Incentives For Sustainable Management Research Articles

Wildlife supply chains in Madagascar from local collection to global export

International trade in wildlife is a complex multi-billion dollar industry. To supply it, many animals are extracted from the wild, sourced from biodiversity-rich, developing countries. Whilst the trade has far-reaching implications for wildlife protection, there is limited information regarding the socio-economic implications in supply countries. Consequently, a better understanding of the costs and benefits of wildlife supply chains, for both livelihoods and conservation, is required to enhance wildlife trade management and inform its regulation. Using Madagascar as a case study, we used value chain analysis to explore the operation of legal wildlife trade on a national scale; we estimate the number of actors involved, the scale, value and profit distribution along the chain, and explore management options. We find that the supply of wildlife provided economic benefits to a number of actors, from local collectors, to intermediaries, exporters and national authorities. CITES-listed reptiles and amphibians comprised a substantial proportion of the quantity and value of live animal exports with a total minimum export value of 230,795USD per year. Sales prices of reptiles and amphibians increased over 100-fold between local collectors and exporters, with exporters capturing ~92% of final export price (or 57% when their costs are deducted). However, exporters shouldered the largest costs and financial risks. Local collectors obtained ~1.4% of the final sales price, and opportunities for poverty alleviation and incentives for sustainable management from the trade appear to be limited. Promoting collective management of species harvests at the local level may enhance conservation and livelihood benefits. However, this approach requires consideration of property rights and land-tenure systems. The complex and informal nature of some wildlife supply chains make the design and implementation of policy instruments aimed at enhancing conservation and livelihoods challenging. Nevertheless, value chain analysis provides a mechanism by which management actions can be more precisely targeted.

Shifting Paradigms, Policy and Processes in Conservation and Development Over the Past Four Decades

Since the publication of the Bruntland report in 1987, IUCN, WWF and various UN agencies have developed sustainable use policies to enhance man’s stewardship of the resources that the world’s environment provides. These policies are, implicitly or explicitly, based on paradigms of environmental management. We have watched a transition from preservationism (where the emphasis is on exclusion or segregation of wild resources from humans) to sustainable use (where utilitarian values are placed on wild resources and the emphasis is on managing their use sustainably). There is increasing awareness that sustainable use of individual species is inseparable from the larger issue of sustainable development and that, ultimately, it is the resilience of both people and ecosystems that is essential for the long-term survival of both.Typologies and their resultant policies and programmes are not of course the sole determinants of environmental outcomes. The quality of macro-governance and demographic pressures are, for instance, two variables of high salience in southern Africa, the arena best known to the authors. These factors are mentioned in this paper but its focus is on the paradigm, policy and implementation process. This is the realm of environmental scholarship that the paper emphasises. The paper begins with a sequential paradigm review covering the past three decades. It then goes on to examine why these paradigm shifts have not had a more positive environmental impact. We look at natural resource policy from three perspectives: firstly, a ‘Worm’s-Eye’ view where, if local communities were writing policy, what they might include as essential components; secondly, a ‘Bird’s-Eye’ view where if governments are sensitive to local communities’ aspirations, what should be incorporated in national policy to facilitate the development of local institutions and provide the incentives for sustainable management; and, thirdly, an ‘Eagle’s-Eye’ view where global institutions (United Nations, CITES, CBD and international donors) adopt policies congruent with national and grass-roots level objectives. Throughout the discourse we emphasise the importance of trust and cooperation amongst stakeholders at all levels (Beinhocker 2006) and link our prescriptions to Ostrom’s (1990) well-known principles of successful common property regimes. The paper concludes with the observation that paradigm shifts, to be effective, must be accompanied by changes in process. The currently emerging resilience paradigm in complex adaptive systems affects conservation scholarship, particularly at communal levels. Its emphasis on adaptive capacity and self-organisation has profound implications for the way we conduct our professional scholarship and conceptualise the process of knowledge generation. What is required is an epistemological mind-shift which expands the scope and quality of the data analysed.