The horizontal dimension:
Interplay between institutions and institutional change at the local level
Revenue sharing from wildlife tourism and hunting in Ethiopia
Yitbarek Tibebe Weldesemaet and Anke Fischer
Background
Local people often bear the cost of protected area designations, including controlled hunting areas, as they forego income from alternative land uses. In many places across the world, revenue sharing schemes have thus been developed, based on the assumption that people will support wildlife conservation if they receive tangible benefits from it. We analyse here the governance processes of a scheme that aims to share revenues from trophy hunting and wildlife tourism in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State, Ethiopia. In particular, we examine this scheme against the backdrop of the literature on the governance of co-management, to explore if the criteria found as important for the success of co-management arrangements can help us to improve the governance of revenue sharing.
Qualitative data were collected through a combination of document analysis, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and stakeholder workshops that included governmental authorities as well as community members.
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Activities
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Region
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Zone
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District
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Community
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PA
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Design of legislation
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High
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Low
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Zero
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Zero
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Low
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PA management planning
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High
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Low
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Med
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Low
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High
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Revenue collection
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High
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Zero
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Zero
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Zero
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High
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Revenue allocation
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High
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Low
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High
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Zero
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Low
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Monitoring
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High
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Low
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Zero
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Zero
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Zero
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Figure 1: Weight of the de facto role of actors in different components of the revenue sharing scheme, as identified through semi-structured interviews and a workshop with participants from all levels. PA=Protected Area.
Key findings
All study participants welcomed the scheme and saw it as work in progress. Four areas of the current legislation and implementation practice were seen to require improvement:
- Information on the detail of the scheme was lacking among many actors
- Roles and responsibilities of the actors were imbalanced – district governments were very influential whereas local communities tended to be passive (see Fig. 1)
- Accountability was compromised, as limited provisions had been made for monitoring and evaluation
- Disbursement of the shares was usually not associated to hunting or tourism, and overall revenue was too limited to have an impact.
The areas identified reflected the evaluation criteria for co-management, as presented in the literature. However, one fundamental difference lay in the connection between resource and revenue: While in co-management arrangements, this connection is usually at the centre of community and government activities, a revenue sharing scheme such as the one examined here does not establish a close link between resource use and the amount of revenue disbursed to the different actors. This disconnect constrains the potential positive effect of revenue sharing on resource users’ behaviour.
Conclusions
The revenue sharing scheme was established in 2007, and it was thus too early to assess its impacts on conservation-related attitudes and behaviour. Our analysis of governance processes now informs the government’s current revision of legislation and implementation practice. It seems unlikely that the scheme will lead to attitude and behaviour change among the local population in the future, given the missing connection between conservation-relevant behaviours and the amount of revenue distributed. This might be addressed by a turn towards co-management of the protected areas, where responsibility for wildlife is shared between government and local communities. However, at a political level, formalised revenue sharing as in this scheme might help to make the monetary value of wildlife conservation visible, thus providing arguments against land conversion
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Read more in our research briefings from Ethiopia
The influence of informal institutions and social change on bushmeat hunting in western Serengeti, Tanzania
Asanterabi Lowassa and Anke Fischer
Background
Illegal hunting is often addressed by increased law enforcement and the creation of monetary or material incentives. However, not only formal rules such as laws, but also informal rules could help to reduce illegal hunting. We focus here on such informal institutions, that is, established (but unwritten) norms and rules that guide and constrain human behaviour in the society, such as local customs or taboos: What is the role of informal institutions in shaping bushmeat hunting in western Serengeti?
We conducted focus group discussions with 76 participants from 8 villages in Meatu, Bunda and Serengeti districts, complemented by two consecutive workshops with a range of local stakeholders (n=15): elders, community members, the district game officer, representatives of conservation NGOs, the Wildlife Management Area and TANAPA.
Key findings
- In the recent past, clan-specific social norms worked as taboos and prohibited the hunting of certain species (e.g., elephant, zebra)
- Like the killing of these taboo animals, also the use of certain techniques (e.g., pitfall traps) was seen to inflict misfortune on the hunter
- However, these rules have been eroding for a number of reasons:
People need more cash as they move from subsistence to a market economy
Cultural and ethnic groups are mixing due to local migration, education, increased intermarriage
Replacement of traditional religious beliefs with modern religion, e.g., Christianity
Traditional authorities, such as elders, are not respected anymore.
Conclusions
Informal institutions can be powerful tools to constrain bushmeat hunting, but are very vulnerable to social change. As previously active norms might be impossible (or not desirable) to restore, alternative social norms that fit with a modern society should be considered. Conservation interventions should pay attention to those areas where hunting is currently limited due to social norms that are still in place – these will likely change in the near future.
Challenges associated with introduction of an ecosystem-based management system: A diagnostic analysis of moose management in Sweden
Camilla Sandström, Sofia Wennberg DiGasper & Karin Öhman
Background
Swedish moose (Alces alces) management has over the years gone from a situation where open access and unrestricted demands lead to over-exploitation, into a situation characterized by abundance of moose. Whilst high numbers of moose are preferred by hunters, they damage forests through browsing, causing conflicts between the hunters and forest owners. In attempts to resolve the disputes, the Swedish government is introducing a new local ecosystem-based management system. In this study we focus on how this shift from managing a single resource to the broader perspective of ecosystem management and discusses to what extent it will contribute to conflict resolution. We used a diagnostic approach based on a theoretical framework developed by Elinor Ostrom to analyse a specific critical case of moose management. Both desktop studies and interviews with relevant actors were conducted.
Key findings
The diagnostic approach has helped us to understand the complex interrelationships between social and biophysical factors at different levels of analysis. This has provided insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the current and new moose management systems in Sweden.
The new management system, introducing a new management level covering the ecosystem of a moose population, clearly has the potential to solve problems related to the current mismatch of ecological and social scales arising from the moose being a migratory species and the institutional and organisational patchwork of property units.
However, some problems that are not dealt with appropriately will probably be transferred from the current system to the future one. These problems relate to complex property rights system, representation of hunters and land owners across the whole management system, and the fact that the new management system is a mix between formally regulated management levels (national, regional and ecosystem-based) and voluntary based management (local).
Without the establishment of cross-scale linkages based on trust and reciprocity, the new management system will experience the same difficulties as the current system, and will not contribute to resolving conflicts.
Conclusions
The introduction of ecosystem management will possibly remedy some of the problems related to the current management of moose in Sweden. However, the fragmented management structure where diverse owners (private and public, large- and small-scale) have different and potentially conflicting objectives is a challenge to the introduction of more holistic and overarching management principles such as the ecosystem approach.
- Read more in our research briefing from Sweden