Open AccessEVALUATING THE PROSPECTS OF BENEFIT SHARING SCHEMES IN PROTECTING MOUNTAIN GORILLAS IN CENTRAL AFRICA
Author(s) -
MUKANJARI SAMSON,
BEDNARFRIEDL BIRGIT,
MUCHAPONDWA EDWIN,
ZIKHALI PRECIOUS
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
natural resource modeling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.28
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1939-7445
pISSN - 0890-8575
DOI - 10.1111/nrm.12010
Subject(s) - poaching , revenue sharing , enforcement , business , revenue , local community , agency (philosophy) , endangered species , tourism , natural resource economics , economics , environmental resource management , habitat , geography , finance , ecology , wildlife , sociology , social science , archaeology , biology
Abstract Presently, the mountain gorilla in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is endangered mainly by poaching and habitat loss. This paper sets out to investigate the possible resolution of poaching involving the local community by using benefit sharing schemes with local communities. Using a bioeconomic model, the paper demonstrates that the current revenue sharing scheme yields suboptimal conservation outcomes. It is, however, shown that a performance‐linked benefit sharing scheme in which the Park Agency makes payment to the local community based on the growth of the gorilla stock can achieve socially optimal conservation. This scheme renders poaching effort by the local community, and therefore poaching fines and antipoaching enforcement toward the local community unnecessary. Given the huge financial outlay requirements for the ideal benefit sharing scheme, the Park Agencies in central Africa could reap more financial benefits for use in conservation if they employ an oligopolistic pricing strategy for gorilla tourism.