Does money "buy" tolerance toward damage-causing wildlife?

Ruth Kansky; Martin Kidd; Joern Fischer

doi:10.1111/csp2.262

Does money "buy" tolerance toward damage-causing wildlife?

Research output: Journal contributions › Conference article in journal › Research › peer-review

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Does money "buy" tolerance toward damage-causing wildlife? / Kansky, Ruth; Kidd, Martin; Fischer, Joern.

In: Conservation Science and Practice, Vol. 3, No. 3, e262, 03.2021.

Research output: Journal contributions › Conference article in journal › Research › peer-review

Bibtex

@article{b7c991196a904f1f9d5daa65fac338ca,

title = "Does money {"}buy{"} tolerance toward damage-causing wildlife?",

abstract = "The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area supports large-scale migrations of wildlife that occur in a mixed agri-conservation landscape in five Southern African countries. Human-Wildlife Conflict is a key challenge and understanding the drivers of communities' willingness to coexist with wildlife is thus critical. Community based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a widely used economic approach to foster human-wildlife coexistence with the assumption that monetary benefits can {"}buy{"} tolerance by offsetting the disservices of living with wildlife. We tested this assumption and hypothesized that Namibians would be more tolerant towards wildlife than Zambians because they received higher monetary benefits from wildlife. We used the Wildlife Tolerance Model (WTM) as the framework to define tolerance and identify tolerance drivers. We found Namibians tolerance was higher for lion, elephant and hyena but not for kudu and baboon. After controlling for confounding variables of the WTM that could potentially explain differences in tolerance, contrary to expectation, the monetary benefits did not account for higher Namibian tolerance. Instead, only nonmonetary benefits explained the higher tolerance. We used crowding theory to explain this finding, proposing that CBNRM in Namibia and the monetary benefits from the program {"}crowd in{"} intrinsic motivation to appreciate and tolerate wildlife.",

keywords = "benefits, coexistence, community based natural resource management, costs, crowding theory, governance, human-wildlife conflict wildlife, social ecological system values, wildlife tolerance model, Environmental planning, Ecosystems Research",

author = "Ruth Kansky and Martin Kidd and Joern Fischer",

note = "We thank the VolkswagenStiftung for funding this study as a postdoctoral fellowship to R. Kansky. We also thank the following people for assistance and support during the project: Shylock Muyenga for assistance with electronic data collection programing, Kabika Kumoyo, Mubita Nyambe, Brian Mulomba, Gift Muyamba, Inyambo Imakando for assistance with translating, piloting and survey interviews in Zambia, Alice Poniso, Daryl Mwilima, Rikki Matengu, Simasiku Mwanangombe, and Image Katangu for conducting survey interviews in Namibia, Ministry of Environment and Tourism in Namibia and Zambia Wildlife authority for research permission to work in their countries, Dr. Klinghoeffer and the Department of Wildlife Management and Tourism at University of Namibia and IRDNC with assistance, support and introductions to communities in Zambezi region and Liwena Sitali from KAZA and Mr. Nyambe from Peace Parks with assistance, support and introductions to communities in Zambia. Special thanks to the farmers and community members for their participation and willingness to take part in the surveys. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Authors. Conservation Science and Practice published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology",

year = "2021",

month = mar,

doi = "10.1111/csp2.262",

language = "English",

volume = "3",

journal = "Conservation Science and Practice",

issn = "2578-4854",

publisher = "John Wiley & Sons Ltd.",

number = "3",