The Wildlife Economy as a Transformative Complex System

24 Nov 2021

Director’s Report on a Dialogue on What’s Next for Africa’s Wildlife Economy

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

The African Wildlife Economy Institute (AWEI) based at Stellenbosch University (SU), hosted a discussion entitled “What’s next for Africa’s wildlife economy?” During two panel sessions participants explored key questions and knowledge gaps regarding the role that the wildlife economy can play in conserving biodiversity, strengthening climate resilience, creating inclusive economic opportunities, and promoting community well-being.

The event, held on 24 November 2021 at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), was attended by about 50 people, including representatives from government, the private sector, academia, and NGOs.

In his welcoming address, Prof Kennedy Dzama, the AWEI Chair and Vice Dean of Research of the SU Faculty of AgriSciences, noted that the Institute, as a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary entity, is contributing directly to some of the University’s key goals, such as ‘Research for impact’ and ‘Purposeful partnerships and inclusive networks.’ In so doing, AWEI is aligned with the University’s vision to be ‘Africa’s leading research-intensive university.’

The two panel sessions were facilitated by Prof Francis Vorhies, the AWEI Director. The first panel session explored the wildlife economy as a driver for conservation and climate resilience. Its panel members were Mr Dave Pepler, Director of the Academy for Environmental Leadership; Dr Hayley Clements, a researcher at the SU Centre for Sustainability Transitions; and Prof Edwin Muchapondwa, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cape Town.

Mr Pepler emphasised that conservation is about people and their relationship to the natural environment. He highlighted the ecological degradation facing Kruger National Park which stems from the decision not to manage its elephant population, now estimated at over 30,000. Provocatively, he suggested that it would make sense for both Kruger’s natural environment and for neighbouring communities if people were allowed to eat excess animals. He argued further that conservation requires a landscape approach which includes the people living in them, and their needs and aspirations. Conservation must include people, or it will not be successful.

Dr Clements explained that productive working landscapes across South Africa have been successfully reintroducing wildlife to deliver a range of goods and services such as tourism, hunting, wild meat, and other animal products. Private and community-based wildlife ranching initiative have contributed to landscape restoration, increased economic opportunities for rural communities, stability, and resilience. She highlighted the insights coming out of field-based data collection of the Sustainable Wildlife Economy Project (SWEP) which started in the Eastern Cape and is now studying Limpopo. Deriving economic benefits from wildlife drives restoration and conservation of productive landscapes.

Prof Muchapondwa introduced the importance of studying different values and entire value chains in the wildlife economy. A value chain approach can be used to identify where sustainability outcomes such as conservation and inclusive economic opportunity can be achieved. Further, he emphasised the need to understand how wildlife economy opportunities can be enabled to provide incentives for enhanced landscape management, conservation, and livelihoods. He believes it is important to establish an enabling environment for the wildlife economy that includes an appropriate set of incentive measures. Based on his previous research, he also highlighted that rewilded landscapes are more adaptive to climate change impacts and thus strengthen a country’s climate resilience.  

The second panel explored the wildlife economy as a driver for inclusive and sustainable economic opportunities. Its panel members were Mr Richard Davies, a wildlife business consultant; Ms Lesle Jansen, CEO of Resource Africa SA; and Ms Deborah Vorhies, Chief Operating Officer of AWEI.

Mr Davies warned how important it is to recognise the very different circumstances of many other African countries with respect to developing and diversifying the wildlife economy. Unlike South Africa, where there is now an abundance of wildlife, such as the large elephant population in Kruger Park and large productive landscapes devoted to wildlife-based economic activities, in countries such as Mozambique, landscapes are degraded, and wildlife populations are extremely low or virtually non-existent. He believes strategies for the wildlife economy will depend on the national context with many African countries needing to restore wildlife habitats and populations in order to develop their wildlife economy. He also highlighted the need for training and capacity building, noting that the type of on the job training he received when he started his career years ago with the Natal Parks Board was often not an option across the continent. He believes the AWEI should play a significant role in building needed capacity including new interdisciplinary approaches.

Ms Jansen introduced the critical topic of natural justice with respect to the wildlife-based products. Highlighting the case of rooibos, she explained how legal recognition of traditional knowledge has led to a formal access and benefit-sharing agreement between rooibos producers and thirty Khoikhoi and San communities. Legal recognition of traditional knowledge regarding other wild plant species is now underway to further empower local communities in the wildlife economy.

She further discussed how Africa needs to engage in legal processes underway outside of Africa. This includes current processes in Europe and North America aimed at banning the import of wildlife goods and services from Africa, as it undermines the sovereignty of Africans over their wild resources and their use of these resources.

Ms Vorhies reemphasised the importance of adopting a value chain approach to understanding how and where across the value chain wildlife goods and services can contribute to conservation and inclusive economic outcomes. Such an approach is needed to understand the wildlife economy as a transformative complex system. She placed this in the broader context of the opportunity for international trade to enhance the economic value of wildlife products.

In particular, the recent agreement on the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) provides an exciting opportunity for developing a dynamic and diversified wildlife economy delivering goods and services across the continent. To unlock continental trade, however, work is needed to address barriers – within the export countries, at the borders, and in the importing countries.

Both sessions were interactive with questions from the participants and responses from the panel members.

In his closing remarks, Dr John Hanks, former CEO of WWF South Africa, and the Peace Parks Foundation, said that if conservation does not involve people, it will not succeed. He highlighted that a good deal of illegal wildlife trade occurs and must be addressed to support the growth of a responsible and sustainable wildlife economy. He also noted that human population growth rates across Africa mean that there will be ever increasing pressure on wild resources. Restoring landscapes through a wildlife economy must therefore be scaled up to mitigate these pressures and prevent further land degradation and wildlife loss.

He wished AWEI and its partnership with Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation every success in its aim to undertake research for impact and to promote African-wide interdisciplinary collaboration to address the continent’s pressing development needs and conservation challenges through supporting the diversification of the wildlife economy.

For more information on the event please see: Stellenbosch dialogue on the African wildlife economy.