The conservation costs of game ranching

Pitman, R.T.; Fattebert, J.; Williams, S.T.; Williams, K.S.; Hill, R.A.; Hunter, L.T.B.; Slotow, R.; Balme, G.A.

doi:10.1111/conl.12276

The conservation costs of game ranching

Pitman, R.T.; Fattebert, J.; Williams, S.T.; Williams, K.S.; Hill, R.A.; Hunter, L.T.B.; Slotow, R.; Balme, G.A.

Authors

R.T. Pitman

J. Fattebert

S.T. Williams

K.S. Williams

Professor Russell Hill r.a.hill@durham.ac.uk
Professor

L.T.B. Hunter

R. Slotow

G.A. Balme

Abstract

The devolution of user rights of wildlife in southern Africa has led to a widespread land-use shift from livestock farming to game ranching. The economic advantages of game ranching over livestock farming are significant, but so too are the risks associated with breeding financially valuable game where free-ranging wildlife pose a credible threat. Here, we assessed whether the conservation potential of game ranching, and a decentralized approach to conservation more generally, may be undermined by an increase in human–wildlife conflict. We demonstrate that game rancher tolerance towards free-ranging wildlife has significantly decreased as the game ranching industry has evolved. Our findings reveal a conflict of interest between wealth and wildlife conservation resulting from local decision making in the absence of adequate centralized governance and evidence-based best practice. As a fundamental pillar of devolution-based natural resource management, game ranching proves an important mechanism for economic growth, albeit at a significant cost to conservation.

Citation

Pitman, R., Fattebert, J., Williams, S., Williams, K., Hill, R., Hunter, L., …Balme, G. (2016). The conservation costs of game ranching. Conservation Letters, 10(4), 402-412. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12276

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 12, 2016
Online Publication Date	Jul 26, 2016
Publication Date	Jul 26, 2016
Deposit Date	Jun 13, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Jun 13, 2016
Journal	Conservation Letters
Publisher	Society for Conservation Biology
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	10
Issue	4
Pages	402-412
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12276

Files

Accepted Journal Article (1.5 Mb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
© 2016 The Authors. Conservation Letters published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.