Dedicated people across the world are making a major difference, reducing hunting and wildlife trade to sustainable levels in key areas. They are doing so by introducing programs at different points along the trade chain, from the source of animals in the forest, to the end markets. The way in which this is done varies between areas and countries, depending on the local biological, socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions. The main elements of success are deep knowledge of all of these conditions, based on in-depth biological and social sciences, and ensuring that the solutions take into account both the conservation needs of the wildlife, and also the socioeconomic and nutritional needs of the local communities. Then combining that knowledge with the awareness, funds, committed and trained personnel, and political will to make a difference.
One success story is where wildlife is being protected, even though under high levels of threat from hunting and trade. Nagarahole National Park in south-west India covers 644 km2, and is home to many species of spectacular large mammals, including tigers, elephant, gaur, dhole, sambar and axis deer. It is accessible by road on many sides, and is surrounded by extremely high human population densities: over 100,000 people live within 10 km of its boundaries. Hence, potential hunting pressure is extremely high for direct consumption and local trade, and for long-distance trade of high-value commercial products (e.g., tiger bones, ivory). A multi-faceted program led by the Indian Government, with technical advice from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), involves intensive protection of the area by a large, legally-empowered forest service. About 250 government staff are engaged in the Park, or one person per 2.6 km2. The management comprises intensive enforcement, local education programs, voluntary resettlement of enclaved communities, and a detailed ongoing monitoring program. As a result, over the last 30 years the National Park has become one of the best places for viewing wildlife in tropical Asia, with guarantees of spectacular views of large mammals, even in the midst of such pressure.
Across large swathes of the tropics, logging companies are part of the problem, so they must also be part of the solution. In logging concessions surrounding Nouabalé Ndoki National Park, northern Republic of Congo, a successful collaboration has been established between the Government, WCS, the logging company (Congolaise Industrielle des Bois, CIB), and local communities. The national park is home to a wide array of some of Africa’s most spectacular wildlife species, yet the advent of logging companies threatened their survival through potential hunting and rapid draining of the animals down the roads to distant markets. The project has designed and implemented wildlife management systems with the timber company and local communities, in the forestry concessions adjacent to the National Park. The project includes: conservation education for logging company managers, employees and their families, and local communities; regulations on hunting, transport and trade of wildlife being incorporated into company policy; zoning of the forest into hunting and no-hunting zones; banning of long-distance transport of wildlife between parts of the concession and from the concession to outside; a strict system of wildlife law enforcement carried out by locally recruited and highly trained ecoguards; development of alternative protein supplies including fish farms and importation of affordable beef; and an intensive program of socio-economic and ecological monitoring to ensure that the management measures are succeeding. The presence of abundant populations of large mammals over a huge area throughout the concession, including gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants and bongo, is testimony to the success of the project. The local communities are also benefiting by increased food and cultural security.
Some programs specifically aim to cut the transport chain between wild areas and markets. One such program is in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Here, hunted wildlife is transported on trucks on the Trans-Sulawesi Highway to the markets of the extreme north-east of the island. As wildlife closer to those markets is depleted, demand moves further away so the losses are spreading further and further into the heart of the island. To prevent this, WCS has worked with the provincial governement and many other agencies to form “Wildlife Crimes Units” (WCUs) to control transport of wildlife along the road. WCUs have provided technical support to build government capacity to enforce the law, stopping vehicles and checking their cargoes. Local NGOs are forming informant networks. The local media disseminate information to increase public awareness of the trade. And WCUs are also helping to build the capacity to take cases to court. The program has led to an 87% drop in road traffic of protected species on the Trans-Sulawesi Highway, and a significant drop in the sales of protected species in markets.
Moving to the demand end of the trade chain, a successful program can be seen in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Here, wildlife populations had been severely depleted in the past 50 years due in large part to hunting. Hornbills had become rare due to hunting for their feathers and meat; the banteng and Sumatran rhinoceros had become extinct; the ranges and numbers of proboscis monkeys and orang-utans had shrunk dramatically. Many rural people still depended on hunting for their subsistence, so the Government, with technical support from WCS, prepared and implemented a wildlife master plan. This comprehensive policy document covered all steps needed to conserve wildlife in the State, and balancing this with development needs. A core focus was reducing hunting to sustainable levels, while still allowing rural people to hunt for their own subsistence. This resulted in passing of the Wild Life Protection Ordinance 1998, which banned all commercial sales of wildlife taken from the wild. This meant that rural people who still needed to hunt for their food could do so, but the unsustainable commercial trade in wildlife would be stopped. It was widely supported by rural community leaders as it protected their own resources from being lost to trade. The law was put into effect by the Government through major publicity and education programs in towns and rural areas. The law was vigorously enforced in markets, art and craft shops, pet shops and restaurants. Further measures included controlling firearms and ammunition, and implementing regulations to ensure that logging roads are not used for hunting and transporting wild meat from forests to towns. These combined measures are increasingly limiting hunting only to those who depend on it for subsistence, thereby reducing it to more sustainable levels, and conserving the wildlife both for its own sake, and also for the people who depend on it.