Transforming rural hunters into conservationists: An assessment of community-based wildlife management programs in Africa

The failure of conventional wildlife management in Eastern and Southern Africa has led several countries to implement community-based wildlife programs. We examine the assumptions these initiatives make about rural hunters, and describe how the programs attempt to induce individuals away from illegal hunting. Using game theory and a case study from Zambia, we find that these programs misunderstand some of the economic, political and social benefits of local hunting. As a result, community-based wildlife management schemes succeed in protecting some of the larger mammals only by virtue of their increased enforcement levels, not their ability to distribute socioeconomic benefits. Rather than support conservation, local hunters continue to kill game at a rate comparable to the days before the programs, although they have shifted their tactics and prey selection.