Big Game Hunting and Gross Domestic Product
An important item of data for analysing development is Gross Domestic Product (GDP): in
absolute terms, per unit of surface area and per capita. The table above presents the figures
for the main big game hunting countries.
16.5% of land creates 0.0001% of jobs
The
economic results of big game hunting are low. Land used for hunting
generates much smaller returns than that used for agriculture or
livestock breeding. Hunting contributions to GDP and States' national
budgets are insignificant, especially when considering the size of the
areas concerned. Economic returns per hectare, for the private sector
and for governments are insufficient for proper management. Returns for
local populations, even when managed by community projects (CBNRM) are
insignificant, and cannot prompt them to change their behaviour
regarding poaching and agricultural encroachment. The number of salaried
jobs generated (15 000 all over Africa) is low considering that 150
million people live in the eight main big game hunting countries, and
that hunting takes up 16.5% of their territory. To summarise, the
hunting sector uses up a lot of space without generating corresponding
socio-economic benefits.
Good governance is almost non existent
Good
governance is also absent from almost the entire big game hunting
sector in many countries. Those who currently have control of the system
are not prepared to share that power and undertake adjustments that
would mean relinquishing control. They attempt, thanks to a fairly
opaque system, to keep a largely exhausted management system going. This
position serves individual interests, but not those of conservation,
governments or local communities.
Hunting as a conservation tool
Hunting used to
have, and still has, a key role to play in African conservation. It is
not certain that the conditions will remain the same. Hunting does not
however play a significant economic or social role and does not
contribute at all to good governance.
The question, however, can
be summarised today as: can we do conservation better than big game
hunting has up until now, in those areas where big game hunting is
practiced? This is not at all sure, all the more so in that big game
hunting pays for itself.
The advent of consideration of
environmental services and sustainable financing makes it possible to
envisage financing these networks from a new angle. The environment is
increasingly seen as a global good which cannot be used exclusively for
individual interests or those of a minority.
In modern protected
area networks, hunting areas still have an important role to play in
conservation: that of financing and maintaining the peripheral areas
around conservation blocks.
The scale of big game hunting in Africa
The People
Around
18,500 tourist hunters go big game hunting in Africa every year. Hunts
are organised by approximately 1,300 organisations that employ around
3,400 guides and 15,000 local staff. On average, a hunting safari
organisation will only have an average of 14.5 hunt clients per year and
each guide will only take 5.5 hunters out annually.
The Places
Big
game hunting areas take up huge areas of land: for the 11 main big game
hunting countries, the surface area occupied is 110 million hectares,
in other words 14.9% of the total land area of these countries. In
addition to these hunting areas, protected areas occupy, in these 11
countries, 68.4 million hectares, i.e. 9.4% of the national territory.
The sum of the hunting areas and protected areas therefore represents
24.3% of the surface area of these countries. This leaves a proportion
of the country for human habitation that is difficult to reconcile with
the development of these countries, the population density of which
averages 34 people per km.
Animals Killed
Tourist
hunters kill around 105 000 animals per year, including around 640
elephants, 3 800 buffalo, 600 lions and 800 leopards. Such quantities
are not necessarily reasonable. It can e noted for example, that killing
600 lions out of a total population of around 25 000 (i.e. 2.4%) is not
sustainable. A hunting trip usually lasts from one to three weeks,
during which time each hunter kills an average of two to ten animals,
depending on the country.
Financial Flows
The annual turnover for big game
hunting in Africa is estimated at $US200 million, half of which is
generated in South Africa and the rest in the other countries of Sub
Saharan Africa. The contribution to the countries' GDP is 0.06% for the
11 main big game hunting countries.
The contribution to national
budgets is also low: one percent of the land classified as big game
hunting territory contributes 0.006% to the government budget. The
contribution of hunting to the national budget is highest in Tanzania,
where it is still only 0.3% and uses 26% of the national land area.
Returns per hectare in big game hunting areas
On
average, big game hunting generates a turnover of $US1.1/ha in the 10
big game hunting countries (excluding South Africa), which is very low
compared to agricultural use (300 to 600 times more), in a context where
the peripheral zones of protected areas are already occupied. This
figure does not reach the minimum ratio for the cost of developing a
protected area (at least $US2/ha), and can be seen as the sole
explanation for the gradual degradation of hunting areas. The local
community's share is around $US0.10/ha (or 50 FCFA/ha), explaining their
lack of interest in preserving hunting areas and their continued
encroachment and poaching.
Low productivity of big game hunting
On
average for these 11 countries, the surface area occupied by big game
parks is 14.9% of national territory, and the contribution of big game
hunting to the GDP is 0.06%. This makes the economic productivity of
these hectares very low. This information shows that hunting is not a
good option for land use, in particular in a context where priorities
are to reduce poverty and establish food security. However, big game
hunting (unlike small game hunting) is essentially carried out on land
exclusively reserved for that purpose.
The least productive
countries per hectare are Ethiopia (hunting areas have virtually
disappeared there), Burkina Faso and Benin (where hunting trips are very
cheap), Cameroon (where hunting areas are under high pressure from
agriculture). These are the countries where closing down of hunting
could make the biggest contribution to development by freeing-up land
that is not very economically productive (but what would the
consequences be for conservation?). These are also the countries where
it is most difficult to change local communities' attitudes to
conservation, due to the lack of any gain for them.
Find a more productive and eco-sensitive option
Those
who are doing the best economically-speaking are Namibia and Botswana.
And yet, Botswana decided that better value would be obtained from
running safaris and they closed down hunting in the Okavango in 2009.
This option should be studied in more depth in the other countries.
What is the place for big game hunting in this context?
The
socio-economic contribution and the contribution to development of big
game hunting are virtually nil. Therefore, the main overall interest of
big game hunting lies in its value as a conservation tool. It is this
value that should be increased by better integrating hunting into
conservation strategies.
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