Volume 142, Issue 11, November 2009, Pages 2718–2725
Abstract
We quantified livestock (cattle, shoats, horses and donkeys) losses to lions (Panthera leo)
and attitudes to lions, livestock losses and tourism among livestock
owners, village residents and tourism workers around Makgadikgadi Pans
National Park in Botswana. Losses were not correlated with the size or
structure of livestock enclosures, numbers of dogs or herders. Rather
losses increased with the amount of livestock owned. Most were stray
animals preyed upon at night. Attitudes to wildlife, conservation and
lions were also not consistently distributed within the society we
studied. Negative attitudes to lions were almost ubiquitous among
cattleposts but less widespread among people living in the more
urbanized society of villages or among people working in tourism.
Although
four tourist camps were operating in the area, benefits from these
operations were largely limited to employees. Despite considerable sums
of money being paid to Botswana by local tourist facilities few
respondents viewed tourism as valuable and most felt that the government
and not they or their community was the main beneficiary of tourism.
Tourism employees made up a small sub-section of the adult population
drawn predominately from larger villages while the costs of livestock
losses were spread among cattleposts near the park boundary. These same
cattlepost respondents were not prepared to improve stock care to
protect livestock, but indicated a willingness to kill lions instead. If
tourism is to play a role in reducing human–wildlife conflict,
communities must not be regarded as homogenous entities into which to
distribute benefits evenly. Benefits might usefully be distributed in
relation to the costs of coexisting with wildlife or used as incentives
to better protect livestock or other human resources.
Keywords
- Communities;
- Cattle;
- Benefit;
- Predation;
- Compensation
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