A bio-economic analysis of conflicts between illegal hunting and wildlife management in Cameroon: The case of Campo-Ma'an National Park

摘要

Using bio-economic modelling, this paper analyses conflicts between legal and illegal activities in the CampoMa'an National Park, Cameroon. We consider two different agents, a local community living near the Park - who hunt illegally to fulfil their welfare -, and a park manager who has received from the Cameroonian government the mandate to manage the wildlife found in the park. The park manager is assumed to practice an imperfect anti-poaching policy due to the persistence of poaching activities in the study area. Both agents are assumed to proceed in strategic and asymmetric interdependency where the park manager determines the anti-poaching effort and then the local people have to adjust their behaviour within a full park scheme. In a bid to reduce illegal hunting, the social planner - the Cameroonian government - then tries to implement another scheme in which the local people are allowed to hunt in the surrounding area of the park, through the establishment of community hunting zones. This park-plus-hunting scheme is an example of Integrated and Conservation Development Project. The empirical analysis is based on data drawn from different sources. Results show that the antipoaching efforts, the wildlife stock and the harvesting rate are lesser when some hunting rights are allowed to local people as compared to what they are under full park regime. However, by recognizing some hunting rights to the local people, the share of income lost by the park is almost recovered and all poachers leave the underground to exercise in legality as hunters.