Devolution of management responsibility for wildlife to local native peoples - would this work in North America? (Carpe Diem)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 08, 2011

How To Save the Elephants? Buy Ivory, Shoot Them

In the 1970s, Keyna had about six times as many elephants as Zimbabwe, and today Zimbabwe has three times more elephants than Keyna (see chart).  What happened that caused the dramatic reversal in elephant populations in the two African countries? 

Terry Anderson and Shawn Regan of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) explain in their excellent article "Shoot an Elephant, Save a Community":

"Anti-hunting groups succeeded in getting Kenya to ban all hunting in 1977. Since then, its population of large wild animals has declined between 60 and 70 percent. The country’s elephant population declined from 167,000 in 1973 to just 16,000 in 1989. Poaching took its toll on elephants because of their damage to both cropland and people. Today Kenya wildlife officials boast a doubling of the country’s elephant population to 32,000, but nearly all are in protected national parks where poaching can be controlled.

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