Dataset Information

Game auction prices are not related to biodiversity contributions of southern African ungulates and large carnivores.

ABSTRACT: There is an urgent need for human societies to become environmentally sustainable. Because public policy is largely driven by economic processes, quantifications of the relationship between market prices and environmental values can provide important information for developing strategies towards sustainability. Wildlife in southern Africa is often privately owned and traded at game auctions to be utilized for commercial purposes mostly related to tourism. This market offers an interesting opportunity to evaluate how market prices relate to biologically meaningful species characteristics. In this market, prices were not correlated with species contributions to either phylogenetic or functional diversity, and species contributions to phylogenetic or functional diversity did not influence the trends in prices over time for the past 20 years. Since this economic market did not seem to appreciate evolutionary or ecologically relevant characteristics, we question if the game tourism market may contribute towards biodiversity conservation in southern Africa. We suggest that market prices in general may have limited values as guides for directing conservation and environmental management. We further suggest that there is a need to evaluate what humans value in biological organisms, and how potentially necessary shifts in such values can be instigated.

SUBMITTER: Dalerum F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4766510 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Game auction prices are not related to biodiversity contributions of southern African ungulates and large carnivores.

Dalerum Fredrik F Miranda Maria M

Scientific reports 20160225

There is an urgent need for human societies to become environmentally sustainable. Because public policy is largely driven by economic processes, quantifications of the relationship between market prices and environmental values can provide important information for developing strategies towards sustainability. Wildlife in southern Africa is often privately owned and traded at game auctions to be utilized for commercial purposes mostly related to tourism. This market offers an interesting opport ...[more]

PMID: 26911226

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Project description:Wide-ranging large carnivores often range beyond the boundaries of protected areas into human-dominated areas. Mapping out potentially suitable habitats on a country-wide scale and identifying areas with potentially high levels of threats to large carnivore survival is necessary to develop national conservation action plans. We used a novel approach to map and identify these areas in Botswana for its large carnivore guild consisting of lion (Panthera leo), leopard (Panthera pardus), spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta), brown hyaena (Hyaena brunnea), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and African wild dog (Lycaon pictus). The habitat suitability for large carnivores depends primarily on prey availability, interspecific competition, and conflict with humans. Prey availability is most likely the strongest natural determinant. We used the distribution of biomass of typical wild ungulate species occurring in Botswana which is preyed upon by the six large carnivores to evaluate the potential suitability of the different management zones in the country to sustain large carnivore populations. In areas where a high biomass of large prey species occurred, we assumed interspecific competition between dominant and subordinated competitors to be high. This reduced the suitability of these areas for conservation of subordinate competitors, and vice versa. We used the percentage of prey biomass of the total prey and livestock biomass to identify areas with potentially high levels of conflict in agricultural areas. High to medium biomass of large prey was mostly confined to conservation zones, while small prey biomass was more evenly spread across large parts of the country. This necessitates different conservation strategies for carnivores with a preference for large prey, and those that can persist in the agricultural areas. To ensure connectivity between populations inside Botswana and also with its neighbours, a number of critical areas for priority management actions exist in the agricultural zones.

Dataset Information

Game auction prices are not related to biodiversity contributions of southern African ungulates and large carnivores.

Publications

Game auction prices are not related to biodiversity contributions of southern African ungulates and large carnivores.

Similar Datasets

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