Abstract
There is an urgent need for human societies to become environmentally sustainable. Because public policy is largely driven by economic processes, quantifications of the relationship between market prices and environmental values can provide important information for developing strategies towards sustainability. Wildlife in southern Africa is often privately owned and traded at game auctions to be utilized for commercial purposes mostly related to tourism. This market offers an interesting opportunity to evaluate how market prices relate to biologically meaningful species characteristics. In this market, prices were not correlated with species contributions to either phylogenetic or functional diversity, and species contributions to phylogenetic or functional diversity did not influence the trends in prices over time for the past 20 years. Since this economic market did not seem to appreciate evolutionary or ecologically relevant characteristics, we question if the game tourism market may contribute towards biodiversity conservation in southern Africa. We suggest that market prices in general may have limited values as guides for directing conservation and environmental management. We further suggest that there is a need to evaluate what humans value in biological organisms, and how potentially necessary shifts in such values can be instigated.
Highlights
There is an urgent need for human societies to become environmentally sustainable
Much of public policy is driven by economic processes, environmental values are still rarely directly included in economic markets[3]
Our study failed to find any significant relationships between game auction prices and the evolutionary or ecological significance of southern African ungulates and large carnivores
Summary
There is an urgent need for human societies to become environmentally sustainable. Because public policy is largely driven by economic processes, quantifications of the relationship between market prices and environmental values can provide important information for developing strategies towards sustainability. Wildlife in southern Africa is often privately owned and traded at game auctions to be utilized for commercial purposes mostly related to tourism This market offers an interesting opportunity to evaluate how market prices relate to biologically meaningful species characteristics. Quantifications of the relationship between market forces and environmental values can prove important for our ability to develop strategies to reform human societies towards more sustainable ones[9]. Throughout southern Africa, wildlife is an important economic asset used in safari tourism and trophy hunting[10,11,12], and to a lesser extent for meat production[13] While these activities may contribute to regional and local economies, they may not always create incentives for ecologically meaningful conservation initiatives[14]. Since species differ in both genetic and phenotypic characteristics, there has been a growing awareness of the roles of individual species for the overall diversity of biological communities[25,26]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
