Safari hunting and conservation on communal land in southern Africa

Abstract

This paper highlights key lessons derived from extensive experience in testing ways to make safari hunting more accountable to wildlife conservation on communal or customary land. It offers these lessons as a framework for developing the needed policies, management criteria and partnerships for sustaining benefits from tourist hunting, both for national and rural economies. It also draws extensively from experience in Southern Africa and suggests that when such lessons are applied, communities will contribute to increased wildlife production. This positive relationship to conservation can sustain revenue levels that can give wildlife a competitive advantage to most other land uses. A major policy need for achieving these results is to create incentives for stakeholder partnerships to reduce threats that contribute to wildlife mortality or loss of wildlife habitat. Household livelihood needs, especially hunger and low income, are important contributing factors to such threats on communal lands. National Governments have the key role in helping design stakeholder partnership agreements that can reduce these threats through fair trade practices that link economic benefits to rural livelihood improvements. Practical illustrations provide compelling reasons why the safari hunting industry should invest in this livelihood approach as a basis for increasing wildlife production. Political commitment to policies that promote such investments and stakeholder partnerships remain a major constraint to realizing the full value of safari hunting for wildlife conservation. International marketing conventions drive a major share of safari hunts sold world-wide. These conventions could influence policy development in support of conservation by requiring minimum compliance to policy standards for nation states sending trade delegations to market their hunts. Verifying compliance will require closer cooperation between conservation groups and hunting organizations in the monitoring of safari hunting policies and practices world-wide.