Transcript Slide 1

IUCN
The Southern Africa Sustainable Use Specialist Group
Should we Cull Elephants in a
National Park?
Brian Child
Chair
Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group
This Depends How we Define the
Objective of a National Park
 A protected area is a common property regime
set aside for the benefit of society, with a
conditionality being the conservation of
biological diversity
 We should judge the success of protected
areas not by process or category but by
outcome:
So what exactly is successful Park
management?
Societal
objective
Biological
objective
Contribution to those things valued by the societies
that set them aside, i.e.
 Recreation / wilderness in rich, urban nations
 Jobs and economy in poor, rural nations
Contribution to environmental conservation:
 Ecosystem health (systems not degraded over nonrecovery thresholds, especially for trophic levels with
long recovery times)
 Biodiversity (species not lost)
There is a Tradeoff between elephants
(at high levels) and biodiversity
 Too many elephants undoubtedly reduce biodiversity, and at
predictable rates (see figures on next slides):
 Elephant populations double in about 12 years
 At 2 elephant / km2, there will be no trees
 After a point (1 elephant/km2 or less) elephants reduce biodiversity
 The safest option is to protect ecosystem levels with long recovery
times, i.e. soil-water-carbon cycles; soil; vegetation; herbivores
 Therefore, if we define the purpose of National Parks as biodiversity
conservation, it is IRRESPONSIBLE not to remove elephants
 However, if an anthropocentric society decides that it can forgo
biodiversity for ethical reasons, it can make that choice (but should
not impose the choice on other societies with different social norms
and priorities)
Elephant Population Growth in
Zimbabwe: 12 Year Doubling Time
90,000
POPULATION ESTIMATE
85,000
y = 1925.8x - 4E+06
R2 = 0.8708
80,000
75,000
70,000
65,000
60,000
55,000
50,000
45,000
40,000
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
YEAR
Population estimate
Trend in Zimbabwe's elephant population estimates
2000
2005
Canopy cover (%)
Elephants Predictably Reduce Tree Cover
and Biodiversity
100
0
1
2
3
Elephant density (No. /km2)
Plant richness (no. of
)
species) (
Choice of Elephant: Biodiversity Tradeoff is a Value Judgments
4
Null-choice (i.e. no
reduction) violates interests
of other species,
ecosystems, habitats,
landscapes,e.g.
Vegetation forms, birds,
invertebrates (Zambezi
Valley parks in Zimbabwe)
Large herbivores (CIRAD
data from Hwange NP)
Cumming, DHM, MB Fenton, IR Rautenbach, RD Taylor, GS Cumming, MS
Cumming, JM Dunlop, AG Ford, MD Havorka, DS Johnston, M Kalcounis, Z
Mhlangu and VR Portfors, (1997) Elephants woodlands and biodiversity in
southern Africa. South African Journal of Science, 93: 231-236.
Elephant density (
)
Ecological safety: protect levels with longest
recovery time and least certainty of recovery
T5: Episodic
species
(quelea)
Trophic
Levels
Ecological “Balance” may well
be a myth.
T4: Carnivores
More realistic is the stateand-transition model with
degradation thresholds
T3: Herbivores
T2: Trees,
perennial
grass, and
habitats.
T1: Soil. Soilwater-nutrient
cycles.
Parks are islands in a
sea of humanity.
Ecological / dispersal
sinks have been lost –
system is NOT ‘natural’
1
10
100
1000
Years for trophic level to recover if mistakes are
made
The moral issue hangs on killing individual;
but what if we look at the species instead?




64% of World’s elephants in southern Africa, especially the “utilization countries”
Fully 45% of elephants are in Zimbabwe and Botswana
Massive habitat damage occurring; recovery questionable (climate change)
Ecological responsibility would require us to remove at least 30,000 elephants
each year!
 Excess elephants:
 Expanding out of increasingly degraded National Parks
 Into areas set aside for agriculture and occupied by extremely poor people
 Seriously damaging livelihoods
 The ONLY solution yet found to manage the trade-off between elephants and
poverty is economic utilization
 Elephants can be used commercially as bridgeheads of a wildlife economy into
marginal areas otherwise damaged by unsustainable agriculture. Under use
regimes in southern Africa:
 Amount of wildlife has quadrupled
 Protected land has quadrupled through private and community conservation areas
 Tourism economy has quadrupled
Elephant Utilization
 Loud argument that markets create use which destroys
elephants
 Mis-understands:
 That the primary threat factor is competition from other land
uses.
 That Incentives are essential to expand elephants range
 Use is a rigorous concept that works where:
 Proprietorship - The landholder captures the benefits
 Price - The value of elephants (and associated species) is higher
than alternative land uses
 Subsidiarity – Local control and rights are paramount
Elephant Utilization
There is strong evidence that landholder
incentives work to create more land for wildlife
(e.g. see CAMPFIRE slide)
Interestingly, elephants have (see slide
comparing population change to use regime):
 Increased by 225% in the countries that
unashamedly use them
 Declined by 75% in the countries that ban use
Tangible Benefits: Cash Dividends
from the Wildlife Enterprise is KEY
Private Income
Total Income
EXAMPLE: Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE Programme depends heavily
on safari hunting (over 60% of revenues from elephants)
In the face of a doubling of
human populations
Elephants benefit 90,000 households,
but trophy quality is maintained
Elephant trophy Size
60
50
lbs
40
30
20
10
0Parks
1989
Average
1990
1991
1992
CAMPFIRE Average
Elephant populations have doubled
from 4,000 to 8-12,000
Po p u la t io n Est ima t es f o r Eleph a n t in
C A M PFIR E dist rict s: 1 9 8 8 - 2 0 0 1
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
CAMPFIRE: Sources of Direct Revenue
(US$)
12,000
Other(4)
10,000
$3,000,000
Hides & Ivory(3)
$2,500,000
Tourism(2)
$2,000,000
Sport Hunting(1)
8,000
6,000
4,000
$1,500,000
2,000
$1,000,000
0
1988
1990
1992
1994
Year
1996
1998
2000
$500,000
$0
Ye ar
2001
2002
And income from hunting has
increased dramatically
14,000
E s tim a te d Po pula tio n
1993
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Paradox: Direct Negative Correlation
between Non-Use and Population Growth
Changes in Elephant Numbers in East and Southern
Africa 1960-2000
140,000
120,000
100,000
24% of
1960
215% of
1960
80,000
60,000
40,000
1960
20,000
2000
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M
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Non
Use
Use
1960
Conclusions
 Our responsibility to ecosystems and species should trump our
responsibility to individual animals
 Reducing elephants in many parks in southern Africa is the responsible (if
difficult) choice
 However, we can have more elephants if we convert them into the land use
of choice.
 Many African savannas far more suitable for wildlife production than crops
or livestock
 Wildlife, a major African resource for Millennia, can be used as a
sustainable resource for fighting poverty
 Political sustainability - Why should politicians be convinced that conserving
the natural world is in the best interests of their electorate?
Conclusions
 The Ethical Issue (whose ethics?)
 Moral responsibility to treat animals humanely
 Should not look at elephants in isolation - Is it moral to use
contraception when it is expensive, there is no money for AIDS
treatment, and using elephants creates value for rural
communities?
 Is it legitimate for one person/culture impose to impose their
moral norms on another through legislation or international
agreement?
 Is it moral to impose the costs of having elephant on the poorest
people in the World without paying?
 Is it ethical to place the rights on individual elephants over those
of other species and especially ecosystems?
Conclusions
 Ultimately, the sustainability of elephants or protected
area is the issue
 This returns us to the OBJECTIVES of parks.
 We reject the National Park model of the last 100 years as
anthropocentric – more concerned with people ‘feeling’ good
about nature, than about actually conserving it
 We believe Parks should:
Maximize benefits to society
Without pushing system over degradation thresholds
 What is fascinating about this, is that it reflects the principles
underlying protected areas that are thousands, not one hundred,
years old, e.g. sacred groves in Asia, hemas in Arabia
A regional perspective – introducing effective use policies can
access ‘empty’ land as a sink for excess elephant populations
Potential to use elephants:
Huge numbers of elephants
causing serious range destruction
in Zimbabwe and Botswana
•As a conservation-development tool in
lightly populated areas in Zambia,
Angola, Mozambique
•To release pressure on Botswana,
Namibia, Zimbabwe