Increase anti-poaching law-enforcement or reduce demand for wildlife products? A framework to guide strategic conservation investments
Date
2018
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley Open Access
Abstract
Donors, NGOs, and governments increasingly invest in campaigns to reduce con-sumer demand for wildlife products in an attempt to prevent the decline of overex-ploited and poached species. We provide a novel framework to aid these investmentdecisions based on a demand reduction campaign's return on investment compared toantipoaching law enforcement. A resulting decision rule shows that the relative effec-tiveness of demand reduction compared to increased enforcement depends entirely onsocial and economic uncertainties rather than ecological ones. Illustrative case stud-ies on bushmeat and ivory reveal that campaigning to reduce demand may be morecost-effective than antipoaching enforcement if demand reduction campaigns drivemodest price reductions. The outputs from this framework can link targeted monitor-ing of wildlife product prices to management decisions that protect species threatenedby harvest and trade.
Description
CITATION: Holden, M. H., et al. 2018. Increase anti-poaching law-enforcement or reduce demand for wildlife products? a framework to guide strategic conservation investments. Conservation Letters, doi:10.1111/conl.12618.
The original publication is available at https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The original publication is available at https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Keywords
Bushmeat, Wildlife conservation -- Law and legislation, Demand reduction of wildlife products, Wildlife products industry, Antipoaching law enforcement
Citation
Holden, M. H., et al. 2018. Increase anti-poaching law-enforcement or reduce demand for wildlife products? a framework to guide strategic conservation investments. Conservation Letters, doi:10.1111/conl.12618