Can a legal game meat trade in Tanzania lead to reduced poaching? Perceptions of stakeholders in the wildlife industry

Abstract

This paper evaluates stakeholders' perceptions about authorisation of the game meat trade as a solution to poaching in Tanzania. It respectively uses a variant of “Likert’s method of summated ratings” and the “cumulative ordinal regression model” to analyse and compare the opinions of government officials and non-state stakeholders about the performance of the recent regulatory framework governing game meat trade in the country. The results support the assertion that the authorisation of the game meat trade can be one of the boldest conservation tools to mitigate poaching if well-planned and regulated. The results of cumulative ordinal regression model suggest that a unit improvement in the procedures for the application and registration of game meat selling facilities is likely to improve the performance of the regulatory framework in the country by about 42%. This result was statistically significant at a p-value of 0.010, which corresponds to a99% confidence level. We recommend leveraging stakeholders' active engagement and strengthening cooperation between game meat value chain actors and law-enforcement authorities. An innovative participatory model for enforcing game meat sanitary and safety regulations is also recommended to avoid potential health risks to consumers. We underscore the importance of institutional capacity building, awareness creation, and adequate funding in the fight against poaching and bushmeat trade.