Compensation and Land Protection

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Compensation and Land Protection without
Elephant Conservation   Amy Sopinka, Daniel
Rondeau Department of Economics University of
Victoria Erwin Bulte Department of
Economics Tilburg University,The
Netherlands We thank the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada for
financial support through grant 410-2001-0204
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General Background
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General Background
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General Background
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Elephant Damage and Conflict

• Aggregate Crop Losses
• up to 25 of production
• Individual Crop Losses
• up to 70 of production
• 100 deaths to elephants in Kenya 1990 to 1993

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Wildlife Damage Compensation Schemes
? Assess the physical quantity of crops
lost ? Multiply by market price ? Pay a
proportion d of losses in compensation
d100 for generous programs d more typically
10-30
? Implemented by Governments and NGOs (e.g. WWF,
WCS)
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Government administered compensation programs
have not been very successful

• High transactions costs for affected farmers

• Grossly under funded

• Corruption and Fraud

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• IUCN
• Compensation is not a long term solution
• Prevents the adoption of damage mitigation
  measures that favor the long term coexistence of
  humans and elephants

The compensation issue often overshadows
discussion of the many other measures that can be
used to mitigate human-wildlife conflict.
IUCN AfESG
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Environmental NGOs are more enthusiastic
One of the simplest ways to mitigate conflict
without affecting elephant behavior or population
size is to compensate people for the damage they
have suffered or would have suffered had they not
protected their crops. WWF training manual
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Rondeau and Bulte (2003)

• Theoretical Dynamic General Equilibrium model of
  open access to land and wildlife stock in a small
  rural economy

• Analyze the effects of compensating for wildlife
  damage on land conversion, wildlife stock and
  welfare

• Ambiguous results! Compensation may be
  detrimental to wildlife and local welfare!

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Objectives
- Assess the effectiveness of Elephant Damage
Compensation as an incentives-based instrument to
promote elephant conservation
- Challenge the role of habitat protection as a
conservation measure
- Applied numerical analysis based on Luangwa
Valley but primarily a conceptual exercise
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Results (based on Luangwa Valley Calibration)

• With full compensation the elephant stock is on
  average 1.7 to 4.5 higher than without
  compensation

• Cyclical patterns (more elephants on some years
  and fewer on others) with human population growth

• Cost of compensation is relatively high 2,913
  to 3,317 USD (1984) per additional elephant per
  year.

• Protected areas may precipitate stock extinction

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Model Outline

• Open Access to Land (constrained by protected
  areas) and Elephants (everywhere)

• Fixed Input Ratio (Leontief CRS) agricultural
  production and elephant stock dependent damage

• Stock Density-based (rather than absolute stock)
  Gordon-Scheaffer hunting production

• Exogenous prices for grains and elephant parts

• Variable human population growth allowed (but
  exogenous)

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Household Producers
Hunting Income
Farming Income
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Calibration Luangwa Valley, Zambia

• Land Area considered 51,570 km2 16,660 km2 in
  Parks
• 77,151 people of productive age (9)
• Population growth 80s 3.7 90s 3.2
  2000-15 1.7
• Value of Maize per km2 before damage and seed
  costs 16,820
• Pre-Ivory Ban value of ivory/meat/hide per
  elephant 302.54
• Post-Ivory Ban value of ivory/meat/hide per
  elephant 273.54
• Elephant Population Dynamics and yield parameters
  as per Milner-Gulland and Leader-Williams (1992)
  study of Luangwa Valley elephant hunting,
  adjusted for variable habitat size
• Elephant stock 34,213 (1985) 12,109 (1994)
  13,965 (1998)
• Rate of Labor adjustment (2.51) and initial
  agricultural land (7.4 of land base) estimated
  to match evolution of the stock 1985-98

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Model Runs

• Calibrated over 1985 1998
• Forecasted to 2003
• Policies analyzed from 2004 for up to 125 years
• Consider labor constraints, Protected Area
  constraints, human population growth, ivory price
  changes (from trade ban).

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No Compensation No Human Pop. Growth
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Full Compensation (d1) No Pop. Growth
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No Compensation 1.7 annual pop growth
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Year-to-Year Difference in Elephant Stock
(Compensation minus No Compensation) Population
Growth
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Effectiveness of Compensation
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Protected Areas as Constraints Growth
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Protected Areas as Constraints No Growth
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Final Thoughts and Caveats

• 1) Compensation is not a Panacea
• - Not particularly effective
• - Not Cheap (administrative costs not even
  considered)

• Seen as constraints, Protected Areas can have
  negative consequences on animal stocks unless
  hunting bans are enforced

3) Other labor option(s) could prevent
extinction
4) Human population growth and migrations are
really endogenous to economic conditions -
Are reaction times fast enough to avoid
extinction? - Compensation triggers immigration
national level?
5) Incentives, regulations and their unintended
consequences!