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I. INTRODUCTION


Legislation on the protection of wild animals has long existed in most legal systems. In many cases, the original focus of interest was hunting, and the related necessity to protect at least some species or some stages of animals’ life. Provisions aiming generally at the protection of wild animals were often introduced for the first time in the sectoral legislation on hunting and were often the product of a compromise among conflicting interests. Sometimes protection was granted also to areas which were particularly significant for the survival of wild animals, by creating specific reserves.

Usually at a later stage, in many countries consideration extended more generally to any significant species’ habitats, leading to the adoption of plenty of legislation on various types of protected areas.

Provisions on wild animals and on protected areas may have been combined in a single legal instrument or kept separate, but a common characteristic of legislation of that generation was that it rarely took a comprehensive view of wildlife management, including development as well as conservation aspects.

A study published by FAO in 1984 concerning legislation on wildlife and protected areas in Africa already noted a trend (in the more recent laws of the 1970s rather than those of the previous decades) towards further consideration of wildlife management and utilization, as opposed to strict interest for hunting and individual species’ protection (FAO, 1984). Legal systems which had originally rested on two distinct elements - hunting and protected areas - then undertook to adopt a real corpus of wildlife law in which wildlife was more appropriately considered as a renewable natural resource. The objective of wildlife policies and legislation then gradually became the appropriate management of the resource for any useful purpose and at the same time without deteriorating it, in line with developments in international and national environmental legislation, which by the end of the 1980s came to a wide acceptance of the principle of sustainable development.

Additional concerns have subsequently emerged and oriented the formulation of more recent laws. These include an enhanced consideration for the role of each species and organisms and therefore for the protection of biodiversity. Further attention has also increasingly been devoted to people-related aspects of wildlife management. This is reflected in increased consideration of people’s views in decision-making and renewed institutional arrangements for this purpose, with an enhancement of local initiatives. At the same time, the international community has devoted increasing attention to environment and nature conservation issues, and the impact of international initiatives has also increased. The following chapters examine these and other main trends.

The national legislation which has been reviewed dates from the 1990s and is listed at the end of the text. These laws (and in some cases regulations) refer either directly to wild animals or simply hunting, or more generally to all wildlife (sometimes including plants) or protection of nature. Some also refer to protected areas, either together with wildlife or exclusively. In the latter case, the principal objective of the analysis remained the identification of trends in legislation concerning wild animals, rather than a more general discussion of protected area legislation.


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