Special Issue "Economic Growth and Sustainable Wildlife Management"
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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2010)
Special Issue Editor
Guest Editor
Dr. Jerry V. Mead
Watershed and Systems Ecology Section, Patrick Center for Environmental Research, The Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA
E-Mail: mead@ansp.org
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Finding a balance between the economy of humans and wildlife within our ecosystems is critical for conserving fish and wildlife. The field of ecological economics is advancing rapidly, professional conservation and economic societies have and are adopting position statements on the conflict between growth and wildlife conservation, and ecologists are becoming more involved in economics. However, much work still needs to be done to understand the relation between the human economy and wildlife management. This special issue examines how economic growth influences wildlife management and bioconservation. The majority of papers in this issue will be research papers, with the exception of a few papers that examine the performance of conservation efforts from a historical context. The objective of the issue is to examine the successes and failures of economic policies, especially economic growth, that impact bioconservation.
Dr. Jerry V. Mead
Guest Editor
Submission
All manuscripts should be submitted to
sustainability@mdpi.com with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the
Instructions for Authors page.
Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by
MDPI.
Please visit the
Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript.
Article Processing Charges (APC) for publication in this
Open Access journal are 300 CHF (Swiss Francs) per accepted Paper. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.
Keywords
- gross domestic product
- ecological economics
- bioconservation
- environmental policy
Published Papers (2 papers)
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Received: 15 July 2009 / Accepted: 11 September 2009 / Published: 25 September 2009
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Abstract: This is an historic overview of conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa from pre-colonial times through the present. It demonstrates that Africans practiced conservation that was ignored by the colonial powers. The colonial market economy combined with the human and livestock population explosion of the 21st century are the major factors contributing to the demise of wildlife and critical habitat. Unique insight is provided into the economics of a representative safari company, something that has not been readily available to Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) practitioners. Modern attempts at sharing benefits from conservation with rural communities will fail due to the low rural resource to population ratio regardless of the model, combined with the uneven distribution of profits from safari hunting that drives most CBNRM programs, unless these ratios are changed. Low household incomes from CBNRM are unlikely to change attitudes of rural dwellers towards Western approaches to conservation. Communities must sustainably manage their natural areas as "green factories" for the multitude of natural resources they contain as a means of maximizing employment and thus household incomes, as well as meeting the often overlooked socio-cultural ties to wildlife and other natural resources, which may be as important as direct material benefits in assuring conservation of wildlife and its habitat. For CBNRM to be successful in the long-term, full devolution of ownership over land and natural resources must take place. In addition, as a means of relieving pressure on the rural resource base, this will require an urbanization process that creates a middleclass, as opposed to the current slums that form the majority of Africa‘s cities, through industrialization that transforms the unique natural resources of the subcontinent (e.g., strategic minerals, petroleum, wildlife, hardwoods, fisheries, wild medicines, agricultural products, etc.) in Africa.
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Received: 21 September 2010; in revised form: 18 October 2010 / Accepted: 12 November 2010 / Published: 15 November 2010
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Abstract: Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, but well known for its richness in species and sustainable natural resource utilization. The Namibian farming sector consists mainly of extensive farming systems. Cattle production contributes 54% of the livestock sector’s production output, followed by sheep and goats (25%), hides and skins (9%), and other forms of agricultural production (12%). Namibia’s freehold farmers have obtained ownership rights over land and livestock since the early 1900s; commercial rights over wildlife and plants were given to freehold farmers in 1967 and to communal farmers in 1996. Natural resource-based production systems then overtook agricultural production systems and exceeded it by a factor of at least two. The shift from practicing conservation to sustainable utilization of natural resources contributed to the rapid growth of wildlife utilization. The wildlife industry in Namibia is currently the only animal production system that is expanding. There are in total at least two million head of different wildlife species. The broader impact of the utilization of wildlife on the economy is estimated to be around N$ 1.3 billion. Tourism, live sales and trophy hunting, cannot sustain further growth. Wildlife farming could offer better opportunities for ensuring long-term sustainability. As the game meat trade in Namibia is not formalized, harvesting wildlife to satisfy the demand for game meat in export markets is still in its infancy. Sustainable harvesting of wildlife for meat production, however, has the potential to increase earnings to the beneficiaries in the wildlife sector.
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Last update: 14 November 2012