Local community’s perspectives on trophy hunting and their implications toward people’s welfare: the case of Rungwa Game Reserve
| dc.contributor.author | Msigwa, Fenrick Filbert | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-11-01T09:13:43Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-11-01T09:13:43Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-05 | |
| dc.description | MSc Dissertation | |
| dc.description.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. | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Sydney Byers Scholarship for Wildlife Conservation through the WCN Scholarship program and Dascot Ltd | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/6419 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Sokoine University of Agriculture | |
| dc.subject | Trophy hunting | |
| dc.subject | Rungwa game reserve | |
| dc.subject | Tourism trends | |
| dc.title | Local community’s perspectives on trophy hunting and their implications toward people’s welfare: the case of Rungwa Game Reserve | |
| dc.type | Thesis |