Resource utilization, property rights and welfare—Wildlife and the local people

Abstract

The paper analyses the conflict between wildlife conservation and the costs and benefits obtained from it in an East African context. In the model there are two agents: a park agency managing a national park of fixed size and a group of agropastoralists living in the vicinity of the park. The park authority produces tourism services and sells hunting licences, whereas the agropastoralists produce livestock products. Wildlife and livestock interact with each other and wildlife is a nuisance for livestock production. The conflict is analysed under different market solutions as the agropastoralists, to various degrees, are given profit shares from the park activities. It is demonstrated that a market solution where they are given property rights in the form of a fixed share of the harvesting profit, will increase the nuisance on their production and therefore generally give no clear welfare gain for the local people. On the other hand, if they also receive a profit share from the tourist activity above that of the hunting benefit, the nuisance from the roaming wildlife will decrease as this scheme gives incentives for the park manager to increase the offtake and thereby decrease the wildlife stock in the long term. There will therefore be more livestock and a clear welfare gain for the agropastoralists compared to the situation where they have no property rights. Under certain conditions, the stock sizes will also be closer to what is optimal from an overall point of view.