Study: community engagement is key in wildlife conservation

Conservationists have long known that most efforts, however well-intentioned, to save endangered species are bound to fail unless members of local communities are enlisted for those efforts. Now a study, conducted in an area of Tanzania, has confirmed just how important community engagement is in successful conservation.

“Community-based natural resource management has become one of the dominant paradigms of natural resource conservation worldwide,” said Derek E. Lee, associate research professor at Penn State University and principal scientist at the Wild Nature Institute who authored the paper, which has been published in The Journal of Wildlife Management.

“This type of strategy transfers the resource management and user rights from central government agencies to local communities,” Lee elucidated. “The impact of these projects on wildlife is rarely rigorously assessed, so we compared wildlife densities inside and outside the community conservation area. My data demonstrate that one of the first areas of this type in Tanzania has had positive ecological outcomes in the form of higher wildlife densities and higher giraffe population growth.”

Several villages in the country have been encouraged to set up Wildlife Management Areas whereby local communities demarcate and protect swathes of land for wildlife. In return, locals receive a share of tourism revenues from these areas. At present 19 Wildlife Management Areas have been set up, amounting 6.2 million hectares (or 7%) of Tanzania’s land area. Another 19 are in the works. Tourism, including wildlife safaris, generates revenues of around $6 billion each year, accounting for 13% of GDP in Tanzania.

For six years, Lee studied the Burunge Wildlife Management Area in Tanzania, which was formally established in 2006 and received increased wildlife protections in 2015. The researcher says he observed higher numbers of wild animals within the protected area than outside it. There were also fewer livestock like cattle, sheep, and goats on protected land.

“This suggests that the specific management activities implemented in 2015 have a positive effect on wildlife within the Burunge Wildlife Management Area,” Lee said. “These include performing anti-poaching activities to protect wildlife, reducing wood cutting, preventing livestock encroachment, and providing training and equipment to village rangers so that they can perform these activities.”