Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

The nature of hunting around the Western Corridor of Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
European Journal of Wildlife Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In many parts of Africa, illegal hunting is considered the most pressing issue in protected areas. Poaching has remained a persistent problem through the 50 year long history of Serengeti National Park. Around 2 million people live along the borders of the park. Poverty is widespread, and the population is increasing rapidly. In this paper we examine the local perceptions of importance and reasons for hunting, gender differences and opinions about mitigating measures among villagers around Serengeti’s Western Corridor. The data were collected through interviewing 590 persons in eight villages close to the borders of the park. Hunting is driven by the need to not only increase food supply and cash income, but also fulfil cultural and social needs. We also identified a proactive attitude in the rural communities towards reducing illegal hunting and more constructive relationships with the management authorities of the national park. The role of hunting in community life extends beyond the immediate poverty issue, and should be seen as an element in the larger development agenda of rural Tanzania and the quest for models for sustainable wildlife management.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adams WM, Hulme D (2001) If community conservation is the answer in Africa, what is the question?. Oryx 35:193–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Agrawal A, Gibson CC (1999) Enchantment and disenchantment: the role of community in natural resource conservation. World Dev 27:629–649

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alpert P (1996) Integrated conservation and development projects Examples from Africa. BioScience 46:845–855

    Google Scholar 

  • Arcese P, Hando J, Campbell K (1995) Historical and present-dayanti-poaching efforts in Serengeti. In: Sinclair ARE, Arcese P (eds) Serengeti II Dynamics, management, and conservation of an ecosystem. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 506 – 533

    Google Scholar 

  • Balciauskiene L, Balsciauskas L (2001) Threat perception of large carnivores: Are there sexual differences?—Large carnivore initiative for Europe (LCIE), Internet version

    Google Scholar 

  • Borge A (2003) Essays on the economics of African wildlife and utilization and management. Dr polit Thesis, University of Trondheim, NTNU, 187 pp

  • Brashares JS, Arcese P, Moses KS, Coppolino PB, Sinclair ARE, Balmford A (2004) Bushmeat hunting, wildlife declines, and fish supply in West Africa. Science 306:1180–1183

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bryan TA (2004) Tragedy averted: the promise of collaboration. Soc Nat Resour 17:881–896

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, K, Hofer H (1995) People and wildlife: spatial dynamics and zones of interaction. In: Sinclair ARE, Arcese P (eds) Serengeti II Dynamics, management, and conservation of an ecosystem. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 534–570

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell K, Nelson V, Loibooki M (2001) Sustainable use of wildland resources: ecological, economic and social interactions. Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Main Report

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter LH, Decker DJ, Lipscomb (2000) Stakeholder acceptance capacity in wildlife management. Hum Dimens Wildl 5:5–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Carskadden H, Lober DJ (1998) Environmental stakeholder management as business strategy: the case of the corporate wildlife habitat enhancement programme. J Environ Manage 52:183–202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Child G (1996b) The role of community-based wild resource management in Zimbabwe. Biodivers Conserv 5:355–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Child G (1996a) The practice and principles of community-based wildlife management in Zimbabwe: the CAMPFIRE programme. Biodivers Conserv 5:369–398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conley A, Moote MA (2003) Evaluating Collaborative Natural Resource Management. Soc Nat Resour 16:371–386

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Damania R, Milner-Gulland EJ, Crookes DJ (2005) A bioeconomic analysis of bushmeat hunting. Proc Roy Soc Lond 272:259–266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • du Toit JT, Walker BH, Campbell BM (2003) Conserving tropical nature: current challenges for ecologists. Trends Ecol Evol 19:12–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dublin HT, Sinclair ARE, Boutin S, Anderson E, Jago M, Arcese P (1990) Does competition regulate ungulate populations? Further evidence from Serengeti, Tanzania. Oecologia 82:283–288

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fulton DC, Manfredo MJ, Lipscomb J (1996) Wildlife value orientations: a conceptual and measurement approach. Hum Dimens Wildl 1:24–47

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson CC (1999) Politicians and Poachers. The Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa. Cambridge University Press, 244 pp

  • Gibson CC, Marks SA (1995) Transforming rural hunters into conservationists: an assessment of community-based wildlife management programs in Africa. World Dev 23:941–957

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gillingham S, Lee PC (2003) People and protected areas: a study of local perceptions of wildlife crop-damage conflict in an area bordering the Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania. Oryx 37:316–325

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graziano AM, Raulin ML (1989) Research methods—a process of inquiry. Harper and Row, New York, 410 pp

    Google Scholar 

  • Hackel JD (1999) Community conservation and the future of Africa’s wildlife. Conserv Biol 13:726–734

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hampshire K, Bell S, Wallace G, Stepukonis F (2004) “Real” poachers and predators: shades of meaning in local understandings of threats to fisheries. Soc Nat Resour 17:305–318

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill CM (1998) Confliciting attitudes toward elephants around the Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda. Environ Conserv 25:244–250

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hofer H, Campbell KLI, East ML, Huish SA (1996) The impact of game meat hunting on target and non-target species in the Serengeti. In: Taylor VJ, Dunstone N (eds) The exploitation of mammal populations. Chapman and Hall, London, pp 117–146

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofer H, Campbell KLI, East M, Huish SA (2000) Modelling the spatial distribution of the economic costs and benefits of illegal game meat hunting in the Serengeti. Nat Res Model 13:151–177

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmern T (2000) Hunting and community based conservation outside the serengeti national park—a sustainable approach by the Serengeti Regional Conservation Project (SRCP)? Msc Thesis, Department of Zoology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

  • Hough JL (1988) Obstacles to effective management of conflicts between national parks and surrounding human communities in developing countries. Environ Conserv 15:129–136

    Google Scholar 

  • Hulme D, Murphree M (2001) African wildlife and livelihoods the promise and performance of community conservation. Heinemann/Curry, Oxford, p 336

    Google Scholar 

  • International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) (1994) Whose Eden? an overview of community approaches to wildlife management. Russel Press, Nottingham, p 121

  • IUCN (2003) The Durban action plan. In: IUCN World Parks Congress 2003. IUCN, Gland Switzerland, Durban

  • Kaltenborn BP, Bjerke T, Vittersø J (1999) Attitudes toward large carnivores among sheep farmers, wildlife managers, and research biologists in Norway. Hum Dimens Wildl 4:57–73

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaltenborn BP, Nyahongo JW, Mayengo M (2003) People and wildlife around Serengeti National Park. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Lillehammer, NINA Project Report 22

  • Kidegesho JR (2001) Conflict management in protected areas. Kakauona/Tanzania Wildlife

  • Kirkpatrick DR (1984) Age, gender and patterns of common intense fears among adults. Behav Res Ther 22:141–150

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kiss A (ed) (1990) Living with Wildlife: Wildlife Resource Management with Local Participation in Africa. World Bank Technical Paper no. 130. Africa technical Department Series. World Bank, Washington DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Loibooki M, Hofer H, Campbell KLI, East M (2002) Bushmeat hunting by communities adjacent to Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: the importance of livestock ownership and alternative sources of protein and income. Environ Conserv 29:391–398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lybbert T, Barrett CB (2004) Does resource commercialization induce local conservation? a cautionary tale from southwestern Morocco. Soc Nat Resour 17:413–430

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mduma SAR, Hilborn R, Sinclair ARE (1998) Limits to exploitation of Serengeti wildebeest and implications for its management. In: Newbury DM, Prins HHT, Brown P (eds) Dynamics of tropical communities. Blackwell Science, Oxford, pp 243–265

    Google Scholar 

  • MNRT (Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism) (1998) The wildlife policy of Tanzania. Government Printers, Dar es Salaam

  • Mordecai OO, Woodroffe R, Oguge NO, Frank LG (2003) Limiting depradation by African carnivores: the role of livestock husbandry. Conserv Biol 17:1521–1530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Naughton-Treves L, Grossberg R, Treves A (2003) Paying for tolerance: rural citizens’ attitudes toward wolf depredation and compensation. Conserv Biol 17:1500 – 1511

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neumann RP (1995) Local challenges to global agendas: conservation, economic liberalization, and the pastoralists’ rights movement in Tanzania. Antipode 27:363–382

    Google Scholar 

  • Neumann RP (1997) Primitive Ideas: Protected area buffer zones and the politics of land in Africa. Dev Change 28:559–582

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newmark WD, Hough JL (2000) Conserving wildlife in Africa: integrated conservation and development projects and beyond. BioScience 50:585–592

    Google Scholar 

  • Quinn Patton M (1990) Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Sage, London, p 532

    Google Scholar 

  • Røskaft E, Bjerke T, Kaltenborn BP, Linnell JDC, Andersen R (2003) Patterns of self-reported fear towards large carnivores among the Norwegian public. Evol Hum Behav 24:184–198

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saberwal VK, Gibbs JP, Chellam R, Johnsingh AJT (1994) Lion-human conflict in The Gir Forest, India. Conserv Biol 8:501–507

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheaffer RL, Mendenhall W, Ott L (1990) Elementary survey sampling. PWS-KENT Publishing Company, Boston, 270 pp

    Google Scholar 

  • Schusler TM, Chase LC, Decker D (2000) Community-based co-management: sharing responsibility when tolerance for wildlife is exceeded. Hum Dimens Wildl 5:34–49

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair ARE, Arcese P (eds) (1995) Serengeti II. Dynamics, management, and conservation of an ecosystem University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p 665

    Google Scholar 

  • Skonhoft A (1998) Resource utilization, property rights and welfare—wildlife and local people. Ecol Econ 26:67–80

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Songorwa AN (1999) Community-based wildlife management (CWM) in Tanzania: are the communities interested?. World Dev 27:2061–2079

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Songorwa AN, Bührs, T, Hughey KFD (2000) Community-based wildlife management in Africa: a critical assessment of the literature. Nat Resour J 40:603–643

    Google Scholar 

  • Strauss A, Corbin J (1990) Basics of qualitative research. Sage, London, p 270

    Google Scholar 

  • Terborgh J, van Schaik C, Davenport L, Rao M (2002) Making parks work. Island Press, Washington, p 511

    Google Scholar 

  • Treves A, Karanth KU (2003) Human–carnivore conflict and perspectives on carnivore management worldwide. Conserv Biol 17:1491–1499

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Virtanen P (2003) Local management of global values: community-based wildlife management in Zimbabwe and Zambia. Soc Nat Resour 16:179–190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker PA, Hurley PT (2004) Collaboration derailed: the politics of “community-based” resource management in Nevada County. Soc Nat Resour 17:735–751

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank (2003) World development indicators database. http://devdata.worldbank.org

  • Zinn HC, Manfredo MJ, Vaske JJ (2000) Social psychological bases for stakeholder acceptance capacity. Hum Dimens Wildl 5:20–33

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study is part of the project “Biodiversity and the Human–Wildlife Interface in the Serengeti”. The work is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and NORAD. We are grateful to all the TAWIRI staff who helped with logistics and services, and all the people in the villages around Serengeti who gave generously of their time and thoughts to enable this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, (NINA), Fakkelgården, Storhove, 2624, Lillehammer, Norway

    Bjørn P. Kaltenborn & K. Margrethe Tingstad

  2. Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), PO Box 66, Arusha, Tanzania

    Julius W. Nyahongo

Authors
  1. Bjørn P. Kaltenborn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Julius W. Nyahongo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. K. Margrethe Tingstad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bjørn P. Kaltenborn.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kaltenborn, B.P., Nyahongo, J.W. & Tingstad, K.M. The nature of hunting around the Western Corridor of Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Eur J Wildl Res 51, 213–222 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-005-0109-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-005-0109-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation