), secondly, the philo-sophical change of such an approach to systematics, denigrating a great scientific discipline and itsrepositories, museums, to service providers for political ends. They are not convinced that biodiversityinventories (ultimately species lists and often very incomplete) have intrinsic conservation value, theydoubt if they influence decision-making, they fear they compromise scientific rigor and integrity(obviously lots of lay people doing them), and they are alarmed that it might sap scarce funds fromserious systematic work. These are the scientific and ethical arguments, and they are very valid ones.

Twenty years later, however, it seems obvious that the term and species inventories have somewhatdeveloped a life of their own, and if one is just, the term has become a powerful driver for the collection,analysis, synthesis, and extrapolation of that large variety of life we find in biological diversity. It seemsalso noteworthy that science and in particular computing power and GIS have developed quite astonishingnew contents around it. I also cannot help but notice, however, that the way biodiversity is applied reflectsvery much what Ricklefs and Renner (1994) feared and that the term has all but economized the rigor ofthe discipline of biology and wildlife ecology.

As for practicalities, “biodiversity” remains an “unfocused conservation driver” and needs substance tobe applied meaningfully. It has also, as Ricklefs and Renner (1994) feared, continued to be compromisedby its suitability for the superficial, the political, and the economical. Instead of becoming a serious tool topromote systematics, the science of diversity, biodiversity has all too often become the rallying cry of avery superficial and economic worldview. In this chapter I introduce the term ‘Wildlife & BiodiversityManagement’ (W&BDM) in order to reground and rejoin what has become another of our scientificdistractions which confuse our minds and our purpose.

Wildlife as a Nontimber Forest ProductThis is another term for wildlife again and obviously targeting the wildlife in forests (other than wood ortimber). If we read the papers about that and in particular the FAO expert meeting discussion (FAO 1995)we can easily see that this has, unlike wildlife and biodiversity, not a biological but a socioeconomic focusand that it is an attempt of international development that tries to describe wildlife in analogy to“agriculture” as a collection of crops and products. While this is entirely legitimate and even has practicalvalue for community planning, if one considers all the ‘biological and ideological ramifications’ whichcome from the terms wildlife and biodiversity, I have happily replaced this term (as I have done withbiodiversity) with wildlife.

Wildlife and Global ChangeChange is present wherever we look and is accelerating whatever we seem to do, yet the detection ofchange might not be as straightforward as it would seem, and our ability to detect change seems to be alsodependent on the scale we look at. Large-scale changes (biodiversity, for example) seem to be easier todetect than small-scale changes (a species of wildlife, for example) yet more difficult to interpret and arebest with great uncertainty. Small-scale changes seem to be everywhere, however most of the timeimpossible to interpret simply because they mostly reflect dynamics of ecosystems, communities, andpopulations at local and temporally possibly irrelevant (for management) scales.


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Only few meaningful data sets to do so are available. One example to detect change of an entire unit ofbiodiversity over a significant time frame and at a continental scale has been the comparison of bird datacollected by hundreds of thousands of amateur ornithologists around Australia between 1977–1981 and1998–2000. The preliminary analysis of these data as reported in Australia’s ‘State of the Environment(SoE) of 2001’ suggested, for example, that a total of 65 species had contracted in range to 13 speciesshowing a substantial and systematic decline over this time frame. Interpretation of changes is, however, adifficult task. When five specialists were asked to interpret these changes, there was consensus that four offive species, the brush turkey, the Australian bustard, the wedge-tailed eagle, and the fuscous honeyeater,had genuinely contracted in their range, all of themmostly through loss of habitat, one through habitat lossand loss of its major prey, the exotic rabbit. About the rest – hundreds of species – nobody was so verysure. And this was an analysis based on a data set size and time frame a biologist generally could onlydream about.

The Use of Wildlife: The Awkward Space of FirearmsThe use of wildlife is generally known not as “wildlife management” but as hunting, gathering, andfishing. These three often gender- and age-specific activities in wildlife-dependent societies are based on awide range of cultural specializations, techniques, and knowledge. They involve tools which range fromthe cultural and traditional to the highly technological and often lethal (firearms). (Ab)use of such modernweapons, and requisition of those, have adversely affected attitudes and legislation toward hunting. Thereis also the interface with wildlife, arms, and drugs trade, often connected, which has affected the legitimateusers of arms for hunting. Generally, the dialectic and often bitter discourse around that has compromisedsupport for hunting as a traditional and legitimate land use by western aid including charities.

Worldwide PerspectiveFor the purpose of this book chapter I have distinguished between four different wildlife managementzones around the tropics (Fig. 1). Three of them are based on biogeography (Neotropical, Asian, andAfrican realms) with one special group “Oceanic Islands” defined by the isolated and generally greatlymodified (Tropical Islands and Tropical Australia) nature of island environments.Wildlife management inthese four regions is carried out within the political environments of 53 different nations which might(or might not) be signatories to international conventions and are under growing pressures from growing

Fig. 1 A suggested classification of Tropical Wildlife Management Zones based on biogeography (Neotropics, TropicalAfrica, Tropical Mainland Asia (3) and major Oceanic Islands (island groups) around the tropical oceans (Map adapted fromState of the Tropics n.d.)


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populations and associated resource use (see http://stateofthetropics.org/). Current systems to managewildlife depend on the countries’ native traditional/indigenous systems and communities, colonialhistory, and the role of the political system states. For each country agricultural, forestry, water develop-ment, protected area, and tourism policies are, generally, of higher importance than wildlife or indigenouslegislation. There is also, in each of these places, a multitude of donors and charities carrying out projectsand supporting government and communities, each with their political agenda and ideologies. Politicalhistory has a major bearing on the current situation. The African region had a long and chequered colonialhistory. The Neotropics are where, with the exception of some small northern colonies, the Spanish andPortuguese becamemasters for centuries, while the Asian Region was predominantly English (India) withsome Spanish (Philippines) and Dutch (Indonesia) elements. Significantly, either powerful or remotecountries resisted colonization (China, Thailand, Japan, Bhutan, Nepal). This different history, andcolonial masters who viewed wildlife differently, has also shaped the fate of modern wildlife populations.The modern plight of the tiger in India has to be understood in the context of an imposed British bountysystem which decimated populations beyond recovery. So have the Anglo-Saxon experiments withacclimatization of exotic species for hunting and pest control and the commercial exploitation, oftenending in the destruction of native wildlife resources. After colonial states gained independence, wildlife,often at greatly lowered densities and affected by land use changes under colonial rule, rarely had a chanceto recover. New pressures and political instability, along with disempowerment of indigenous people andloss of traditional land rights of minorities and rural communities, ensured that most of the wildlife did notrecover. Significantly, this post-WWII phase was also characterized by increasing exploration for oil andminerals, megahydrodevelopment, industrial agriculture with its proliferation of chemicals, GM crops,and logging, all of them leading not only to vast environmental destruction but also to the loss of landrights and growing impacts and pressures on communities and remaining wildlife. This phase was alsocharacterized by a growing and global wildlife trade for the emerging western pet market, medicinalresearch, poorly regulated (international) hunting, a dramatic growth of demands on wildlife for theemerging Asian economies, and the development of tropical mass tourism, much of it targeting with itsdevelopment beautiful and natural regions. International fishing fleets, transport, and hundreds of millionsof tourists started to invade marine and terrestrial tropical environments, all with their own specificimpacts and multiplying the dispersal of alien species. Not surprisingly, this time was also defined bymany thousands of species threatened with extinction.

While the growing responses (as described in chapter 3 ▶The Development of Wildlife Governance,Science and Management Capacity in the Tropics) from the 1960s onward sought to stop this trend inwildlife decline, the growth of human populations, poverty, and environmental degradation mostly offsetthese programs. And that was before the growing impacts of a changing climate became clear and scienceshowed many frightening future scenarios, additional and exacerbating to all the old ailments. In thischapter I will briefly describe the current status of wildlife and of wildlife utilization/management in thesedifferent regions. Not more than a glimpse, I have tried to emphasize the differences as they unfold aroundthe tropical world.

African Wildlife: Between Myth, Colonial Legacy, and Modernity

The survival of our wildlife is a matter of grave concern to all of us in Africa. These wild creatures amid the wild placesthey inhabit are not only important as a source of wonder and inspiration but are an integral part of our natural resourcesand of our future livelihood and well-being.From the Arusha Declaration on Wildlife Protection, Julius Nyerere, 1961


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http://stateofthetropics.org/

http://link.springer.com/SpringerLink:ChapterTarget

http://link.springer.com/SpringerLink:ChapterTarget

Africa, a vast continent, the cradle of humankind, and to many still a near-mythical place where lions andelephants roam in endless numbers, has over the past century been greatly transformed. Now, with thecolonial masters all but gone, the modern African states (re)established, often at great costs to humans andwildlife, a mixed picture emerges. There are places such as South Africa, which is overcoming apartheidto become a modern state and thrive economically. There are countries such as some Central Africannations which had and continue to have wars killing millions of people. There are also countries such asNamibia or Botswana, where postcolonial legacy, social progress, and the conservation of their environ-ments including wildlife have progressed into modern states. And there are places such as the Gambiawhere forest cover has increased almost 10 % over the past 15 years. The African Tropics are character-ized by a vast continental mass which had its uniquely rich fauna of large mammals (megafauna) often ingreat abundance. As a continent African ungulates were greatly affected by the introduction of therinderpest (Italian cattle in Ethiopia), which reached the Cape Horn within few years at the beginningof the nineteenth century devastating wildlife to such an extent that many lions turned to maneaters forlack of food (see Sinclair 1977). Before African wildlife could recover, colonial powers decimated theungulate fauna until the conservation movement was born with the Serengeti, and country after countrystarted to set aside vast land areas for wildlife conservation – often with great costs to human commu-nities. Densely forested regions in Central Africa were for many years and up until the 1970s relativelyunaffected by major development, but they have also been opened up and changes accelerate as Africajoins the rest of the world in its legitimate search for a better life.

The magnificent African wildlife continues to survive in this modern world, and sometimes againstmany odds, as it stumbles from one crisis to the next. Species such as the black and white rhinoceros, oncenumbering in their millions, then almost extinct, recovering again in the 1990s, are now greatlyendangered again. This recent demise is a result of the high demand for rhino horn (US $90,000 kg) inAsian countries where the middle class has become wealthy. There are countries such as Tanzania whichhave dedicated almost half of their land (44 %) to wildlife conservation – and created a tourism industryaround that (No 1 Destination in the NYT Tourism Hotspot Ranking of last year). This industry employs27,000 people, attracts almost a million tourists per year, and generates 25 % of its foreign exchange,mostly around its wildlife migrations in the Serengeti and Ngoro Ngoro Crater at Mt. Kilimanjaro. Othercountries such as Rwanda lead the tourism world around endangered species, here the mountain gorilla,with significant benefits for gorillas but also for the poor rural people. Perhaps even more significantly,these real societal benefits have played a critical role for the mountain gorilla to survive war and genocideand resume its role as major tourism attraction. Parts of the abstracts of two papers in 1995 and 2010 showhow the fates of mountain gorillas and poor people have become entwined. They also show their survivalin times of great adversity.

Box 1: Gorilla Tourism in Rwanda: A Remarkable and Lasting Success StoryUntil April 1994 gorilla tourism was the basis of the Rwandan tourism industry part of which wasreturned to finance gorilla conservation programmes (Shackley 1995). This study showed that thegorillas had survived the war unexpectedly well and increased political stability has permittedresearch and protection teams to return. The paper discusses competing gorilla tourism in Ugandaand the uncertain future of this industry.

15 years later:Spencely et al. (2010) study shows that Tourism is still the leading export sector in Rwanda and

continues to grow. It also shows that it provides income and opportunities for the poor.


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The emerging modern African wildlife world remains, however, full of conflict. There are places suchas South Africa where a powerful western tourism prevents the reduction of the elephant population inKruger NP against the wishes of the local communities and the park administration, which is to retain thepark’s diversity and plant productivity as a basis for many herbivores. In the same country there are alsofarmers who have replaced their marginal income from livestock by thriving “wildstock” farms, wherethey breed, sell, and trade endangered wildlife for profits. And, of course, there is the vast Congo region,where the “bushmeat trade” thrives and where diseases such as HIVemerged from primates. Ownership ofand benefits from wildlife in Africa have been greatly confused during colonial times, and Tanzania maybe used as a rather representative African example on how colonial legacy, the western conservationmovement, and the new-found value for wildlife through tourism have created an uneasy and alwayscontested relationship between the power of the state, International Conservation NGOs, the tourismindustry, and local communities. Communities are now, after empowerment for some years, in retreatfrom the power of the state as it seeks its rent from wildlife and often conspires with foreign industriesagainst local communities.

Box 2: “The Government’s Animals”. Tanzania: Between National Park Legacy andContested Community RightsThe use of wildlife in Africa, traditional and modern (tourism including big game hunting) is a finebalance between the power of the state, the leaders and actors it encourages and the communities ofpeople, who had to live under the “yoke” of conservation. I have chosen excerpts from Minwary(2009) who showed the fickle nature of this “participation” and benefit sharing, as communities try tosurvive, the state seeks its “resource rent” and the industry joins hands with the state and leaders. Thisreality is almost an allegory of sorts as it describes the nature of what happens in many other parts ofAfrica and indeed the world where communities want to regain rights over wildlife management butfind, that they have only limited power to do so.

And then of course there was the lure of hunting in Africa, stronger than anywhere else and inextricablylinked with colonialism. All through Anglo-Saxon colonial literature, from Rider Haggard to modernbooks, the particular fascination of Africa for the colonial hunter reverberated over centuries. Trophyhunting of the big five (lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo, leopard) was a pursuit of the very rich during thenineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries. In the 1970s and 1980s the general decline of game (moreoften than not through political instability than trophy hunting) and the establishment of many nationalparks and antihunting sentiments from the west strongly affected big game hunting. Over the last decade,however, trophy hunting has again expanded, and a serious attempt has been made to include it as a facetof nature conservation (Bauer and Herr 2004; Baker 1997; Baskin 1994; IIED 1994; Lewis and Alpert1997; Meier 1989). However, while Lewis and Alpert (1997) demonstrate the substantial benefits huntingcan bring (e.g., to the Zambian economy), Baker (1997), in an analysis of hunting in the southern parts ofAfrica, concluded that a lack of appropriate monitoring and exceeding hunting quotas made sustainabilitydoubtful. Additionally, corruption prevents communities from truly benefiting from (hunting) tourism inTanzania and Botswana. This has currently been reiterated in Tanzania, where community participationdespite much rhetoric and hype remains elusive (Minwary 2009). In contrast Namibia stands as anexample where hunting is carried out based on private landownership, a system also adopted in SouthernAfrica, where farm-based wildlife breeding, trade, and tourism (including hunting) have developed.Numerous game farms now rely on their hunting income in a significant way. This harvest encompassesapproximately 22 species of wild ungulates and provides a very substantial contribution to farm income,


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with trophy hunting being a superior land use on marginal land (Meier 1989). This and many other studiesalso show that this “new” land use, if well regulated, can have significant conservation benefits.

Box 3: Wildlife Ranching and Hunting in Southern AfricaIn 1989, Meier, analysed the profitability of three landuse schemes in Namibia, conventionallivestock pastoralism, (1), game farming (2) and trophy hunting (3). He concluded, that anythingto do with game was more profitable for the farmers, if it involved marginal grazing land. He furtherfound that trophy hunting was the most favourable economic option on such land and that incomederived from it, even compared favourably with livestock on good land. Since this and similar otherstudies were carried out, farmers and the farmer markets in Namibia and South Africa have reactedand there has been a market adjustment towards it which is so far unique in the world. Farmers havestarted to rear, trade and sell wildlife instead of cattle and sheep and much of it is done in auctions,where they buy species that have disappeared on their large farms to restock (as fishermen do inmany rivers and lakes). These species then propagate and can be either resold during the next auctionor sold to a hunting tourist, mostly from Europe, but increasingly so from the US, who wants to:

(i) Have that unique hunting experience for that species(ii) Complement his/her collection of hunting trophies(iii) Mount it over his/her fire place(iv) Complement his/her farm stay holiday in the Savanna with something exciting(v) Have a trophy of that animal that is larger than Geoff’s at home

Over the years this industry has matured and in 2004 according to Damm (2002) 17,569 heads ofgame were auctioned. While this is a rather impressive number, in particular as it involved many rareand endangered species (e.g., 21 elephants, 39 Lions, 4 scimitar-horned oryx, 1 Black Rhino,137 White Rhino) it has dropped from 21,101 heads in previously (16.7 %), a fall which Dammattributes to that fact, that the “market” has run its way and “most land, which could be convertedback from agricultural to wildlife habitat, has experienced this transformation already” (Damm2006). Past farmers who wanted to restock their farms have turned into producers, wildlife marketsare starting to become saturated and stagnate. Damm (2002) predicts that with “tighter newlegislation” with regards to breeding, trade and landownership tax being currently considered thisnegative trend will continue. This is of course how markets work. The saturation will not work thesame for all species and that is evident with some dropping dramatically (e.g., the single black rhinoauctioned in 2005 fetched just under 100,000 Rand, down from half million Rand in 2001 and 2002),while for others such as springbuck, kudu, eland and impala prices were “astonishingly” (Dammalso, according to the mentality of markets, there have been some farmers who were “inventive”.Exploring new market opportunities e.g., for Bengal Tiger and Water Buffalo, while giving the newincome source for farmers a bad name in conservation, something it cannot afford. Hence the needfor regulation, but one which is quite achievable.


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Controversy also rules in Africa as to what to do about the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn, a tradethat has re-emerged as Asia grew rich and that needs to be fought with great determination, as a recenthigh-level meeting between heads of state in London decided, in the meantime with the aid of militarydrone technology. There is, however, also a valid argument to be made that rhino conservation wouldgreatly benefit from making this wildlife product rather a legitimate farmer venture than driving it intoillegality by becoming “owned” by western conservation elites and charities.

Box 4: “Rhinos Belong to the Future. . . Five Rhino Species Forever”The current re-emergence of rhino and elephant poaching, after many past, seemingly successfulcampaigns over more than 30 years, have, once again, demonstrated the precarious existence of thetropical mega fauna (Save the Rhino 2015). This resurgence is closely linked to the emergence of theAsian markets which, continue to cherish (rhino horn, ivory, tiger bones) what the western marketshave, either never valued or successfully abolished. The current massive poaching resurge has led toso far unheard of international condemnation, most recently during a conference in London whereleaders of 52 countries pledged to dramatically step up efforts and political commitment. Ultimatelyit will be decided whether Asian leaders in particular China and Vietnam are taking their interna-tional commitments more seriously. That the Chinese Public in China is ready is evidenced by theshark fin trade where, almost overnight, a consumer campaign (targeting a highly environmentallyconscious Chinese public), endorsed by the government, and drastically reduced it. (See also: http://savetherhinotrust.org). But then again there is another way of viewing this and it can be found onhttp://www.rhino-economics.com/. It looks at the trade less emotional and while the author calls it an“economic” argument one might also call it “evidence-based”. Significantly it reduces if noteliminates a conflict, creates opportunities and income for local communities and saves/growsrhino populations.

Saving Rhinos: Success versus FailureIn the year 1800 about one million rhinos lived on earth. Today less than 28,000 survive in the

wild, due to the combined effects of habitat loss and uncontrolled hunting. Throughout history,humans have hunted rhinos for their meat and other body parts, which are used for ornaments andtraditional medicines. Despite this bleak situation, there has been at least one notable success story.The southern white rhino was close to extinct by 1900, but today it is the most abundant species. In1900 there were less than 50 in the world-today there are more than 20,000! Why has the southernwhite rhino fared better than the other species and what can we learn from this? Economics providesthe answer! White rhino conservation efforts were driven by South Africa, which has developed avibrant market economy for wildlife within the last 50 years. This economy rests on three pillars:

• Recognizing and actively developing legal markets for things that people value about rhinos, suchas tourist viewing and trophy hunting

• Allowing private landowners to legally own rhinos, thereby giving them strong direct incentivesto manage them responsibly

• Enabling all landowners (private, communal or public) to retain the money they earn from sellinglive rhinos and rhino products, thus making rhinos a lucrative long-term investment

In the last two decades, the market values of live white rhinos have soared–from around $1,000 arhino in the early 1980s to more than $30,000 in recent years. These rising values created strongincentives to protect and breed more rhinos. The market approach has also been applied to SouthAfrica’s black rhino population and in neighbouring Namibia. Today South Africa and Namibia

(continued)


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http://savetherhinotrust.org/

http://savetherhinotrust.org/

http://www.rhino-economics.com/

protect 75 % of the world’s wild black rhino population of about 5,000 animals. In 1970 there werean estimated 65,000 black rhinos in Africa, mostly in other African countries, but almost all lost theirlives to poachers. Rhino populations in other countries are protected by laws against poaching andillegal trade, but there are limited incentives to enforce these properly. Government ownership andtrade restrictions simply do not create strong enough incentives to invest in rhino protection andbreeding, especially not to the people that matter: the people on the ground, who ultimately decidethe rhinos’ fate. We need to learn from the southern African experience! Unfortunately the southernAfrican success remains under threat because of the world’s refusal to recognize a legitimate demandfor rhino horn. For more than 35 years, the world has attempted to end the rhino horn trade bybanning it–and has failed. Rhino horn demand and illegal trade persists, and the ban appears to havesimply driven black market prices to extraordinary levels, with disastrous results. The rhino horntrade ban no longer makes either economic or conservation sense. The natural mortality rate of rhinosin Africa alone yields as much horn as has been poached to supply the market in recent years.Furthermore, rhino horn is a renewable resource that can be easily harvested without killing rhinos.And African conservation agencies and landowners already hold several years’ supply of rhino horn(at the current rate of black market supply). These stockpiles are worth millions of dollars, moneythat could be usefully spent on rhino conservation, but the ban will not allow them to be sold to raisethis money. The rhino horn trade ban is quite possibly the greatest remaining threat to the rhino!Public ignorance and misunderstanding allow this policy to persist. It is time to dispel some mythsand think more creatively about the most sensible way to ensure the future of all rhinos.

The Asian Wildlife Dilemma: Between Economic Boom and Rural Poverty

Tropical and subtropical Asia, from the Himalayan peaks through the monsoon belts of India and Burma,the rainforests of SE Asia through the vast coastal and island worlds of the countless archipelagos to thegreat tropical island landmasses of Borneo and New Guinea, each with high mountain ranges, evenglaciers, are centers of natural and cultural diversity and history which are unique in the world. They areareas where four biogeographic regions meet, where the collision of India with its Gondwanaheritage – the vast continent of Asia – not only created the world’s highest and most extensive mountainrange but changed the world’s climate. In this region human migrations, agriculture, and great civiliza-tions have longer and more intensively interacted with a rich tropical world than anywhere else. This deepconnection has led to the domestication of the largest terrestrial creature existing on Earth, the Asianelephant, and has brought forth rainforest cultures, which had a uniquely rich way of life around thousandsof species of wildlife and going back many thousands of years. Perhaps most significantly, this rich use ofwildlife as food and medicine, common to many “primitive” societies, was maintained and greatlydeveloped in the great civilizations, in particular in China and India. Although much has changed anddisappeared over time, one of the enduring legacies of this interconnectedness of humans and wildlife inAsia is its use for human needs and cultural enjoyment, for example, in a food culture and cuisine which,in the case of China and India alone, encompasses thousands of species of wild plants and animals or inthe traditional medicine chests (Chinese traditional medicine, Ayurvedic medicine in India, PNG’sindigenous medicine, etc.) where wildlife continues to bring benefits to hundreds of millions of peopleand remains a great symbol of status (elephant, tiger, rhino).

Asian wildlife is caught between this history, the economic boom, and still widespread poverty.Treading its thin line between tradition and the West, this tension defines the Asian wildlife dilemma.


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While having the power and wealth to continue its use, Asia now has to learn restraint if it does not want tolose it all and it has risen to the challenge. Asia as a whole has made great strides as it implementsprotected areas, as this suits the powerful role of its governments. It has, however, been less successful tochange the habits of its people or their continuing dependence on its wildlife. While its governmentsstruggle to accept this responsibility, and opportunity, its wildlife continues to disappear, and its culturaldiversity, including its cuisine, will be greatly diminished. “The west” has not recognized this “Asiandilemma” as it condemns and tries to control a trade around wildlife, which is so deeply entwined with thepeoples’ cultures. It still fails to see that conservation and regulation have mostly led to the emergence of avast illegal market, while the sustainable use was either made impossible or prevented to improve. Withthis view the challenge in Asia is not so much any longer to establish more protected areas. The real task ofwildlife conservation in Asia is to make societies understand the need to manage wildlife sustainably forits many uses and benefits it can bring. Last but not least, it is the human population which has to have abearing in our approaches to conservation. Asia contains more than half of the world’s population, andexcluding them from protected areas will be no long-term solution.

There are many examples of this Asian wildlife dilemma. There is, for example, the modern wildswallow nest trade. Emanating from China and carried out for many centuries it has all but destroyed agreat resource for the communities at the South Andaman Coast of Thailand. These people remainexcluded to harvest them as they had done for centuries (because national parks are there now), whilethe “Swallow Mafia,” with unhindered access, has now almost destroyed the resource. Throughout India,Bhutan, and Nepal tourism industries thrive on wildlife and specifically around the tiger without acceptingresponsibility (Furze et al. 1996; O’Riordan 2002; Eglert 2002). There is a legacy of inappropriate westernand hegemonic wildlife legislation in Bhutan and China as it prevents its farmers to kill wild boar, anoverabundant agricultural pest (Boyd et al. 2003; Bauer 2002), accompanied by a sad loss of traditionalecological knowledge in the Wuyi mountains of China as conservation goes too far. A similar trend isevident (loss of coral reefs, fish, primates, swallows, and indigenous people) in Thailand’s south while thegovernment ignores the long-term needs and responsibilities of its greatest industry: tourism.

Box 5: Ecosystem and Wildlife Change in Protected Landscapes in Wuyishan BiosphereReserve, ChinaThis case study shows, that many protected areas with human communities and activities around andwithin it continue to change (Bauer et al. 2002; Boyd et al. 2002, 2003). Wuyishan Nature(Biosphere) Reserve in Fujian Province China may serve as an example how, under enlightenedcommunity forestry development by the Chinese government, along with far reaching protection ofwildlife, one of the uniquely rich natural heritage areas in wildlife has been able to recover fromdestruction of forest and wildlife until the 1980s. It also has provided however an example whichshows how various trends, erosion of TEK, Bamboo community forestry and tourism have intro-duced a new dynamic setting whose outcomes are difficult to predict and need to be monitored andmanaged. A main change is the economic and cultural disengagement of the community fromwildlife through changes in reliance on and loss of cultural knowledge about wildlife (Fig. 2).

– Many people had direct knowledge of species (had seen or seen signs of), and thereforeinformation about species should be considered to have a high level of validity.

– There does appear to be an overall decrease in the time spent in the forest by local people. This canbe related to a decrease in hunting following protection of the species and also changing lifestylesaway from direct reliance on the natural environment for subsistence.

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– The majority of the study target species are considered to be common or very common, although54% of species may be decreasing in abundance. Overall, at least eight species may be consideredto be threatened: Crab-eating Mongoose, Fox, Large Indian Civet, Dhole, River Otter, LeopardCat, Leopard and Tiger. These results suggest that negative pressures are ongoing in the reserve.

– The results for changing abundance and abundance of species are not conclusive, but may suggestthat species that are more often found in disturbed areas (according to interview statements) aremore likely to be increasing in abundance or, to a lesser extent, stable and are more likely to becommon than rare or locally extinct. Many local people were collecting wild plants in 1998 forfood, medicine and sale. This indicates the continuing contribution of the natural environment tothe well-being of the Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve community. While the data do not suggestnegative impacts on plant species, those which are targeted for collection should be monitored forabundance and condition.

– Most of the people interviewed indicated that they bought meat. This is most likely a change fromearlier subsistence hunting following species protection. However, collection of small fauna forfood and sale was common in 1998.

– The available evidence collected during this study suggests that Bamboo monocultures lead tolower levels of species diversity and favour species such as Wild Boar which become agriculturalpests.

– The collection and sale of small fauna suggest that significant pressure is being placed on frog,snake, fish and possibly rodent populations. While collection for subsistence has probablyoccurred at sustainable levels in the past, the increasing tourism market presents a threat tospecies survival.

This study concluded that the economy ofWBR is at an early stage of change, and that the presentadult generations retain knowledge of species, with young generations retaining less knowledge. Theresults also suggest that unless more monitoring effort and better understanding of human-wildlifeinteractions are sought by the WNR administration it will not be possible to maintain the presentlevel of mammal diversity and abundance and that increasing population shifts will result as aconsequence of economic activities (bamboo community forestry, tourism), pollution and a pres-ently unknown level of wildlife harvest. Education Programs in schools would appear to be of greatimportance to maintain the knowledge and interest of local people in wildlife.

These changes in wildlife habitat and erosion of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in WuyishanBiosphere Reserve as bamboo monocultures develop might quite likely be reversed as the predominantly(and very fast-growing) Chinese tourism industry with its demand for wildlife experiences (and wildlifefood also) grows and it is difficult to predict what the eventual outcome for this landscape is. Nor dogradual and unobserved shifts in “protected” landscapes only occur in human cultural environments andas a result of agricultural, forestry, tourism, or hunting/fishing activities. They are also happening at largelandscape scales in the wake of megahydrodevelopment as it changes the face of many terrestrial habitats.

Nepal’s and India’s Tourism Industry in a Vanishing Landscape, the TeraiSpecies also, like river systems, are caught between different uses and aspirations. The last 3,000 or soremaining wild tigers in the world are living a precarious existence between priced Chinese medicine tigerbone item and equally cherished live target for wildlife tourists (Fig. 3).


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The Tiger: A Species of Contradictory Values and ApproachesThere is probably no more suitable species than the tiger to describe Asians Conservation Dilemma(Global Tiger Initiative Secretariat 2012; Tepper 2013; Mills and Jackson 1994). Revered by thewest, priced in China’s tiger bone market, major tourism drawing card in India’s and Nepal’sNational Parks yet deadly neighbour for rural people the tiger has not fared very well over the past30 years although what must be hundreds of millions of dollar were spent on its conservation. Whileits wild populations have kept declining despite of all these efforts, its captive population in Chinaalone has not done so badly. As Tepper (2013) reports.

A new report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) suggests that China isknowingly violating its own ban on the trade of tiger bones, as stipulated in a 1993 State Councilmeasure. . . the report, “Hidden in Plain Sight: China’s Clandestine Tiger Trade,” alleges that thegovernment is allowing the use of captive-bred tiger bones for tonic wines thought to have medicinalproperties. The EIA believes that several tiger farms in China are using what they claim is a secretgovernment notification issued in 2005 as proof their tiger wine operations are legal. . . The head ofgroup’s tiger campaign, Debbie Banks, expressed outrage on the EIA’s website: “The stark contra-diction between China’s international posture supporting efforts to save the wild tiger and itsinward-facing domestic policies which stimulate demand and ultimately drive the poaching ofwild tigers represents one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated in the history of tiger conservation.”.This report also suggests that “Experts estimate the numbers of tigers in the wild to be between 3,200and 3,500, although it’s believed that the captive tiger population in China may be as high as 5,000animals among up to 200 farms and zoos, according to EIA. These farms are often touted as tourist

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Fig. 2 The forest world of Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve (WBR) in Fujian Province, China: Conversion of natural forest intobamboo plantation (1), Traditional House style (2), Local man describing how he saw the last South China Tiger in the 1960s(3), Stump-tailed macaque, a regionally restricted primate species with one of its last strongholds in WBR


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attractions and sell tiger wine on the premises, which underlines the out-in-the-open nature of theseoperations”.

This newspaper report not only shows the ‘two faced approach’ of China to tiger trade bones. Italso shows the discrepancy between China and the urban “west”, China’s pragmatism towards mostthings, including tigers and its almost casual own approach as it legalises tiger bone trade, somethingmany advocates in Africa also suggest would reduce the trade in Rhino horn. It remains to be seenwhich way will be more successful. The old one certainly did not work. While it is to be hoped a lastditch effort, the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI) will halt the clicking extinction clock for wild tiger,China’s captive breeding program can be viewed as the most organised effort, an insurance of sorts,to at least preserve the species,-if in captivity.

Fig. 3 There are few if any other landscapes in the world which combine magnificent scenery with magnificent wildlife andculture to such an extent as the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent bordering the Himalaya’s (Bhutan, India, Nepal). Themegafauna of this region (One-horned rhino, tiger, Asian elephant, Gangetic dolphin, gharial, gaur etc.) is now more or lessconfined to increasingly isolated protected areas. Small wildlife populations, after having been greatly affected and degradedby mega-hydro-development (Kosi Tappu, Sukhlaphanta, Bardia, Chitwan) now have to cope with growing tourism numbers,an increasing part coming from Asia, in particular India. Both short and long-term impacts are difficult to evaluate. On thepositive side many communities around the parks, which in parts depend on their resources (fish in boundary rivers, thatchgrass, firewood) adding to the pressure, now derive significant income from tourism (Bauer and Maskey 1990; Baueret al. 1995, 1997, 1999)


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Wildlife in the Neotropics: Between Overhunting, Habitat Destruction, andEnlightened New Policies

Latin America, South America, or the Neotropics encompasses a vast new world with unique wildlife,which has, after many continuing struggles, at times between indigenous empires against the Spanish orPortuguese invaders, and between US-type capitalism and Soviet communism, emerged as something of atruly New World. Although old regimes linger and indigenous people remain disadvantaged, there isprogress in social conditions and in environmental management which is uniquely Latin American in itsboldness and innovation. This is no more evident than in Brazil, a G20 nation now which has started totackle its Amazon frontier with its vast environmental challenges with a sense of purpose, technologicalinnovation, and the support of a passionate, growing number of environmental/social leaders, not a few ofthem indigenous people. While this development is possible through a growing educated middle class it isalso based on a wealth of natural resources. For this reason the pressures to convert vast areas of rainforestinto “more accessible”wealth (logging, cattle farming, soya beans, etc.) continue unabated, and successesremain frail. The 70 % reduction of clearing rates in the Amazon since 2004, the outcome of governmentefforts, and REDD expectations can easily turn to dust as the greed for land and minerals around the worldgrows unabated. As in Africa, wildlife’s greatest protection so far was the vastness of the land, theimpenetrability of its forests and wetlands, and the lack of access through roads. This is, however, rapidlychanging as roads and airstrips open up the endless wetlands of the Pantanal and Amazon and as growingnumbers of settlers, fortune hunters, cattle ranchers, and mineral prospectors, often in the wake of loggingand mineral extraction, invade the rainforest and the equally vast tropical dryland forests (Cerrado,Caatinga). This situation is replicated in places such as Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Chile, orBolivia. A somewhat dated review of its use (Robinson and Redford 1991) showed that wildlife in SouthAmerica, although greatly depleted in the past and still harvested mostly without much regulation,remains an important resource. This review distinguished five types of uses people derive from wildlife:subsistence hunting (1), market hunting and collecting (2), wildlife farming and ranching (3), sporthunting (4), and commercial uses which included trade and tourism (5). Wildlife used is many species ofmammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and thousands of species of plants. Despite the large-scaletropical deforestation in this region, there is a great dependency on wildlife products, particularly amongindigenous people and peasants (Bodmer 1995; Bodmer et al. 1997; Robinson and Redford 1991; Vickers1991). At the same time there are many possibilities to develop this industry for value adding consumptiveand nonconsumptive tourism (Dallmeier 1991; Groom et al. 1991; Purdy and Tomlinson 1991). Many ofthose, however, remain unrealized.

Considers the implementation of more regulation and sustainable hunting in South America generallypossible, however, only if the most common forms of market or commercial hunting can be eliminated.This is a problem in his eyes not so much of morality but of sustainability, closely linked to a regard ofwildlife as “public property” or “commons” to be exploited for individual financial gain and as marketdemands increase and new technologies become available (e.g., also Hardin 1968). Latin Americanpeople who hunt for wildlife (primates, game birds, tapirs, spectacled caiman, green iguana, capybara,deer sp., guanaco, vicunja, waterbirds, etc.) have generally few other alternatives (Ojeda and Mares1982). Generally speaking wildlife and nature-based tourism as well as wildlife trade have continued togrow while subsistence uses and markets were closely linked to the development of legislation, the trendsof populations, and the fates of the communities, often indigenous, themselves. There are also uses, suchas Capybara hunting, which have made it to the urban centers, with its own set of problems – andopportunities.


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The Capybara as a Modern and Competitive Resource?Capybara, a much priced meat for Venezuela’s indigenous people, also made its way, for keeps so itseems, into the cuisine of the Spanish invaders. Catholic missionary monks soon realised that theCapybary not only were tasty, but allowed them to retain their meat diet on Friday (which back homein Europe was provided by the Beaver which they classified along with fish), it was also much biggerthan beaver, reaching weights of up to 66 kg meat and valuable leather led to over-harvest and agreatly diminished resource. Venezuela responded in 1953 when it made Capybara subject to legalregulation which was little effective until 1968, when a 5-year national moratoriumwas declared, thespecies studied and a management plan developed. Once populations had recovered, 35–40% of thecensused animals could be harvested every year on licensed farms with populations exceeding400 animals. Research had showed that in Venezuela on irrigated savannah optimal density (1.5–3animals/ha) yielding some 27 kg meat/ha/annum. The yield of unmanaged wild population com-pared with around 8 kg/ha. Most importantly, further studies have also shown that capybaras do not,as previously thought, compete with domestic stock, but graze on short vegetation providingadditional economic benefits to farmers. As it seems this trend in Venezuela has not continued.Will Grant, from BBC news (12.4.2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7987587.stm) in anarticle titled “Venezuela’s Giant Rodent Cuisine” reported that while the capybaras’ attraction asChristian “lent food” remains very alive (“many Venezuelans regard the semi-aquatic creature asmore fish than meat – a useful description during Lent when it is eaten as a replacement for red meatin this largely Roman Catholic country”), legislation has started to lag behind, The high demand inthe run-up to Easter, combined with widespread poaching and illegal hunting, means the “chiguire”,as it is called in Venezuela, is now under threat in some parts of the country. This trend, according toDeborah Bigio of FUDENA, an environmental NGO cited in that article, shows little sign of slowingdown in the wake of tighter hunting legislation (special hunting permit in the month before Easter) asit remains poorly enforced in a poorly educated community of hunters. Capybara are listed by IUCNat lower risk (management dependant) yet seems to continue to decline due to lack of existinglegislation or enforcement.

Nature- and wildlife-based tourism is proving a double-edged entry point into a more modern way oflife, as desired by many people. Countries like Costa Rica have managed to develop this income sourcefor rural communities through the proliferation of a national and international NGO (INGO) culture. Aswe can see this commercial and market-driven approach closely combined with tourism may hold somepromise.

Free Market Wildlife Conservation in Costa Rica?Costa Rica may serve as an example where conditions have been created by the government thathave encouraged foreign “conservation investment” by a wide range of INGO’s, supported byeducation and research programs from universities around the world and in particular from theUS. In this policy environment, conservation has become an experimental ground for the worldsINGO’s to try out new concepts and ideas at a safe place where they could be reasonably sure that agovernment and society would support it. Although the eventual outcome of that “foreign interven-tion” in matters W&BDM remains unclear (many land right issues remain or have been exacer-bated), it emerges that such project activity, is generally supported by growing tourist numbers andthat much of that tourism growth is based on small and community ecotourism enterprises. One

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7987587.stm

might conclude that this diverse environment of free foreign access, mutual competition (raisingstandards building knowledge, capacity and networks) between a competing but also collaboratingINGO community can do much to facilitate between government and tourism and communities. Ithas also already proven that it provides substantial income alternatives and complementary landuseoptions including REDD+ etc. for the disadvantaged rural and indigenous communities.

Oceanic Tropical Islands: Extinction Traps and Wildlife Sanctuaries

Islands are unique places in the world where mostly birds became often large and helpless because of size.Humans arriving thought they had entered paradise, for a while at least. After the dodos, moas, Hawaiiangeese, giant lemurs, and so on were driven to extinction, most tropical islands around the world werechanged forever and in historic times. They offered a compressed and much clearer, more recent history ofthe relationship of humans with large mammals than on the continental world. This was before theEuropean colonizers and their animal companions (goats, sheep, deer, rats, mustelids, foxes, cats) arrived.Then it was the turn of what had survived, smaller, less valuable, but still abundant like the Caribbean seal,which finally, and after the last sighting in 1952, was officially’ declared extinct in 2008.When everybodywoke up, it seemed too late. Unique tropical island worlds, if diminished already by earlier invaders, hadbeen changed to places where the native and endemic was restricted to some hilltops like in Hawaii orsmall offshore islands (like in new Zealand), while the remainder was covered with human crops, theirforeign animals, and plants, which thrived in their newworld, often replacing endemic species. Looking atthe history of bird extinctions over the past 500 years one can easily see that the recent extinction wavestarted on small and larger islands in the 1600s. Continents only joined in after the 1800s. Whencomparing timing and geography of extinction events with the colonial expansion of Europe a patternemerges, which suggests that many extinctions were related in space and time to the European fleetscolonizing the world, taking over continents, and introducing European land use and which, more oftenthan not, were little suited to the local conditions (DiCastri 1989; Flannery 1994, 2001; Diamond 1999;Fernandez-Armesto 2000).

Between 1630 and 1999 around 117 species of birds went extinct in the world (based on assessments byBirdlife International and recorded by WCMC) during two major extinction phases, the first between1600 and 1700 centered on the Caribbean, the second, more pronounced, longer, and more consistent,between 1700 and 1950 centered in the vast Pacific region. Both waves coincided with the history ofEuropean expansion, and both focused on tropical islands, where almost all extinctions took place.A modern third phase, despite our modern vigilance, continues. One of the best-studied examples is thebrown tree snake from Queensland, Australia, which, after having been introduced to Guam after WWII,almost eradicated the endemic bird fauna, some ten species, within 20 years (Meffe and Carrol 1994).

Yet, despite many similar stories, mostly unrecorded, there is another side to islands. Some 5,000 km tothe south, bird species extinct on the mainland in NZ managed to retain a last precarious hold and moreimportantly develop viable, if density-dependent, populations. These were assisted by wildlife manage-ment programs, which were daring and innovative yet proved successful. Similar things happen onMauritius (pink pigeon, kestrel, parrot) and Galapagos, where collaborating national and internationalorganizations have managed to arrest and even turn the extinction tide.

The Island continent of Australia with its tropical upper third, its highly endemic island fauna, and itshistory of the introduction of large alien tropical mammal species (banteng, water buffalo, rusa deer,sambar deer, wild boar) but also amphibians (cane toad) may serve as continental case study on fauna


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change. They demonstrate how even a large island continent seems destined to become a new andcomposite ecosystem (native and alien) where the endemic and the native can only survive if supportedby modern, well-funded, and, above everything else, consistent efforts in wildlife management. Austra-lian SoE reports (1996–2011), e.g., give for the first time a relatively comprehensive threat assessment ofAustralian fauna and flora (State of the Environment 2011). If we eliminate trend estimates for flora andinvertebrates (as currently too patchy and unreliable) it is clear that there is a reduction trend amongvertebrates which does not simply reflect taxonomic and knowledge uncertainty. It seems that during thisbrief reporting period native amphibians and reptiles have joined birds and mammals in their extinctiontrends.

The Great Unknown: Continental Trends of Australia’s Bird FaunaAustralia is an object lesson of the poor predictability of the combined, long-term changes of highlyendemic fauna as is generally found on islands. Currently, due to the large numbers of bird observerscontributing to distribution lists and participating at large scale surveys and monitoring systems ourunderstanding of trends in bird populations is by far the most advanced one. In Australia a forecastbased on large datasets is worrying as a whole (Garnett and Crowley 2000). According to the 2000Action Plan for Australian birds, there are 25 bird taxa (reporting to the subspecies level) extinct,32 critically endangered, 41 endangered, 82 vulnerable and 81 near threatened. The remaining 1,114taxa are considered of least concern, including 28 introduced taxa and 95 vagrants. If this assessmentis being compared with 1992, the time of the last comprehensive bird count, a downward trend isevident which is only partly offset by successes in the rehabilitation of species. During the time frameof the count seven taxa could be downgraded as a result of effective conservation management(2 from CE-EN, 4 from EN-VU and 1 from EN-NT). Conservation efforts at present are therefore notable to keep up with current downward trends. So far this trend has been most pronounced in thesouth west and south east where a combination of sheep grazing and grain growing has devastatedentire landscapes and greatly impoverished regional mammal and reptile faunas (Goldney and Bauer1998; Bauer and Goldney 2000). The Australian tropics are now the new Australian developmentfrontier where the re-development of pastoralism, large scale mining and new tropical crops (withtheir water demands) combine with the impacts of long established (Water buffalo, Dromedaries,Feral horses and donkeys) and new arrivals (Cane toads in NT) species of exotic origin. This will befurther exacerbated by the rising of sea levels which will change the very nature of many coastalwetland systems.

Conclusions

When we talk about wildlife in the tropics Dasmann’s premise lurks in the back of our minds. Terms suchas “the developing world,” disadvantage, and poverty come to mind. There remains a general “feeling,”akin to Dasmann (1964), that communities of animals are perhaps more important but also less “man-aged,” if managed at all, and certainly less “scientifically.” There is also the growing number of wildlifepopulations in the tropics which the western mind does not want to “manage” but confine to the nationalparks it has created there, accessible to the “tourist’s gaze” but not so much for the local to hunt, let aloneeat. And there is that “megafauna,” mostly gone from our temperate and developed world as “highlyinconvenient” for our agriculture and forestry but one we want to keep in the tropics, if only for the gaze ofa discerning tourism industry.


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This chapter, drawn with a coarse brush, has shown that across the tropical world wildlife and its usehave undergone dramatic changes. It continues to play a crucially important role, in particular for poor anddisadvantaged people, for many of which, however, it has become inaccessible.

Things are changing though. There are now examples in Africa where a colonial and postcoloniallegacy of western-style livestock husbandry and wildlife protection has given way to one whereindigenous communities have recovered what used to be their old wildlife heritage while having gainedthe confidence to embark in new or banished ones such as wildlife tourism and trophy hunting and fishing.Tanzania shows, however, that this is a fickle path as the state wants its share. But there also are places likeSarawak, where a strong indigenous element (the Dajak people) was able to retain the use of wildlife as animportant element in modern life and diet, despite the impacts of ongoing adverse logging. And there areplaces such as India, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Vietnam, or many parts of China where the use of wildlife,including tiger bones, is all but illegal yet continues unabated and with perhaps different models where theinfluence of western attitudes and approaches from the 1960s lingers and remains in direct and oftendevastating contrast to rural realities where sustainable use by communities is made impossible becausethe illegal one thrives. This is also the reason why capybara ranching in Venezuela has not happened aswhat seemed to be a likely future scenario some 15 years ago. If we would try to summarize the negativeand positive trends in wildlife populations and their use in the tropics we might identify the followinggeneral trends:

Status of Wildlife

(a) Loss of tropical vegetation, in particular rainforest, continues unabated (despite half a century ofefforts), and logging has depleted or destroyed tropical forests and their wildlife in many regions.While efforts also as part of REDD have increased, in particular in rainforest regions, they have yet tomake a real impact.

(b) Many tropical wetland systems have been affected/changed by megahydrodevelopment for energy,irrigation, urban infrastructure, and transport, greatly affecting their population of animals and plantswith larger species (river dolphins, large fish, crocodilians) often particularly affected. This process(e.g., Pantanal in South America) continues to accelerate, and there are vast areas of coastal wetlandswhich will be increasingly affected (and changed) by rising sea levels.

(c) There has been an emergence of new threats (soybeans, oil palm) which are closely linked to unabatedgrowth of populations and consumerism. There is only little and very limited understanding on howland grabs and industrial agriculture (chemicals, GM, low labor demand) will further drive thischange.

(d) Megafauna around the world has reached a critical point where a combination of illegal trade (becauseof their often high value), loss of habitat, and conflict with rural communities have continued thedramatic losses in the past. Many populations have become too small and too isolated to besustainable and will require more efforts and new approaches to be maintained. This even appliesto Africa’s two species of elephant which have lost more than half of their population numbers overthe past 20 years.

(e) A similar situation has emerged for the world’s >300 species of primates of which around two-thirdsare now endangered, often in small isolated populations. They continue to be under immense pressurefrom hunting and habitat loss. Although many international efforts are underway, generally thissituation continues to worsen, in particular in SE Asia, where many primate populations have becomeunviable. This situation is even more pronounced for remaining megafauna (e.g., wild cattle) andstarts to affect a growing number of species of wildlife.


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(f) There has been an acceleration of the rate of spread of alien organisms with few successes to containthem in tropical countries, although the losses in agriculture (see Africa report) are undeniable.Although there have been many efforts to better understand and monitor the global megatrend ofalienation of fauna and flora, action on ground is very limited, inconsistent, and largely ineffectiveeven in places such as Australia.

The Status of Wildlife Harvest and Hunting/FishingThere has been a collapse of many traditional hunting/fishing systems partly because of loss of prey, ofbreakdown of rural traditions, or of legislation, in particular the establishment of protected areas withoutbenefits for the local societies.

This process has coincided and often been responsible for the growth of illegal trade and practices,which finds it easier to operate in this new legislative environment, leading to the loss of communitypractices and control. These practices are greatly facilitated with modern technology. The trade in wildlifeemanating from urban centers of affluence has dramatically increased over the past 20 years and across thetropics. Many of the traders operate now globally, and the trade is closely linked with drugs, arms, andoften conflict. Despite increasing efforts by the international community but also national governments,this trend continues.

The corporatization of valuable hunting/fishing/wildlife resources has proceeded in many regions andoften with support by the state. This might be the depredations of the European fishing fleet along Africa’sfish-rich east coast, foreign fishing vessels along the coasts of SE Asia, foreign logging companies (whichapart from forest destruction greatly facilitate the exploitation of wildlife), or in a wider sense theglobalization of all forms of (generally poorly regulated) wildlife-related tourism including hunting andfishing tourism.

Tourism targeting nature and wildlife has emerged as a great player, seemingly justifying countries’investments in wildlife and protected areas. As the tourism industry as a whole remains excluded (partlyby choice, also by regulation) in matters of wildlife management nor shows generally any greatcommitment and interest to participate, its potential as a major positive force for wildlife and biodiversityremains mostly unrealized.

References

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