Stephanie S. Romañach

Wildlife viewing preferences of visitors to protected areas in South Africa: implications for the role of ecotourism in conservation.

Ecotourism has a potentially vital role to play in conservation by generating economic incentives for nature conservation. However, some authors contend that this potential may be limited by narrow viewing preferences among visitors to protected areas, suggesting that most tourists are primarily interested in seeing charismatic mega-fauna largely confined to government or privately-owned parks. We assessed viewing preferences among tourists at four protected areas in South Africa to test the validity of this contention. Mega-herbivores and large carnivores were the most popular species, particularly among first-time and overseas visitors, but African visitors and experienced wildlife viewers were more interested in bird and plant diversity, scenery, and rarer, less easily-observed and/or less high-profile mammals. Several of these favored species are extinction prone and often absent from wildlife areas due to sensitivity to human encroachment and competition with more abundant species. Hence, ecotourism may provide incentives for the conservation of intact guilds, and management for ecotourism may align more closely with biodiversity conservation objectives than suggested by critics. This potential could be enhanced by diversification of tour operator advertising to feature aspects of biodiversity other than the ‘big five’. Nonetheless, charismatic mega-fauna have a vital flagship role by attracting most overseas and first-time visitors to protected areas.

Livestock husbandry as a tool for carnivore conservation in Africa’s community rangelands: a case–control study

Conflict between people and wildlife is a major issue in both wildlife conservation and rural development. In African rangelands, species such as African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), lions (Panthera leo), leopards (Panthera pardus), and spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta) may kill livestock and are therefore themselves killed by local pastoralists. Such conflict has led to the extirpation of these species from many areas, and also impacts the livelihoods of local livestock farmers. To investigate the possibilities for coexistence of people, livestock, and large predators in community rangelands, we measured the effectiveness of traditional livestock husbandry in reducing depredation by wild carnivores, using a case–control approach. Different measures were effective against different predator species but, overall, the risk of predator attack by day was lowest for small herds, accompanied by herd dogs as well as human herders, grazing in open habitat. By night, the risk of attack was lowest for herds held in enclosures (‘bomas’) with dense walls, pierced by few gates, where both men and domestic dogs were present. Unexpectedly, the presence of scarecrows increased the risks of attack on bomas. Our findings suggest that improvements to livestock husbandry can contribute to the conservation and recovery of large carnivores in community rangelands, although other measures such as prey conservation and control of domestic dog diseases are also likely to be necessary for some species.

Determinants of attitudes towards predators in central Kenya and suggestions for increasing tolerance in livestock dominated landscapes

Where people and livestock live with predators there is often conflict that can lead to lethal control of predators. We evaluated attitudes of local people towards large predators and developed a novel index of tolerance by quantifying the number of livestock respondents would be willing to lose before killing the predator responsible. We interviewed 416 subsistence livestock farmers (community members) and commercial livestock ranchers in central Kenya. Commercial ranchers had more positive attitudes and higher tolerance than community members. Community members said their tolerance would increase if they were to derive income from ecotourism or trophy hunting. We found that community members with land title deeds were most tolerant of predators, stressing the importance of land security for conserva- tion efforts. Subsistence livestock farming is the primary land use throughout much of Africa and, as a result, identifying strategies to improve tolerance of predators under this land tenure system is of major conservation significance.

Ecological and financial impacts of illegal bushmeat trade in Zimbabwe

TRAFFIC Southern and East Africa, the nEuropean Union, Wilderness Trust, Chicago Board of nTrade and the supporters of the African Wildlife Conservation nFund.

Dynamics and underlying causes of illegal bushmeat trade in Zimbabwe

The prevalence and impacts of the illegal trade in bushmeat are under appreciated in Southern Africa, de- spite indications that it constitutes a serious conservation threat in parts of the region. Bushmeat trade has emerged as a severe threat to wildlife conservation and the viability of wildlife-based land uses in Zimbabwe during a period of political instability and severe economic decline. We conducted a study around SaveValley Conservancy in the South-East Lowveld of Zimbabwe to investigate the dynamics and underlying causes of the bushmeat trade, with the objective of developing solutions. We found that bushmeat hunting is conducted mainly by unemployed young men to generate cash income, used mostly to purchase food. Bushmeat is mainly sold to people with cash incomes in adjacent communal lands and population centres and is popular by virtue of its affordability and availability. Key drivers of the bushmeat trade in the South-East Lowveld include: poverty, unemployment and food shortages, settlement of wildlife areas by impover- ished communities that provided open access to wildlife resources, failure to provide stakes for communities in wildlife-based land uses, absence of affordable protein sources other than illegally sourced bushmeat, inadequate investment in anti-poaching in areas remaining under wildlife management, and weak penal systems that do not provide sufficient deterrents to illegal bushmeat hunt- ers. Each of these underlying causes needs to be addressed for the bushmeat trade to be tackled effectively. However, in the absence of political and economic stability, control- ling illegal bushmeat hunting will remain extremely diffi- cult and the future of wildlife-based land uses will remain bleak.