A traditional means for pursuing wildlife conservation is the establishment of protected areas, in which human activities are prohibited or controlled with a view to safeguarding particular species or species’ habitats. More recently the creation of protected areas has been conceived as part of a "national system", or even in the framework of an international network, rather than in a "patchwork" fashion, so that objectives of overall biodiversity protection can more effectively be pursued. This is an express requirement in the Convention on Biological Diversity, which among the obligations for in situ conservation lists the creation of a system of protected areas, although this is to be done "so far as possible and appropriate" (art. 8).
Examples of provisions which require the setting up of a national system are in the 1998 law of Bulgaria (art. 3), in the 1995 law of Romania on environmental protection (art.. 56), in the 1997 law of Peru (art. 6), in the 1987 law on the environmental of Portugal (art. 29), and in the National Integrated Protected Area System Act of 1992 of the Philippines.
Whether or not a "system" is set up, usually legislation concerning protected areas foresees various types of areas to be slated for protection for various purposes. In most cases, these include the protection and management of wild animals among the possible purposes for their creation, although some laws set out some types of protected areas which are more specifically devoted to this purpose. The following are some examples.
The law of Botswana envisages game reserves or sanctuaries that may be established with respect to specified species, which may be captured within these areas only for scientific purposes (sec. 12). There may also be "private game reserves" created upon a request of the owner, in which the hunting or capturing of all or specified species is allowed only by him/her or persons authorized by him/her, at specified conditions (sec. 13). Hunting or capturing of animals may be practised in "wildlife management areas" and "controlled hunting areas" - in the latter case only under a specific endorsement on a hunting licence and upon payment of a fee.
Burkina Faso has whole or partial "fauna reserves" - where the hunting of respectively all or some species is prohibited -, "local refuges" - which may be reserved by local authorities on behalf of local communities to facilitate reproduction and exploitation of wild animals (art. 95) - and "village hunting areas" (zones villageoises d’intérêt cynégétique). Guinea has "fauna sanctuaries" for endangered species (arts. 26-28), and "zones d’intérêt cynégétique" either for hunting or for scientific purposes (arts. 29-31). Mauritania has natural reserves, which are devoted to the sustainable management of animals, and "zones d'intérêt cynégétique", which are managed for tourism or hunting purposes under licences, subject to prescribed conditions (art. 6).
Cameroon’s law envisages "fauna reserves" and "zones cynégétiques" among protected areas. The former are slated for conservation, management and reproduction of fauna and its habitats, and hunting may only be authorized by the Minister in the framework of authorized management operations. The latter are reserved to hunting, and may be managed by the wildlife administration or a local authority or any person, and hunting within them is subject to the payment of a fee (art. 3(1)). The law also envisages territoires de chasse - any area where hunting is allowed and regulated (art. 2(18)) - and territoires de chasse communautaire - areas of State land managed by a local community under a management agreement (art. 2(19)).
The law of Albania foresees repopulation zones, hunting reserves and fauna reserves - the latter for strict protection (arts. 8 and 9). Portugal envisages various kinds of areas related to hunting and wildlife management in its law on hunting: hunting refuges for the conservation of some species and the development of others which may be hunted (art. 7) and four types of "hunting areas" of national interest, of municipal interest, of tourist interest and of interest for associations. The latter may be managed under agreements with associations of hunters, farmers or environmentalists, or with local authorities (art. 14). In Italy, the 1992 law envisages "protection reserves" (oasi di protezione), "repopulation and capture zones" (zone di ripopolamento e cattura), and "public and private centres for the reproduction of fauna in the wild" (centri pubblici e privati di riproduzione della fauna allo stato naturale).
There is general agreement that, for the restoration and maintenance of biological diversity, consideration must be extended also to areas other than "protected" ones. This aspect, however, is still rarely reflected in legislation regarding wildlife management. The environmental improvement measures envisaged by the European Community under the plan of action referred to as "Agenda 2000" reflect this trend in the relevant legislation (which is mainly to set out funding opportunities), by particularly referring to non-protected areas.
The legislation of Switzerland also goes beyond the approach concentrating on the protection of selected areas by requiring, if possible, the protection of indigenous flora and fauna by an "appropriate agricultural and sylvicultural exploitation of their vital space (biotope)". It also requires cooperation among responsible authorities - agriculture, forestry and protection of nature and landscape - for this purpose (1996 law on the protection of nature and landscape, art. 13). A list of species indicatrices des milieux naturels is annexed to the law. The list, however, is not meant to be exhaustive, as Cantons may adapt it to local conditions, and it must be integrated in various specified ways. A mechanism called "compensation" (art. 15) aims at connecting isolated biotopes to each other by creating additional ones. The Federal government provides subsidies in specified percentages for regional and local biotopes (art. 18). Specific subsidies are to be provided for "ecological" agricultural practices under separate legislation (art. 19).
A regional law of Tuscany, Italy, in implementing the EC Birds and Habitats Directives at the regional level, requires the integration of the system of "sites of Community importance" with "sites of Regional importance", and also takes into consideration, among other features, ecological corridors (aree di collegamento ecologico funzionale) between the two types of sites.
A concern related to the declaration and management of protected areas is to address the relationship of wildlife management, which implies some forms of land use, with other land uses within protected areas and in neighbouring areas, and generally with land use policies and planning. This may have important implications generally on the development of a country and in some cases even on livelihood security.
The creation of protected areas for the protection of African wildlife has had a progressively strong impact on human activities. Until approximately the 1950s this impact was relatively small. Populations did not need to be displaced, and until recently continuation of most human activities within reserves was possible. However, population pressure has been growing, land use patterns have changed, and competing land uses such as agriculture and livestock grazing have increasingly encroached with each other and into protected areas. Some communities have come to depend on semi-arid lands, despite their low potential for cropping. These, however, are often also dispersal areas for wildlife, and conservation of wildlife even within protected areas is actually often dependent on regular migration of wildlife into these areas (Kenya Wildlife Fund Trustees and United Nations Environment Programme, 1988).
Countries’ land use policies do not always adequately address these issues. The national policies which have sometimes encouraged the subdivision of land among the many members of a group in semi-arid areas have often brought about other problems. The resulting economic subunits are more likely to be overgrazed, and in the end the environment is destroyed for both livestock and wildlife. Subdivision also encourages fencing of individual parcels, blocking wildlife migration routes and preventing flexibility of movement for livestock, which is a survival strategy. This process is likely to eliminate wildlife from rangelands and confine it to parks, but also to endanger livelihood security (Kenya Wildlife Fund Trustees and United Nations Environment Programme, 1988). Sometimes conflicts have been caused by contradictory policies which encourage one land use - for example the opening up of new land for food production frequently supported in agricultural policies - to the detriment of others, such as land use for wildlife conservation supported in wildlife policies.
There are few provisions which directly deal with these issues in the legislation which has been examined. The law of Uganda considers wildlife management as a form of land use, expressly aiming at the maintenance of optimum levels of diversity "commensurate with other forms of land use, in order to support sustainable utilization of wildlife" (sec. 3). In Kenya, the preamble of the law requires that full account be taken of the varied forms of land use and the interrelationship between wildlife conservation and management and other forms of land use. The law of Italy regarding hunting, mainly in an attempt to limit the latter, sets out fixed percentages of land areas to be devoted to the various relevant purposes: twenty to thirty percent of the agro-sylvo-pastoral land area in every region must be devoted to wildlife protection, while the rest of the land area is open for hunting under management plans (art. 10(3) and (4)).
One way to address issues of competing land uses in legislation is to envisage compensation to landowners for damage caused by wildlife. This, however, is only a palliative measure, and its practical implementation may be the source of additional strain in situations of escalating human-wildlife conflicts and scant financial resources. A more fruitful approach is to increase the involvement of local populations in economic activities related to wildlife, as discussed in the following chapter. To the extent that a significant portion of the deriving revenues remains at the local level and provides benefits to the local people, as a compensation for the presence of wild animals, these programmes are likely to be successful. Often, however, this has not been the case.
