Local community’s perspectives on trophy hunting and their implications toward people’s welfare: the case of Rungwa Game Reserve
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Date
2024-05
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Trophy hunting in Tanzania plays an important role in wildlife
conservation, economic development, and community development.
This is despite the current contentious debate based on utilitarian
and deontological perspectives across the globe. However, on such
contentious topic, the voices of local communities from wildlife-rich
countries that are key stakeholders in wildlife conservation, including
Tanzania, have largely been unheard. The Rungwa game reserve
(RGR) is among the protected areas where the local community’s
perspectives on trophy hunting are not well documented.
Specifically, the study aimed at (i) assessing local communities’
perceptions and knowledge towards trophy hunting, (ii) determine
the costs and benefits of trophy hunting and its implications to
community’s livelihood (iii) examine the trend of trophy hunting and
its implications to local community’s livelihood. The survey was
conducted in November 2021 and February 2022. The in-depth
interviews were conducted with selected key informants (n=30) and
the questionnaire was administered to 120 sampled respondents.
The study used the mixed methods approach to gather all the data
required whereby surveys through questionnaires and checklists
were used as tools. The Chi-square tests for categorical variables
were used to assess the local community knowledge of trophy
hunting; Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to determine
factors that influenced local community knowledge on trophy
hunting. Assessment of local community attitude was performed by
using descriptive analysis, while to determine factors influencing
local community attitude the Structural Equation Modelling was
employed. Assessing the benefits and number of costs perceived by
local communities the Welch two sample t-test was used. The GLM
with Poisson error distribution were used to assess the factors that
influenced the response on cost and benefits of trophy hunting.
Perceptions of the trend of trophy hunting activities over the past five
years by the local community were assessed by using the Chi-
square test, while the trend of the number of tourists and revenue obtained from trophy hunting over the past 14 years were assessed
by using scaled GLM with a Poisson error distribution. Generally, the
study found that most of the local communities (92%, n = 110) were
aware of existing hunting operations around the village lands and
game reserves. The study found positive attitudes among local
communities toward trophy hunting, only if local people accrue
benefits from hunting operations. The community's attitudes towards
trophy hunting varied across household size and occupation.
Education and household position had an indirect influence on the
community’s attitude. The findings revealed that there was a
significant higher benefit than cost imposed by trophy hunting
activities to local communities living adjacent the RGR (t = 9.27, df =
150.58, p = 0.00). The response of local communities toward
benefits and costs from trophy hunting around RGR appeared to be
influenced by demographic factors. The perceived trend of trophy
hunting from local communities varied significantly (2 = 94.8, df = 3,
P < 0.001). The study found that the number of tourists who
conducted trophy hunting around RGR decreased significantly over
the past ten years (GLM, t =-3.960, P = 0.002), but when assessed
against annual revenue collected over the past 14 years, there was
an insignificant decrease in annual revenue (GLM, t =-1.482, P =
0.164) of which the key informants revealed that it was caused by
reasons like changes of trophy hunting policy, quota prices, and
emergency of Covid-19 pandemic. Our findings suggest that local
communities value trophy hunting's contributions but weigh them
against wildlife costs, with demographics affecting individual
perceptions. In conclusion, trophy hunting is important to local
communities living adjacent to remote protected areas and banning
them may have a significant impact in their livelihood and wildlife
conservation.
Description
MSc Dissertation
Keywords
Trophy hunting, Rungwa game reserve, Tourism trends