Wildlife. To most people the word brings an immediate visual image: elephants and lions on the African savannah; the Asian tiger stalking the Sunderbans, or perhaps the cayman in the forests of Latin America. Usually this image is accompanied by an emotional response related to the need to "protect" or "save" these species from extinction.
Certainly, conservation of endangered species is an essential part of wildlife management, and where species have been overexploited protection of these animals in national parks or other rigidly controlled areas may be the only practical solution to ensure survival. But protection must be viewed as a means to an end and not an end in itself. As with other renewable natural resources, including the forests and wooded areas that are the primary habitat for wild animals, the key to long-term conservation of wildlife and of biological diversity is management based on the concept of sustainable utilization.
Sustainable management is particularly important in view of the role of wildlife resources as a source of food and income for rural people. It is noteworthy that in most cases, the animals hunted by rural people are not the familiar trophy species: elephant, buffalo, kudu, etc., but tend instead to be smaller mammals, birds, reptiles and even insects. Essentially, rural people hunt to survive.
Unfortunately, this basic fact has not been taken into consideration in the wildlife management efforts of many countries. Particularly in Africa, but also in other developing regions, the potential contribution of wildlife to development is frequently viewed narrowly in terms of direct revenues to government and generation of foreign exchange from wildlife-based tourism.
The benefits derived from the recreational use of wildlife are rarely returned to the people who live in adjacent rural areas; actual employment of rural people in the recreational use of wildlife tends to be very limited, and the foreign exchange revenue is often earmarked for other purposes.
Even more significantly, the legislation developed to regulate and encourage recreational use of wildlife often considers all wild animals as state property, even in communal or privately owned areas. At the field level, this has forced the concentration of resources and effort on repressive law enforcement, rather than sustained rural development, with the development of an antagonistic relationship between government employees entrusted with wildlife management and local people. Clearly, this approach can only be counterproductive; in the long run the sympathy and active participation of local people are prerequisites for sustainable wildlife management. This, in turn, depends on the creation of adequate opportunities and incentives, in the form of tangible benefits to individuals and local economies.
In this issue of Unasylva, E.O.A. Asibey, Ecologist at the World Bank and G.S. Child, FAO Senior Officer for Wildlife and Protected Area Management, present a critical review of the status of wildlife management in sub-Saharan Africa, and suggest approaches to ensure sustainable utilization of the resource. A closely related article by three wildlife experts working in Zambia details the success of a pilot programme designed to reduce illegal hunting in and around protected areas through the active involvement of local people.
For some animals, for example the rhinoceros, the combination of overexploitation, biological characteristics and land use pressure make it unlikely that there will ever be sufficient numbers to permit more than protective management. However, for many other species sustainable utilization is a real possibility. For example, in tropical countries, crocodiles were exploited nearly to extinction and figured prominently in the lists of endangered species. However, under appropriate management conditions, crocodiles can provide a sustainable source of income and food. Another article in this issue chronicles a number of FAO-assisted efforts to conserve and utilize this valuable resource.
In Asia and the Pacific where population pressures lead inevitably to intensive land use practices, captive or semi-captive rearing of wildlife for food and other products is taking on ever-increasing importance. A. de Vos examines the deer farming industry in New Zealand and considers its applicability to the conditions of the developing countries in the region. Particular attention is dedicated to a pilot deer farming effort in Thailand.
A special challenge facing those concerned with wildlife management in all regions of the developing world is how to make the most of scarce financial and human resources, as wildlife is generally accorded low priority in government spending plans. K. Thelen, FAO Regional Forestry Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, examines a regional network for wildlife management. Based on the principle of Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC), the network is facilitating the exchange of experience and expertise among national experts in the quest for solutions to common problems.
Wildlife is now generally recognized as a renewable natural resource but unfortunately it is rarely managed to this end. It is time that the emotional and often irrational sentiment that shrouds this resource give way to socio-economically valid approaches based on sustainable utilization.
