African conservation and the evolution of hunting institutions

Depending on how it is regulated, hunting may either undermine or support African wildlife conservation efforts. In the realm of conservation governance, private actors play a significant role as hunters, both legal and... [ view full abstract ]

Depending on how it is regulated, hunting may either undermine or support African wildlife conservation efforts. In the realm of conservation governance, private actors play a significant role as hunters, both legal and illegal, motivated by various incentives. To ensure that these hunters act in concert with widely accepted public policy goals requires an understanding of the complex interactions between unevenly evolving institutions and individual human incentives. Without such understanding or consideration, hunting regulation may result in perverse incentives and actions that are inimical to conservation.

The emerging discipline of evolutionary institutional economics examines the dynamic interactions between humanly devised rules for social interaction and the behaviour of individual humans, thus providing a useful framework for analysing the trajectory of African hunting regulation and its consequences. Examining two relevant case studies of threatened African megafauna (rhinos and lions), this paper employs concepts of institutional dynamics and interplay and elucidates their significance for conservation outcomes. Highlighting links between different forms of hunting, it further demonstrates how inappropriate formal regulatory approaches may be undermined by adaptive informal market responses: for example, how poorly regulated trophy hunting may lead to calls for stricter regulations or bans and how, in turn, such stricter regulation may perversely lead to intensified illegal hunting activity, further undermining conservation objectives.

The paper concludes by offering insights and recommendations to guide more effective future regulatory interventions and priorities for further research. Specifically, it highlights approaches that move beyond simplistic regulatory interventions and attempt to align formal and informal institutions through inclusive stakeholder engagement and more complex, but supportive, institutional arrangements.