1 BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 3 BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin © 2018 The World Bank 1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org Some rights reserved This volume is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper do not necessar- ily reflect the views of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judg- ment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Copyright Statement The material in this publication is subject to copyright. Because The World Bank encourages dissemi- nation of its knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, for noncommercial purposes as long as full attribution to this work is given. Attribution—Please cite the work as follows: “World Bank. 2017. Before It’s Too Late: Deriving Sustain- able Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin. © World Bank.” All queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to World Bank Publications, The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA, fax 202-522-2422, e-mail pubrights@worldbank.org. Photography: Michael Steinberg on Unsplash (cover), Andrew Pons on Unsplash (12), iStock.com/msan10 (18), iStock.com/Rixipix (22), iStock.com/FourOaks (28), iStock.com/Alphotographic (36), Joe Were on Unsplash (42), iStock.com/clark42 (74) Design and layout: Francis Gagnon, Voilà Information Design, Montreal, Canada 5 Acknowledgments T his report was prepared by a team led by which were facilitated and organized by Loïc Julian Lee, and composed of Micah Effron Braune, Idriss Deffry, Salimata Follea, Pierre Gui- (chapter 2, section 5.b), Douglas J. Graham gon, Cyrille Ngouana Kengne, Erik Winter Reed, (Box 5), Raymond Lumbuenamo (chapter 3), Brian Chrystelle Tapouh, Laurent Valiergue, and Mun- Mullis (section 5.a.i, appendix A), Jean Maurice dele Wavelellah. Loïc Braune, Richard Damania, Muneza and Lauren Williams (WRI, section Douglas Graham, Shaun Mann, Simon Robert- 5.c.iv), and Jean-Claude Nguinguiri (FAO, sections son, Claudia Sobrevila, Elisson Wright, Andrew 5.a.ii and 5.a.iii). The team received overall guid- Zakharenka, Bernard Noiret (Doli), and Fiona ance from Elisabeth Huybens, Benoit Bosquet, Maisels, Emma Stokes, and Michelle Wieland (all and Laurent Debroux. Corneille Moukson Ku- WCS) provided helpful comments and guidance. tia-Kwa-Nzambi (WWF) and Josias Sipehouo Last but not least, interview partners who are too conducted focus groups, and Cédric Sepulcre and many to name here contributed their expertise Pauwel de Wachter (WWF) facilitated their orga- and time to the research. The team is indebted to nization. More than 100 government officials and all. civil society and indigenous peoples’ representa- tives participated in consultation events in Ban- gui, Brazzaville, Douala, Libreville, and Yaoundé, Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 7 Contents Acknowledgments  5 5. Increasing the Value of Wildlife: Approaches for Communities Contents  7 and Governments   43 Abbreviations and Acronyms  11 a. Creating New Economic Value  44 b. Sharing Value  62 Executive Summary  13 c. Creating the Enabling Conditions 1. Introduction  19 for Creating and Sharing Economic Value from Wildlife  72 2. Poaching and Unsustainable Hunting: Threats to a Sustainable 6. Conclusion: A Course for Deriving Economic Forest Economy  23 Value from Wildlife in the WCB  75 a. Subsistence Hunting  23 Appendix A: Assessing the Current b. Commercial Bushmeat Trade  24 State of Tourism in the WCB   79 c. Poaching for High-Value Products  24 a. Tourism Market Dynamics   79 d. Conclusion  27 b. Structural Barriers to Wildlife Tourism Development   80 3. Who Are the Poachers? A c. Poaching as a Challenge to Tourism Typology of Actors   29 Development, and Tourism as an a. Demographic Characteristics   29 Incentive for Conservation  82 b. Drivers of Poaching  31 d. The Benefits of Wildlife Tourism Development   82 c. What Might Dissuade Poaching  33 e. Rapid Assessment of Wildlife d. Conclusion  34 Tourism Potential  82 4. The Policy, Legal, and Appendix B: Methodology  85 Regulatory Context  37 a. Analysis  37 Notes  87 b. Recommendations  39 References  91 Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 9 List of figures List of boxes Figure 1: Map of the Western Congo Basin Box 1: Key Messages  13 Forests and Protected Areas  20 Box 2: The Complex Role of Alternative Figure 2: Model of the Pressures on Income-Generating Activities in Wildlife and Solutions  21 Disincentivizing Poaching  33 Figure 3: The Simplified Supply Chain for High- Box 3: Defining Wildlife Tourism  44 Value Illegal Wildlife Trade Products  30 Box 4: How Does Wildlife Tourism’s Potential Figure 4: Drivers of Supply and Demand of Compare to Other Use Values of Wildlife?  46 Unsustainable Wildlife Products  32 Box 5: Under What Conditions Can Figure 5: Overview of Approaches for Sport Hunting Sustainably Provide Creating Value from Wildlife  43 Economic Value for Wildlife?  47 Figure 6: Six Structural Barriers to Box 6: Building a Tourism Sector from Wildlife Tourism Development  49 Scratch: The Case of Rwanda  50 List of tables Table 2: Competitiveness Rankings of WCB Countries  48 Table A.1: Value of the Overall Tourism Sector in the WCB   80 Table A.2: Assessment of the Current State of Tourism in the WCB  81 Table A.3: Potential of WCB Protected Areas for Tourism Development  83 Table 1: Value of Existing and Projected Wildlife Tourism in Selected Protected Areas  45 Table 3: Overview of Priorities to Address Barriers to Wildlife Tourism  51 Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 11 Abbreviations and Acronyms CAR Central African Republic CARPE Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment CBD Convention on Biological Diversity CBNRM community-based natural resource management CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora COMIFAC Central African Forest Commission CPF farmer-forest committee COMACO Community Markets for Conservation DRC Democratic Republic of Congo EAGLE Eco Activists for Governance and Law Enforcement ECCAS Economic Community of Central African States FAO Food and Agriculture Organization (of the UN) GDP gross domestic product HWC human-wildlife conflict ICDP integrated conservation and development project IWT illegal wildlife trade MSMEs micro, small and medium enterprises NGO nongovernmental organization NRT Northern Rangelands Trust (Kenya) PA protected area PES payments for ecosystem services PPP public-private partnership REDD+ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation ROC Republic of Congo RCP Ruaha Carnivore Project (Tanzania) SDC community development block TRIDOM Trinational Dja-Odzala-Minkébé VAT value added tax WCB Western Congo Basin WCS Wildlife Conservation Society WWF Wide World Fund for Nature ZICGC community hunting zone (zone d’intérêt cynégétiques à gestion communautaire) All dollars are U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 12 Before it’s too late 13 Executive Summary Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin is rapidly disappearing. The West- ern Congo Basin—WCB, defined here as being composed of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo—is rap- idly losing a significant proportion of its wild animals to poaching and unsustainable hunting. This trend extends across many species that face pressure from hunting for bushmeat and for commercial export of valuable animal products, as well as habitat degradation. Poaching and unsustainable hunting are de- velopment issues, and are causing the West- Box 1 ern Congo Basin countries to lose an import- KEY MESSAGES ant resource for economic diversification 1. Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin is As a result of the overexploitation, the basis for rapidly disappearing. building a sustainable forest economy is rapidly 2. Poaching and unsustainable hunting being eroded, the rule of law undermined, the development issues are causing the protein supply of rural populations threatened, Western Congo Basin countries to lose the regenerative capacity of forests used for an important resource for economic commercial logging and subsistence purposes diversification. reduced, and their resilience to climate change threatened. In turn, the drivers for poaching 3. Creating economic value from wildlife and unsustainable hunting include poverty and is key for building a sustainable forest weak governance. In short, poaching and unsus- economy and for conservation. tainable hunting are not merely conservation 4. International experience provides issues; they are development issues. lessons for how to derive more value from wildlife, including by developing The conservation response has struggled in new sources of economic value, and the face of limited value of wildlife to commu- by sharing proceeds from the sustain- nities and governments able use of wildlife, in particular with Poaching and unsustainable hunting are not communities. new phenomena in the WCB. They have been 5. Without the proper enabling gover- the focus of significant efforts by governments nance conditions, deriving sustainable and their development partners over the past value from wildlife at scale will not be couple of decades. Most of these efforts have possible. concentrated on the establishment and protec- Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 14 tion of protected areas. Especially where these existing barriers. This includes developing have received significant external assistance strategic planning instruments, such as and field well-managed ranger forces, they have national and protected area conservation succeeded in better protecting wildlife than visions, strategies, and plans that protect areas outside protected areas. wildlife and link to tourism; strategies and plans that guide tourism concessions and However, the ongoing poaching epidemic has promote wildlife tourism; tourism zoning also shown the limits of an approach to conser- guidelines for product development with- vation that is primarily rooted in outright pro- in protected area management plans; and tection and that relies on restricting access to marketing and promotion to develop mar- wildlife resources and their habitat. In an envi- kets. It also requires improving the policy ronment where communities and governments and regulatory environment, and strength- derive relatively few direct benefits from wild- ening tourism infrastructure and human life, this approach on its own risks misaligning resource capacity. incentives for conservation. Compounded with weak governance and burgeoning demand for 2) Community forest management is a wildlife products, this has limited the conserva- means for communities to more directly tion of wildlife resources. control the forest habitat that is home to wildlife and to more directly benefit from Creating economic value from wildlife is key it, with an objective to realize sustainable for building a sustainable forest economy and resource management. Some WCB countries for conservation have a track record, however mixed, of ex- There is therefore a need to create domes- perimenting with this approach. To improve tic conservation constituencies in both the performance, the adoption of multipurpose communities that harbor wildlife—members community management units whose of which presently engage in poaching and remits go beyond forest products could be unsustainable hunting—and the governments tested. Moreover, given limited availability charged with managing this resource. A direct of unallocated forestland, the coordination way of doing so is to ensure that both constitu- of uses in areas of overlapping rights is encies stand to benefit financially from conser- paramount. The devolution of rights should vation. occur through a multitiered approach with performance milestones to allow for correc- International experience provides lessons for tive action to take place. Lastly, community creating economic value from wildlife natural resource management cannot func- tion without improved state control. Based on experience from around the world, this report argues that communities and gov- 3) Community wildlife management: Com- ernments can reap substantial gains from sus- munity control over fauna resources would tainably managing wildlife in the WCB. These benefit from the formulation of a clear approaches can be classified into three groups. government vision, followed by an assess- ment of the approach’s cost-effectiveness. The first group comprises approaches that can If favorable, the legal and administrative create new economic value: environment would need to be adjusted 1) Wildlife tourism has an estimated theo- to clarify tenure and use rights, as well as retical potential to generate $1.1 billion in to promote value chain development. An the WCB. It is the only conduit this study adaptive approach of gradual devolution identified that could generate substantial of rights could create control points. Lastly, new revenue flows for conservation in the a combination of this approach with the WCB. Realizing this potential will be a long- creation of alternative protein production term effort that requires strategic invest- could increase the sustainability of wildlife ments and reforms to overcome significant management. Before it’s too late 15 The second group of approaches focuses on 7) Governments must establish political com- ways to distribute benefits to the communities mitment at the highest levels to improve the that harbor and use or are directly affected governance of wildlife. This implies rooting by wildlife. WCB countries are already testing out corruption, demonstrating that key ac- some of these approaches, some of which could tors—including government employees—in be further developed, while others could yet be the illegal wildlife trade are not beyond the introduced. They include the following: reach of the law, and better funding conserva- tion. 4) Protected area benefit sharing distributes resource flows from protected areas to con- 8) Improved law enforcement is essential to stituent communities. Making such systems controlling commercial actors in the illegal work requires protected area management wildlife trade who are currently contributing to frameworks (such as public-private part- the decimation of wildlife resources. Strategies nerships) that are accountable, transparent, for doing so can be built on existing United Na- and free of political interference; the cre- tions Office on Drugs and Crime assessments ation of funding flows, targeting on priority of wildlife law enforcement in Gabon and the communities; and benefit flows that are Republic of Congo, and such analyses should ideally contingent upon performance. be conducted in Cameroon and the Central African Republic as well. 5) Payments for environmental services re- ward communities or individuals for results 9) Organizational reform and capacity building in conservation. For this approach to work, are essential for enabling wildlife administra- among others, sustainable funding sources tions to better oversee their sector in general, need to be ensured, the regulatory frame- and to engage in the types of collaborative work would ideally facilitate community approaches proposed in this study. This in- monitoring, and wildlife managers would cludes reviewing staff and skill deployment, need to ascertain the feasibility of monitor- equipment, policy coordination, and funding ing wildlife levels. structures. 6) Managing human-wildlife conflict reduces 10) Land use planning can mitigate some natural the cost of living with wildlife. Managing resource management challenges that underlie human-wildlife conflict further depends on the overexploitation of wildlife, develop a more iterative approaches that combine multiple coherent vision for the future, and connect deterrence techniques and that are squarely communities to incentives for sustainable based on community involvement. Govern- wildlife management. It could form a power- ments should create the right policy envi- ful long-term basis for sustainably managing ronment to incentivize such solutions and wildlife. provide funding for and facilitate compen- sation or insurance schemes. Land use plan- More broadly, governments would do well to im- ning can provide an underlying framework prove the enabling environment to ensure that the for minimizing conflict with wildlife. private sector can mobilize the investments nec- essary to support the sustainable management of Creating value from wildlife cannot achieve wildlife. Innovative partnerships with civil society its goals absent the proper enabling gover- and the private sector, whether for management of nance conditions protected areas or law enforcement, have already proven their potential to improve management ca- The third group of solutions comprises the en- pacity and results in the WCB and elsewhere, and abling conditions for deriving sustainable value could be scaled up. from wildlife. That effort cannot succeed unless the WCB countries improve the environment Building value from wildlife must be part of a writ large for conservation: broader conservation approach Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 16 Building the systems required to derive eco- economies in the WCB, and has the potential nomic value from wildlife is not a silver bullet. to contribute to both poverty alleviation and The approaches in this study must be accom- conservation. Given the rapid decline of wildlife panied by traditional conservation work that resources in the region, however, the urgency provides the basic protection of the resource. for governments to seize this potential has nev- This is particularly important in the short er been greater. term, given the ongoing overexploitation of the resource whose very survival is threatened. Nor will countries and communities be able to derive value from wildlife overnight. The development of wildlife tourism, for example, requires sustained and coordinated reforms over many years. The development or improve- ment of systems that increase benefits from management of wildlife resources to communi- ties is necessarily a long-run and iterative task that requires sustained financial and technical support. Approaches that tie funding to results could be tested in such an environment. Producing value from wildlife is a key ele- ment to building sustainable, diversified rural Before it’s too late 17 Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 18 Before it’s too late 19 1. Introduction The Western Congo Basin—defined here as comprising Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo—is being rapidly emptied of its wild animals, with alarming rates of poaching in all four countries. High levels of poaching have numerous economic, environmental, and cultural resource. deleterious effects for sustainable develop- If wild fauna does not receive better protection, ment: They deprive economies of a resource important building blocks of a sustainable and on which to build a wildlife tourism sector diversified forest economy risk being irretriev- that can serve as a source of foreign exchange ably lost—to the detriment of local and national earnings and rural job and income creation, economies. which is currently significantly underexploited. Poaching for high-value species is often perpet- In the WCB, efforts to protect wildlife have uated by organized criminal networks, which focused heavily on the establishment and run an illicit parallel economy and undermine management of protected areas, often within established governance and legal regimes, and the context of a landscape-based approach capture high rents that don’t accrue to the that attempts to engage nearby communities state or to local communities. Poaching and and other land users.2 These approaches have unsustainable hunting reduce the cultural and produced measurable conservation results.3 subsistence value of forest ecosystems for local There has been less emphasis on understanding communities and indigenous people, including the value and economic opportunity of wild- by threatening the protein supply and income life conservation through a community lens. of rural populations. By reducing the number of Communities may perceive wildlife as a source animals in the ecosystem, both practices also of protein or hunting revenue, a threat to crops, diminish the dispersion of tree seeds, much or the trigger for strict conservation measures of which relies on animals in tropical forests.1 that limit traditional rights of access, use, and This diminishes the regenerative capacity of management of customary lands. The result- the forest, and it could lead to extinctions. It ing dynamics pose a threat to the sustainable would further negatively affect the diversity management of wildlife, which is typical of and resilience of forest ecosystems, including common-pool resources. in the face of climate change, and ultimately contribute to the long-term degradation of this Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 20 Figure 1: Map of the Western Congo Basin Forests and Protected Areas 9˚E 12˚E 15˚E 18˚E 21˚E This map was produced by the Cartography Unit of the World Lake Chad Bank Group. The boundaries, IBRD 43696 | MAY 2018 colors, denominations and any other information shown on this map do not imply, on the part of the World Bank Group, NDJAMENA any judgment on the legal status of any territory, or any CHAD endorsement or acceptance of L o g o ne such boundaries. Maroua la ngo Go Birao SUDAN Ch ar i 9˚N Garoua 9˚N Moundou Ndele SOUTH Ko NIGERIA tto Benu e Vina CENTRAL AFRICAN SUDAN Kou Ngaoundere ou REPUBLIC k ro u Kaga Bossangoa Bandoro Bria Bozoum m Lo Bamenda 6˚N 6˚N Bambari Bafoussam Bouar Obo Lo ba Sibut Mbam CAMEROON y e Bangassou Bertoua le BANGUI Ue Buea Berberati Mobaye MALABO YAOUNDÉ Mbaiki Nola 3˚N a 3˚N Lu DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC Dja Ebolowa Ebebiyin OF CONGO ru wi m i EQUATORIAL Impfondo A SÃO TOMÉ GUINEA Oyem Ouesso ngi Uba ET PRÍNCIPE REPUBLIC do Makokou Congo LIBREVILLE 24˚E 27˚E CAMEROON, GABON, REPUBLIC OF CONGO v in I GABON OF CONGO 0˚ Owando Mbandaka Bus i ra AND CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC Port Gentil Lambarene N Kaulomoutou FORESTS AND PROTECTED AREAS go uni Lu e alaba Masuku PROTECTED AREAS INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY a Mouila A l im CLOSED EVERGREEN FOREST* NATIONAL CAPITALS Djambala Tsh u Lo k o Tchibanga rMOSAIC o FOREST/SAVANNA PROVINCE CAPITALS ap 3˚S Bandundu a SWAMP FOREST Sibiti Atlantic u WOODLAND AND GRASSLAND u ilo Loubomo Madingou BRAZZAVILLE Ko Ocean Kinkala KINSHASA AGRICULTURE o MOSAIC FOREST/CROPLAND ng Co Cabinda Sources: protectedplanet.net, EU JRC ForObs 15˚E 18˚E *this category 21˚E also contains small areas of submontane forest, montane forest and closed deciduous forest The low perceived value of forest wildlife of long-term sustainable income streams from resources for local communities is partially at- the live animal. tributable to a lack of economic opportunities currently derivable from the sustainable man- In a bid to help the WCB countries address this agement of wildlife assets. Poaching and the downward spiral, this study identifies ap- illegal wildlife trade are striking manifestations proaches that can enhance the economic val- of that low economic value, and they can occur ue of wildlife resources for local communities whenever the value of a dead animal exceeds and governments as a contribution to poverty the value of a live animal and the governance reduction, economic development, and con- environment is weak. The income from poach- servation. The recommendations are grouped ing presents incentives for short-term gains into three pathways: (1) Deriving new economic that currently often outweigh the possibilities value from wildlife, (2) sharing value created from wildlife, and (3) creating the enabling gov- Before it’s too late 21 ernance conditions for the first two pathways address this crisis given the fluidity of both to succeed. These pathways are designed to be borders and wildlife in the region. Naturally, the mutually reinforcing. set and sequence of solutions most appropriate in any given setting will depend on a number While the study focuses on identifying ways of country-specific conditions. Nevertheless, the to create of value from wildlife, this should majority of the recommendations in this report not be seen as a silver bullet: By itself, it cannot apply to all four WCB countries. In that spirit, stem the pressures wildlife faces. The full as- the study first provides an overview of the semblage of tools for sustainable wildlife man- poaching crisis, using elephants as a case study agement presented in Figure 2 must therefore to illustrate the scale of the problem (chapter 2). be brought to bear. However, much attention It then proceeds to analyze who the poachers has already been devoted to the other tools, so are (chapter 3) to better understand drivers of they are not the focus of this study. poaching, while Chapter 4 analyzes the policy The study targets policy makers seeking to framework. Chapter 5 proposes approaches for rethink approaches to conservation in light creating economic value from wildlife, sharing of both high ongoing levels of poaching and it with communities, and creating the neces- unsustainable hunting and national policy sary underlying governance conditions, provid- dialogues that emphasize economic diver- ing best-practice examples from other parts of sification. It aims to do so at the regional and the world. Chapter 6 presents conclusions. national levels as a single country cannot Figure 2: Model of the Pressures on Wildlife and Solutions PRESSURES ON WILDLIFE SOLUTIONS TO SUSTAINABLE WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT Creating new value Tourism Land use planning Community forest Protected areas and management ecological corridors Habitat loss / degradation Community wildlife Law enforcement management Sharing value Governance Poaching / unsustainable Protected area hunting benefit sharing Create economic value from wildlife Payment for ecosystem services Alternative livelihood generation Managing human- wildlife conflict Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 22 Before it’s too late 23 2. Poaching and Unsustainable Hunting : Threats to a Sustainable Forest Economy Threats to a Sustainable Forest Economy. The WCB faces numerous anthropogenic Poaching in the WCB can be divided into three threats to its rich biodiversity. Poaching and main categories: (1) subsistence; (2) to supply unsustainable legal hunting, along with hab- bushmeat markets, primarily located in urban itat loss, are the primary threats to wildlife.4 areas; and (3) for high-value products valued Poaching and unsustainable hunting affect a for medicine, prestige goods, pets or other uses, wide variety of species in the WCB.5 In some often abroad.ii Each of these requires different places, they are driving empty forest syndrome, management approaches. where the forest looks otherwise healthy but contains very few animals. This study focuses on poaching and unsustainable hunting as primary drivers of wildlife loss because they a. Subsistence Hunting are an expression of a lack of economic value being derived from the resources. To simplify Bushmeat has always been a critical part of the terminology employed, the study interprets local diets. Indigenous peoples in particular poaching to collectively encompass both illegal rely primarily on subsistence hunting for their hunting and unsustainable legal hunting.i protein needs, but Bantu populations also The latter most often occurs when actors from readily access bushmeat to complement their outside the communities that host the wildlife nutrition.6 The high levels of poverty in the resource (and who are usually allowed to hunt WCB, particularly in rural areas, create a high certain species) purchase wildlife legally hunted level of dependence on bushmeat; wealth and by authorized local hunters, which tends to lead to unsustainable offtake. ii  The three cannot always be cleanly separated: For example, when an elephant is killed, whether legally or illegally (depending on each country’s legislation), its tusks i  This simplification is employed because in well-regulated enter the commercial, high-value ivory market (poaching management regimes quotas would be used to manage for high-value products), whereas its meat is often either the populations of species that can legally be hunted, and distributed to the hunters (subsistence hunting) or sold in exceeding those quotas would be illegal. the commercial bushmeat trade. Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 24 bushmeat consumption are negatively correlat- ing and logging operations) and human settle- ed in rural African communities, while they are ments but also near national parks, with strong positively correlated in urban areas.7 evidence showing reduced wildlife populations in these hot spots.16 Blue duiker is the single Subsistence hunting can be legal or illegal, most traded bushmeat species in Central Africa; depending, among others, on the species rodents and ungulates are the most commonly hunted and the season. Local subsistence traded groups. Endangered and vulnerable spe- hunting generally does not constitute a threat cies (eight primates and elephants) make up 12 to the sustainability of wildlife resources where percent of the trade.17 The trade has significant population density is low.8 The dynamic can, deleterious effects on the health of forests18 and however, become less sustainable when strong, their ecological and economic functions. concentrated population influxes are recorded, such as when major mining or forestry projects attract settlers into once sparsely inhabited forest areas.9 These latter conditions most often overwhelm regulated hunting regimes, irre- c. Poaching for High-Value spective of whether they employ traditional or Products modern regulatory means. The main focus of this overview is on poaching Although numbers on the volume of the bush- of high-value species, with the majority of the meat trade in the region vary between stud- discussion centering on elephant (Loxodonta ies, between 2.2 and 4.7 million tons of bush- africana) poaching,iii given the particularly meat are estimated to be consumed annually dramatic scale of the ivory trade and the po- in the Congo Basin, with most consumption tential of the species to constitute an anchor taking place in rural areas.10 Irrespective of the for alternative economic uses such as tourism exact numbers, it is beyond doubt that demand development. The dynamics of two other promi- currently outstrips supply,11 and given the lack nent high-value species traded in the WCB, of management of the resource, the number of pangolins (Phataginus tetradactyla, Phataginus animals is rapidly declining. tricuspis, Smutsia gigantea) and African gray parrots (Psittacus erithacus), are also included for comparison. b. Commercial Bushmeat i. Elephants Trade Scale of the Poaching Problem Population growth and growing urban de- mand—driven in part by increased urbaniza- In Central Africa and across the rest of the tion, more efficient transport networks, and continent’s elephant habitat, poaching for rising incomes—have combined to create a ivory has decimated elephant populations highly unsustainable bushmeat trade.12 Sub- over the past two decades. Significant poach- sistence hunters often sell some of their harvest ing was occurring in Central Africa as early as to urban centers, representing an important, 2003, well before it became unsustainable in growing source of revenue for many rural East Africa.19 The volume of seized ivory and residents.13 Near Boumba Bek National Park in poaching incidents greatly increased from 2005 Cameroon, commercial hunters sold 70 percent to 2015. While the most recent estimates show of their meat and made 19 times the amount a stabilizing trend in poaching across Africa earned by subsistence-level village hunters, who only sold 17 percent of their meat.14 As customary land tenure is often ill de- iii  This report follows IUCN and CITES in treating elephants as a single species, Loxodonta africana, while recognizing fined or not applied, there is an absence of ongoing scientific debates that suggest that there may in local management and control over wildlife fact be at least two species, the savanna elephant (Loxodon- resources.15 Higher levels of hunting occur not ta africana) and the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). only near roads (including those servicing min- Where cited references explicitly refer to forest elephants, this terminology has been left in place. Before it’s too late 25 overall, poaching in Central Africa remains high Ivory Trade Routes and unsustainable.20 Most raw ivory departs Africa by sea in large In 2010, the Convention on International shipments. Although there is some use of air Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna freight, over 70 percent of the raw ivory seized and Flora (CITES) “African Elephant Action between 2009 and 2013 was shipped by sea. Plan” ranked poaching and the illegal ivo- China and Thailand are the main destination ry trade as the greatest threat to elephants. markets for raw and worked ivory.28 Seizures Poachers are pushing ever deeper into forests as were greatest in Nigeria among all Sub-Sa- habitat conversion for alternative land uses (for haran African nations.29 There are two main example, agriculture, mining, and human settle- regional ivory transport routes, and they have ments) and habitat degradation (for example, not changed significantly over the past few wood fuel collection and artisanal logging) decades. One involves ivory moving across the worsen.21 Poor governance and enforcement of northern Gabon border into southern Cam- wildlife protection exacerbate the problem.22 eroon, and then via road to coastal ports in Cameroon and especially Nigeria.30 The other Of the four WCB countries, the International involves the transport of ivory from the CAR, Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Afri- ROC, and the Democratic Republic of Congo can Elephant Status Report 2016 estimates that (DRC) along the Oubangui and Congo Rivers to Gabon harbors half of Africa’s remaining forest Kinshasa and Brazzaville; the ROC also serves as elephants (ranging between 66,115 and 74,152, transit point for ivory originating from Angola. although Poulsen et al. [2017] estimate this However, numerous other trade routes exist, number may already be significantly lower), fol- including those that extend or branch off from lowed by the Republic of Congo (ROC) (26,351– these major ones. An illustrative example comes 32,999), and, with some distance, Cameroon from five large seizures in Lomé, Togo: Of the (8,815–8,964) and the Central African Republic collective 13 tons confiscated, approximately 70 (CAR) (1,401–1,528).23 percent originated from Gabon and the ROC.31 Demand for Ivory Domestic Ivory Market Dynamics The rising demand and price for ivory in Asia, Since 1999, domestic open ivory markets in but primarily in China, has historically fueled the WCB have largely been shut down, with the growing illicit ivory trade,24 although nearly a 100 percent decrease in ivory items Western markets also contribute to demand. displayed for sale between 2007 and 2015. In In January 2018, China shut down its domestic contrast, DRC open ivory sales remained stable legal ivory market, which was mainly supplied over that time period. Vendors highlight in- by the onetime (legal) sale of ivory from several creasing enforcement as well as a lack of supply African countries in 2008, but which failed to and higher prices (generally up 20 percent since prevent new illegal sources from entering it.25 It 2007) as the main drivers behind their inability is widely hoped that the closure of this market to procure and sell ivory craft items. Ivory still will significantly reduce demand. In fact, in an- available for domestic special order sales was ticipation of this ban, prices for raw ivory in Chi- generally in smaller sizes than in the past and na decreased by as much as 65 percent in 2017 as compared to the raw ivory shipped in bulk to compared to 2014.26 A World Bank study sug- Asia. Domestic buyers (for both worked and raw gests that elephant poaching in Africa would ivory) are now predominantly ethnic Chinese be expected to decrease by 34 percent given this nationals, whereas previously they were mainly 65 percent decrease in price,27 provided demand European expats and tourists.32 in alternative markets does not pick up. While substantial, such a decline in poaching activity will likely be insufficient given the current rate Poaching Hot Spots and Impact on at which elephant populations are being lost. Central African Elephant Populations Poaching hot spots in the WCB include southeastern Cameroon, southwestern and northeastern CAR, northern Gabon, and northern ROC. These hot spots overlap with Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 26 the transborder area between northeastern also reduce the resilience of forests to climate Gabon, southwest Cameroon, northern ROC, change–driven stressors.38 Elephants are also and southwestern CAR, known as the Trination- a flagship species whose protection facilitates al Dja-Odzala-Minkébé (TRIDOM) and Sangha the protection of other species with which they Trinational landscapes, which are considered coexist.39 Therefore, the disappearance of ele- the final stronghold of the region’s elephants.33 phants is likely to have ecological consequences Minkébé National Park in Gabon suffered a that extend far beyond the loss of this single particularly dramatic decline 2004–2014, losing charismatic species. 78–81 percent of its elephant population, or up to 25,000 individuals. Most of this decline Importance of Corruption in Facilitating was driven by cross-border poachers, who are the Ivory Trade reportedly guided through the dense forest by Baka tribal members, although poaching occurs Approximately half of raw ivory seizures from within Gabon as well.34 showed connections to organized crime. Large seizures, connected to international crime syn- Other critical poaching levels have been reached dicates, and the predominance of poaching hot in the ROC’s Ndoki landscape, which lost 3,000, spots point to the presence of a concentrated or 50 percent, of its elephants, and in Cameroon, market dominated by a small number of major which lost several thousand within the TRIDOM players.40 High-ranking officials have been landscape, and 50 percent of several smaller documented supplying weapons and ammu- populations. Nearly all of the CAR’s savanna nition or transportation to poachers, as well as elephants have been killed, so the country’s only assistance evading law enforcement. Bribery of remaining elephant populations inhabit its lower-level officials at key checkpoints, markets, southwestern forest. park boundaries, and ports also supports trade While there are many threats to elephants— flows of illicit ivory.41 In Cameroon, for instance, land use pressure, habitat loss, and human-el- the Last Great Ape Organization recorded brib- ephant conflict, to name a few—poaching is ery attempts in 85 percent of its enforcement the most important determinant of elephant operations and 80 percent of its court cases distribution and abundance in the region, and against wildlife and trafficking.42 the most important driver of their decline.35 Ivory stockpiles lack transparency and are Therefore, high human population density, poorly controlled, and it is believed that they hunting intensity, absence of law enforcement, contribute significantly to the ivory trade, pri- poor governance, and proximity to expanding marily through corrupt officials. There were infrastructure were the best predictors of popu- an estimated 12 tons in national stockpiles in lation declines in one study.36 Models based on the four focal countries in 2015, although all of known populations estimate that the number them publicly incinerated stockpiles after court of Central African elephants decreased by over cases were resolved.43 62 percent in the period 2002–2011, and an esti- mated 80 percent of individuals have been lost in the past 25 years. ii. Pangolins Pangolins have been referred to as the world’s Ecological Impact of Elephant Decline most trafficked mammal. They are valued for their keratin plates, which are used in African Elephants play a critical ecological role in and Asian traditional medicines. They are also maintaining the health of forest ecosystems: used for food, rituals, and art. All four Asian Their feeding behavior and toppling of trees species are classified on the Red List as either helps forests regenerate while controlling critically endangered or endangered, with soar- growth into adjacent savannas. Elephants are ing demand from increasingly affluent Asian also one of the most important seed dispersers countries fueling their unsustainable harvest. in the tropics. As elephants disappear, seed dis- There are four African species, but much less persal will likely decline for certain tree species is known about their biology and population not consumed by other major vertebrate taxons status. They are classified as vulnerable; CITES (for example, primates), reducing tree spe- recently banned their trade, although national cies richness and relative abundance.37 It may Before it’s too late 27 implementation of these international agree- across the continent, with over half originating ments remains nascent, enforcement is weak, from Cameroon.51 In 2016, trade was completely and cases rarely go to court.44 banned under CITES.52 The IUCN classifies the species as endangered, with available evidence As the availability of Asian pangolins has indicating that their current abundance may precipitously declined, poachers are shift- represent only 1 percent of their historical ing their focus to African species, so their total.53 In addition to hunting, habitat destruc- populations are assumed to be declining. tion and fragmentation are driving the species’ Fifty-three tons of African pangolins destined decline. for Asia were seized in 2013.45 In contrast, before 2008 there were virtually no major recorded shipments of pangolins from Africa to Asia.46 Despite the apparent primacy of the Africa-Asia trade network, CITES data indicates that the d. Conclusion United States was a major importer of pangolin As this section has illustrated, the overall trend products during both 1977–2000 and 2001–2014, for wildlife populations in the WCB points including large proportions from China. Fur- sharply downward. While charismatic species thermore, the growth in exports to the United such as elephants attract much of the attention States between these two periods was largely devoted to the subject, the broad array of hunt- driven from South Africa, Togo, and Cameroon, ed species means that the effects of this dynam- the latter two of which are likely destination ic are much more far-reaching. Larger mammals ports for Central African countries.47 have slower reproductive cycles than smaller Pangolin poaching across six Central African ones, meaning they are less likely to be able to nations (including the four WCB countries) recover from overexploitation. In addition to is estimated to kill 0.4–2.7 million individu- the poaching and unsustainable hunting threat, als every year, representing an increase of at wildlife faces increasingly fragmented and least 145 percent between 2000 and 2014. It is shrinking habitat. Unless governments are able likely that this trade is unsustainable. The price to stem these trends, the near-total or total local of giant and arboreal pangolins rose 5.8 and 2.3 extinction of numerous species is very possible. times higher, respectively, during that period.48 This would mean the loss of an important re- source for diversifying economies, which would both have negative impacts on existing users of iii. African Gray Parrot wildlife as well as preclude future options for The African gray parrot is the world’s third sustainable sources of income for government most traded bird. Unfortunately, the species is and local populations alike. difficult to accurately assess but relatively easy to catch; it has been targeted for the domes- tic and international pet trade for decades. It makes up the greatest proportion of live bird imports to China, although three-quarters of this total were captive-bred.49 Populations are patchily distributed across forests of Central Africa. A recent survey across 13 sites in five countries revealed particularly high abundance in protected areas in Cameroon, especially Lobéké National Park. Across Central Africa, sig- nificant populations can also be found outside of protected areas.50 The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) estimates that, when including the illegal trade, 2.1–3.2 million individuals were traded between 1975 and 2013; from 1982 to 2001, 650,000 individuals were exported legally Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 28 Before it’s too late 29 3. Who Are the Poachers? A Typology of Actors A Typology of Actors. Understanding who the poachers are and what motivates them is important for design- ing effective responses. Data on poachers is, a. Demographic however, notoriously difficult to obtain given Characteristics the illicit nature of the trade and the sensitivity with which governments treat such data. This The first distinction of poachers is between study therefore used a mix of methods and locals and foreign nationals: An analysis of sources to construct a picture of the character- convictions for IWT activities between 2008 istics of poachers and other people involved in and 2016 in the Republic of Congo found that, the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in the WCB.iv among those individuals for whom the nation- ality was recorded, 58 percent were Congolese nationals, with most of the remainder coming from Cameroon, the CAR, and the DRC. A small- er portion were nationals of China, Mali, and Angola.54 In northwestern ROC, between 2015 and 2017 80 percent of all arrests for IWT in- fractions were of Congolese nationals, with 80 iv  In addition to a survey of gray literature data, the study percent of the remaining arrests being of Cam- carried out two surveys: (1) A voluntary survey of a small eroonians.55 The mix of nationals and foreigners sample (n=9) of convicted poachers was conducted in in the IWT trade is supported by accounts of February 2018 in Ouesso, ROC. (2) To capture wider com- poachers in Ouesso collected for this study. munity viewpoints that were less susceptible to the bias of poachers, focus groups involving 52 people in Mintom and When the poachers are not legal residents of 60 in Ngoyla (both Cameroon) were carried out in Decem- ber 2017. Participants included traditional chiefs, commu- the host countries, a law enforcement approach nity forest associations, farmer associations, community is the most common response to dealing with hunting area wardens, women’s associations, community them. However, the reality of fluid borders and anti-poaching committees, and an association of converted limited territorial control may require taking poachers. Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 30 foreign nationals into account when designing A third distinction surrounds the role of alternative responses to poaching, for when participants in the IWT (Figure 3). The focus they settle in their host countries. This would groups in Cameroon suggest the primary also be the case for locals, for whom approaches participants in poaching in the area can be that increase the value of live wildlife can also grouped into three categories: be promising (see sections 5.a and 5.b). 1. Sponsors and facilitators of commercial A second distinction is between Bantus and poaching in high-value species, which indigenous peoples. Survey participants in include local elites, such as government, ju- both the ROC and Cameroon stated that mem- dicial, military, and police officials; religious bers of both groups engage in poaching. This leaders; and holders of hunting permits who is confirmed by arrest data from wildlife law exceed their quotas. enforcement patrols in northwestern ROC, where 24 percent of all arrests for poaching be- 2. Sponsors of bushmeat hunting from outside tween 2015 and 2017 were of Baka people.56 Both the community, who place orders for hunt- groups participate in supplying local, national, ed animals and supply traps to local hunt- and international markets, with Baka often ers and trappers. They can originate from serving as guides and hunters. The distinction outside the community, but in some cases between these two groups matters because they settle locally. of their differing cultural backgrounds, which 3. Members of the local community. These find their expression, among others, in their include hunters and trappers who are hired respective income-generating activities, places to carry out the actual poaching. They are of domicile and sedentary versus seminomadic usually from the poorer parts of the com- lifestyle, relationship to money, literacy rates, munity and include community members the gross power imbalance that exists between from Bantus, Baka, and Kakous (from north- them, their connection to nature, the role that ern Cameroon) who exceed their hunting hunting plays in their livelihoods and culture, or trapping quotas; traditional chiefs, who and gender roles related to hunting (in WCB in- generally know who the poachers are but digenous communities, for example, women of- don’t denounce them; local businesspeople ten make the decisions to hunt, while men carry who act as transporters; and local associa- out the activity). Any response to the poaching tions that exceed their hunting quotas. crisis involving local populations and indige- nous peoples needs to consider these differenc- Beyond these local actors involved in poach- es in the design of interventions, and reserve a ing, sponsors and buyers located outside of targeted strategy for indigenous peoples. the poaching hot spots connect to internation- al IWT trade networks. These include business- Figure 3: The Simplified Supply Chain for High-Value Illegal Wildlife Trade Products Hunters and poachers Sponsors / traders Smuggling networks Foreign buyers Supply tools and financing, Aggregate and Purchase products, organize purchase products export products processing and sale Government, judicial, military, and police officials Aid and abet the IWT (and sometimes are directly involved in the supply chain) Before it’s too late 31 people, government officials, and members of ly when coincident with forest cover, coincides the armed forces.57 In general, a response to the with habitat for wild fauna, and therefore involvement of middlemen requires a law en- poaching. In the ROC and CAR, 69 percent of the forcement approach, given that these positions rural population is considered poor; in Camer- generally are motivated by the accumulation oon, 57 percent; and in Gabon 45 percent.59 of wealth, and that the margins of the IWT are very high and render prohibitive the provision The Cameroonian focus groups suggested sev- of alternative income-generating schemes. On eral factors exacerbate poverty: the other hand, at the bottom of the IWT value §§ Benefit-sharing payments from forestry chain, where poverty is a primary motivation operations not reaching the general popula- for poaching (see section 3.b), responses that tion (a problem also in the ROC) create economic alternatives can be tested as part of a broader anti-poaching strategy. The §§ Lack of job opportunities, in particular for goal of any anti-poaching strategy, however, young community members, who favor should not be to punish those at the bottom of quick revenue-earning activities the income pyramid who participate in the IWT due to a lack of alternatives. §§ Falling prices for agricultural commodities in the face of the high prices paid for poach- ing products on the international market §§ The effect of human-wildlife conflict on farmers, and a lack of compensation for damages b. Drivers of Poaching §§ Lack of investment in rural development by Among the individuals surveyed for this the state study, poverty was the primary motivation identified for poaching (Figure 4). This driver The poachers surveyed in the ROC concurred can take two shapes: First, poaching can be a that poverty is the primary driver for poach- response to meet subsistence needs. This is ing (78 percent), with motivations a mix of most commonly the case for bushmeat hunters. one-off need for income boosts and longer-term Second, poaching can be a means to generate wealth building, compounded in a minority of additional income beyond that necessary to cases (22 percent) by resentment toward the meet basic needs. This is more frequently the fact that access to fauna resources is restricted case for individuals involved in commercial because of conservation efforts. poaching. This pattern matches that identified elsewhere.58 Poverty in the WCB tends to be particularly high in rural areas, which, especial- Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 32 Figure 4: Drivers of Supply and Demand of Unsustainable Wildlife Products SUPPLY SIDE DEMAND SIDE DIRECT DRIVERS Nutrition / subsistence Income generation Wealth-building Price Hunting culture Human-wildlife conflict Perceived injustice Demand Individual Organized hunters criminals Shrinking habitat / Poverty / lack of Weak laws Weak laws (regulatory increased accessibility / opportunities / (regulatory failure) failure, destination connection to markets desire for wealth country/region) Lack of ownership Weak law Weak law enforcement / alienation from enforcement (destination the resource country/region) Lack of understanding Corruption of limited supply ENABLING DRIVERS Environmental Socio-economic Governance Governance Before it’s too late 33 Box 2 c. What Might Dissuade THE COMPLEX ROLE OF ALTERNATIVE Poaching INCOME-GENERATING ACTIVITIES IN DISINCENTIVIZING POACHING The research conducted for this study asked poachers and poaching communities their Much like focus group participants in opinion to complement externally gener- Cameroon and survey respondents in the ated theories of what dissuades poaching. ROC, the conservation community has Participants in the Cameroonian focus groups often looked to alternative income-gener- suggested that dealing with poaching neces- ating activities to disincentivize poaching. sitates a multipronged approach of (1) provid- Intuitively, this makes sense: By reducing ing incentives to poachers to abandon their the opportunity cost of poaching and activities through job creation in trades and enabling people to earn income through alternative income generation (agriculture licit activities, poaching becomes relatively mixing short- and long-cycle crops, pisciculture, less attractive. This study does not intend livestock raising), (2) the operationalization of to invalidate the responses and desires of community hunting zones, and (3) improved survey participants. However, much like law enforcement, including by working through previous research,a this study was unable community groups and traditional techniques, to find robust or systematic evidence that and sensitization. Participants in the Ouesso alternative income-generating activities survey by and large concurred that if they had reliably dissuade poaching. In fact, in at stable jobs (78 percent) and/or alternative in- least one instance in Ghana, a rebound come streams (44 percent), they would not need effect was demonstrated: Increased com- to poach. While the results of these surveys munity income from other sources en- provide a direct voice to those closest to the abled the purchase of more sophisticated IWT, a rigorous evaluation in the face of alterna- poaching tools, and increased poaching.b tives offered would be useful. The surveys also Moreover, poaching also occurs in wealthy show that only half of the poachers reported countries where poverty is not necessarily awareness of wild fauna rapidly dwindling, a driver. This suggests that, in a best-case which runs counter to scientific and anecdotal scenario, increased community incomes, evidence. Combined with positive outcomes which are necessary for obvious reasons from behavior change campaigns elsewhere, that transcend conservation, should go this suggests that broader community cam- hand in hand with more effective conser- paigns that create awareness while shifting the vation. social standing of poaching might have a pos- a. Harrison et al (2015). itive effect.v Such efforts can also build on the b. Damania, Milner-Gulland, and Crookes cultural value that wildlife plays in many rural (2005). communities, which some survey respondents highlighted. On the other hand, as one moves up the IWT value chain, and as poachers are involved in poaching of higher-value species, the only plausible deterrent to poaching is effective law enforcement with dissuasive sanctions because the margins are in most cases so large that the creation of economic alternatives will hardly outweigh the profits of the IWT. v  Behavior change campaigns have been shown to be successful in conservation. See, for instance, examples from rare (rare.org). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 34 d. Conclusion The results of this research suggest that re- sponses that seek to address poverty as a root cause of poaching should be adapted to the realities of both the position of participants in the IWT and the cultural context of the poachers. An effective response thus requires multiple approaches. In spite of the complexity that raised incomes present in the context of poaching (see Box 2), this does not mean that such approaches cannot work—sections 5.a and 5.b provide several examples of successful approaches. Instead, it means that clear linkag- es between income-generating activities and conservation need to be established to ensure that such activities are understood to be tied to behavior change. Moreover, experimentation and an iterative, adaptive approach needs to be taken, based on close involvement with the communities and long-term building of mutual trust, combined with robust monitoring and evaluation to assess their efficacy. Before it’s too late 35 Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 36 Before it’s too late 37 4. The Policy, Legal, and Regulatory Context The four WCB countries have put in place policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks to attempt to address poaching. This chapter briefly ana- lyzes the state of play. sustainable use of wild fauna and flora.60 Sev- eral species-specific intergovernmental initia- a. Analysis tives that complement the range of policy tools deployed also recognize the need for creating WCB governments have committed to con- benefits and reducing the damange live wildlife serving their biodiversity resources through can inflict.vi At the regional level, the Central multiple global, African, and regional initia- African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) Conver- tives. gence Plan aims to maintain the integrity of At the global level, having joined CITES and the protected areas, increase the contribution of United Nations Convention on Biological Diver- ecotourism to gross domestic product (GDP) by sity (CBD), all four governments have commit- 20 percent by 2015, and stabilize populations of ted to conserving their biodiversity signatories. large mammals and other endangered flora and At the African level, the countries have adopt- fauna. COMIFAC also adopted a Sub-regional ed the African Convention for the Protection of Strategy for the Sustainable Use of Wildlife by Nature and Wildlife. More recently, the African Indigenous and Local Communities with the Union produced the African Strategy on Com- vision of ensuring the sustainability of wildlife bating Illegal Exploitation and Illegal Trade in management by involving indigenous and local Wild Fauna and Flora in Africa, recognizing that communities, including by promoting wildlife such illegal trade is no longer a conservation product value chains and community man- issue alone, but is undermining security and agement of hunting reserves.61 In addition, the wider sustainable development. This strategy Economic Community of Central African States emphasizes that “firm and strengthened action” (ECCAS) has promoted an emergency plan to and effective international cooperation are fight against poaching in the northern zone of needed on both the supply and demand sides of Central Africa.62 the IWT. Its core objectives include promoting a participatory approach to economic devel- vi  See, for example, the CITES 2010 “African Elephant Action opment and community livelihoods through Plan.” Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 38 i. The Regulatory Framework developed, and land uses and formal tenure rights continue to overlap, complicating land for Hunting use management.69 The WCB countries have sought to regulate In Gabon, the 2001 forest code regulates sustainable wildlife offtake through hunting. hunting, allowing subsistence hunting for all Their legal instruments have put in place a set members of the village communities living of prescriptions governing protected areas, traditionally and close to game reserves. How- hunting practices, and natural resource man- ever, the ministery in charge of wildlife protec- agement at large. tion may restrict the free exercise of customary Cameroon’s legislative framework for wildlife hunting rights on conservation or development management comprises hunting regulations grounds. Hunting for semi-protected species is and the repression or punishment of offenses. permissible for a given period of the year and The classification of animals is reviewed every certain quotas. Progress has been made toward five years. The law proscribes hunting of certain the elaboration of a national land use plan, with species, including gorillas, chimpanzees, and the creation of an interministerial committee elephants.63 Hunting a less regulated category for land use planning and funding secured to of species requires a legal permit. The law limits carry out the planning as such. subsistence hunting to the least regulated of three classes of animals outside of protected ii. The Regulatory Framework areas. Sport hunting is limited to hunting areas leased to hunting guides, who are responsible for Protected Area for the management of their wildlife. A Bush- Management meat Action Plan was also produced in 2003.64 The WCB governments have also sought to Cameroon’s national biodiversity strategy and protect biodiversity by establishing protect- action plan promotes a participatory approach ed areas. Historically, the WCB has seen the to biodiversity conservation and led to the proliferation of a strict conservation model that creation of a community-based natural resource aims to preserve wildernesses untouched by management approach (see section 5.a.ii). To as- humans. While there are notable exceptions, in sist conservation, a framework law governs the many instances, the governments’ effectiveness national land use planning process.65 It aims to in terms of conservation has been mixed. Sever- organize land allocation in a sustainable devel- al reasons help explain this: opment perspective, and applies to all land use across the entire territory. The process is still in §§ Protected areas (PAs) often lack legitimacy the early stage of preparation.66 in the eyes of the local population, especial- ly in cases where PAs have led to their phys- In the Central African Republic, the law bans ical displacement, or to a reduction of access the offtaking of fully protected species, and to previously used resources. This is partic- limits hunting of partially protected species to ularly the case when the perceived benefits certain circumstances and areas of the country that PAs deliver to communities are low. through permits and quotas.67 Game reserves can be conceded to hunting safari operators. §§ Government funding for conservation has in many cases been minimal, and gover- In the Republic of Congo, the forest code impos- nance of the sector weak, leading to weak es a contractual obligation for wildlife manage- protection regimes. ment on forestry concessionaires. Furthermore, the right to subsistence hunting of unprotected §§ High market prices for poached products species using traditional means is granted to provide strong economic incentives at all everyone. However, it can only be exercised on levels to poach. nonprotected lands or designated hunting areas around the municipality where the hunter §§ Habitat fragmentation has reduced the resides.68 In October 2014, the ROC passed a law effectiveness of PA systems, which rely on on land use planning and development that ecological connectivity to be effective reser- includes forest protection among its objectives. voirs of wildlife. However, to this date, no land use plan has been Before it’s too late 39 National legislative frameworks display during forms of social organizations, tenure sys- certain weaknesses: First, they frequently lack tems, and structures for collective actions as a context sensitivity. For instance, they assume basis for new incentives and benefit-sharing ar- the existence of a fully functioning and funded rangements. These systems need to go beyond legal and administrative infrastructure and simple consultative roles or token presence in personnel systems. In reality, such systems are governance structures. Equal-terms communi- severely lacking. Second, they do not sufficiently ty participation in collaborative management address the region’s development and poverty arrangements currently being promoted in the alleviation needs. Their primary purpose is to region would be worth exploring. regulate wildlife management in the interests of wildlife, and they generally do not mandate Create enabling environments for noncon- involvement of decentralized administrations sumptive wildlife-based economic activities: or communities in forest and wildlife manage- Protecting biodiversity and meeting the of- ment, nor do they effectively promote the gen- ten-conflicting needs of stakeholders are best eration of economic benefits from wildlife or addressed through open, informed, participato- the creation of sustainable funding streams for ry, and nonconsumptive forms of wildlife-based conservation. Conservation managers attempt economic activities such as wildlife-based to respond to this need as best as possible, but tourism or community-based natural resource this does not occur as a matter of policy or management. Such activities require the right regulation. enabling frameworks to flourish (see sections 5.a.i. and 5.a.ii, respectively). Create hybrid governance systems: Such ap- proaches require mechanisms for community b. Recommendations inputs, increased awareness of resource rights and responsibilities, and greater government Integrate human and conservation needs: accountability. In the current context, it seems For conservation to succeed, it must integrate that neither central governments nor custom- diverse goals of human use, including protec- ary approaches alone can create the required tion, commercial exploitation, local subsistence conditions: Civil society and local government use, agriculture, industry, and urban develop- administrators lack the tools, information, and ment within a complex mosaic of land and capacity to participate as equal partners; laws resource use.70 This implies not only balancing lack provisions to ensure that stakeholders are the respective needs of each of these uses but incorporated into policy reforms; and linkages also strengthening the position of conservation between local and national governance bodies in this complex assemblage. This, however, are weak or outright absent. There are no plat- requires capacity to conduct integrating plan- forms or communication structures in place to ning exercises that include all stakeholders, and ensure that local stakeholder “voices” are incor- a government vision to achieve such outcomes. porated into forest and resource reform policies. Both have been in short supply, although Linkages between communities and decentral- support for landscape approaches, such as the ized administrative units (territory and prov- Central Africa Regional Program for the Envi- ince) are weak or absent. And historically, rural ronment, from the U.S. Agency for International communities have had little opportunity to par- Development (USAID), has spurred progress. ticipate in national policy and legislative reform debate. Mobilizing their long-term engagement Build on community buy-in: To be successful, will depend greatly on whether their legisla- any strategy to create value for wildlife must tive representatives are informed and lobby for build on local community buy-in for sustainable community-defined needs, as well as the actual management of the resource, which implies and traceable transfer of forest concession roy- building on local resource user systems that en- alties to decentralized administrative units. joy local legitimacy. It also involves successfully creating collective interests to promote owner- This calls for hybrid (region/country/communi- ship and use of resources.71 It is thus important ty) integrated governance systems. that local social actors be identified, mobilized, and empowered to organize improved and en- Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 40 This collective and concerted management ap- A first step would be to harmonize IWT legal proach should be anchored in harmonized legis- frameworks across the region to avoid leakages, lation across the countries. The regional frame- such that what is prohibited in one country is work sets the overarching objectives, priorities, also illegal across others, and that legal frame- and implementation measures. Countries, in works offer sufficient deterrence throughout turn, would need to tackle the thorny issues the WCB. A concomitant step would be to of power and legitimacy through a devolution improve local institutions and realign natural process that, while ensuring accountability and resource use rules to the desired outcomes of alignment with national agendas, would allow citizen participation and wildlife valuation by some transfer of authority from the central communities (also see section 5.a.iii). level to decentralized accountable groups to empower local-level actors who traditionally Although hybrid governance systems could enjoy legitimacy in the community. Such a ameliorate some of the governance challeng- process, though anchored in traditions, would es conservation currently faces in the region, need to involve state oversight and nongovern- they cannot operate in a vacuum and require mental organization (NGO) support. Responsi- significantly improved governance at the na- bilities would need to be clearly defined at each tional level. Without this, deriving value from level, with the goal of achieving more equitable wildlife will remain an uphill battle. Sound distribution of power and economic benefits, political commitment to tackle the poaching reduced conflict, increased consideration of tra- crisis and create the enabling conditions for ditional and modern environmental knowledge, sustainable wildlife management is therefore a and sustainable resource use. sine qua non without which the very basis for deriving value from wildlife—the wildlife it- self—will remain at severe risk (see section 5.c). Before it’s too late 41 Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 42 Before it’s too late 43 5. Increasing the Value of Wildlife Approaches for Communities and Governments Solutions to deriving greater value from wild- Each approach is illustrated by case studies life exist. This chapter provides examples based and recommendations are given based on on international experience. It is divided into international experience for how governments three groups of approaches (Figure 5): The first and protected area managers could apply the catalogs approaches that can create new value lessons learned to the WCB context. In the for local and national economies—namely, discussion on tourism development, the recom- removing barriers to building a wildlife tourism mendations provided are based on an in-depth sector and promoting community management assessment of the WCB tourism constraints. of wildlife and forests. The second group con- The third group of approaches discusses funda- sists of approaches that share revenues gener- mental enabling conditions that must be put ated through other means with communities in in place if economic value from wildlife is to be an effort to build local conservation constituen- created and shared sustainably. These include cies. These approaches include protected area demonstrated political will, improved law en- benefit sharing, payments for environmental forcement, organizational reform and capacity services, and managing human-wildlife conflict. building, and land use planning. Figure 5: Overview of Approaches for Creating Value from Wildlife Creating new economic value Sharing economic value Tourism Community forest Community wildlife Protected area Managing human- Payment for management management benefit sharing wildlife conflict ecosystem services Creating the enabling conditions for creating and sharing economic value Demonstrating Organizational reform Governance and Land use planning political will and capacity building law enforcement Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 44 Current visitor numbers to national parks, which at most measure in the low hundreds, a. Creating New Economic suggest that the current contribution of wild- Value life tourism to GDP in the countries concerned is negligible.vii However, this is due to a lack of strategic planning, reforms, and investment, and i. Building a wildlife tourism governments could change this state of affairs. sector To illustrate wildlife tourism’s development po- tential, this study assesses the spend per visitor This section will first estimate the potential val- in a cross-section of protected areas in the region ue that could be created in the WCB by building (see Table 1). a wildlife tourism sector. It then goes on to ana- lyze which barriers would need to be overcome The examples in Table 1 illustrate that the for this to happen. average nightly value of a wildlife tourist can vary considerably depending on the type of tourism promoted. It can range from $484 in Assessing the Economic Potential of Campo Ma’an, a relatively undeveloped pro- Wildlife Tourism tected area; to a projected $1,662 in Loango, a The primary untapped nonconsumptive use protected area whose tourism development for wildlife at the scale of national economies plan targets multiple markets ranging from is wildlife-based tourism (see Box 3). This does budget to luxury; to $5,600 in Odzala-Kokoua, not mean tourism is a simple or the only re- a protected area that has initiated two luxury sponse to the challenge of deriving sustainable tourism concessions. value from wildlife. Indeed, the development of The economic potential of protected areas a wildlife-based tourism sector would be a long- varies considerably, depending on their car- term and challenging undertaking in an area rying capacity, size, location, attraction, and such as the WCB (see appendix A for an analysis the model of tourism espoused, among others. of the state of tourism in the WCB and below for For example, the presence of iconic species like recommendations on removing barriers to tour- gorillas and the availability of a range of lodg- ism). Section 5.a.ii presents community-based ing and activity options will markedly increase management of natural resources as another ap- visitor length of stay and visitor spend. Howev- proach to deriving economic value from wildlife. er, extrapolating the examples in Table 1 across However, an estimation of its potential economic the 26 protected areas evaluated as having high benefits exceeds the scope of this study. or medium-high development potential in the WCB (see Table A.3) illustrates that the total eco- Box 3 nomic potential of these parks could be as little DEFINING WILDLIFE TOURISM as $5.3 million per year if they remain relatively undeveloped like Campo Ma’an National Park, Nature-based tourism encompasses all or as much as $390 million per year if they all tourism experiences centered on wild or realize their diversified potential like Gabon’s natural environments including but not Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux plans limited to wildlife tourism, ecotourism, for Loango National Park. viii This range excludes adventure travel, and cultural tourism. Wildlife tourism is a subsector of na- vii  Available tourism data is inclusive of leisure, business, ture-based tourism, focused on viewing and diaspora travelers, making it difficult to ascertain cur- and encountering non-domesticated wild rent figures for wildlife tourism. animals in either terrestrial or marine viii  This assumes that each park could welcome 9,000 contexts. As this study focuses on the tourists a year. While this assumption would have to be subjected to a detailed analysis of the carrying capacity potential to develop protected areas whose of the protected areas in question, it is conservative when primary tourism attraction resides in their compared to parks with similarly sensitive, forest-based fauna, this study assesses the potential of wildlife resources, such as Uganda’s Bwindi National Park wildlife tourism rather than nature-based (20,000 visitors per year) or Rwanda’s Volcanoes National tourism more broadly. Park (which received 17,000 visitors as early as 2008). Such numbers would imply raising the share of wildlife tourists Before it’s too late 45 Table 1: Value of Existing and Projected Wildlife Tourism in Selected Protected Areas Number Estimated average Average Estimated Estimated total of lodges/ total spend per length of total spend per economic value Protected area Market campsites person-night (US$) stay (nights) person (US$) (US$) Odzala-Kokoua Luxury 3 800 7 5,600 572,000 National Park, ROC (existing) Campo Ma’an Budget 1/2 161 3 484 206,769 National Park, (camping and Cameroon lodges) (existing) Loango National Luxury 7 831 2 1,662 15,000,000 Park, Gabon Standard 2 (projections based on 9,000 visitors) Budget (camping) 2 Sources: Information on Odzala-Kokoua and Campo Ma’an National Parks courtesy of P. Telfer of the Congo Conser- vation Company and S. Noumeyi of the African Wildlife Foundation, respectively, via personal communications to author, January 2018. For Loango National Park, see ANPN (2014). a more lucrative scenario exclusively based on the tourism market in the WCB is not available, high-end tourism such as that piloted in Odza- but World Bank research in Zambia determined la-Kokoua National Park, as it is unlikely that a a multiplier value of 2.1.72 Applying this same market can be established for such an approach value, the total potential economic contribution across a large number of protected areas. of wildlife tourism to the economies of the WCB could reach $1.1 billion per year. The wider economic impact of wildlife tour- ism is greater than just in-park spending, Of course, the above projections presuppose however. The numbers in Table 1 do not in- optimal development of the tourism sector, clude visitor spend outside the protected areas, including the creation of a favorable business including that related to travel to/from the and governance environment (see below and protected area, and any associated overnight section 5.c, respectively), which are currently stays. Based on some simple assumptions,ix but highly lacking. It also is necessarily a long-term not assuming any connected travel within the proposition, which would take many years to country, this could add up to $131 million per realize. Such numbers should be considered to year to the local economy. be aspirational. For comparison, Rwanda, which in 2016 reaped $470 million from tourism,73 took The economic impact of tourism spending is 20 years of targeted and systematic invest- not limited to the tourism sector itself, howev- ments and reforms to reach its current level er, as the funds earned cycle through the econ- of revenue generation (see Box 6). In addition, omy. Local research on the multiplier value in the development of wildlife tourism should be subjected to a detailed financial analysis of the overall tourism from near 0 percent today to about 7 on a case-by-case basis to assess its viability percent of the projected total international visitor arrivals and the opportunity costs. The up-front devel- in 2027. The upper end of this range would imply that wild- life tourism would constitute 6.3 percent of the tourism opment costs of tourism development can be sector’s revenue in 2027, which is still well below values significant, making tourism’s payoffs elusive in observed in more developed African tourism markets. some cases.74 Nevertheless, it is hard to see how ix  All wildlife tourists travel from abroad, with 1 overnight wildlife can contribute to significant economic stay at either end of the protected area visit ($100 per growth and diversification unless governments person-night), 1 dinner at either end ($30 per person), and develop their tourism markets. transfer to and from the protected area ($150 each way). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 46 The proceeds from wildlife tourism can be plowed back into conservation: For example, Box 4 Virunga National Park in the DRC generated HOW DOES WILDLIFE TOURISM’S $2.5 million in fees from 10,000 visitors in 2017.75 POTENTIAL COMPARE TO OTHER USE The level of entry fees and wildlife viewing VALUES OF WILDLIFE? permit prices will depend on how developed the market is, and how high demand is for the The premise of this study is that wildlife wildlife product. The price of gorilla viewing is not sufficiently valued in the WCB to permits for foreign tourists illustrates this well: motivate its conservation. The study then In less developed destinations like Virunga and suggests approaches to boosting that val- Kahuzi-Biega National Parks in the DRC, the cost ue with sustainable uses to monetize wild- for a gorilla viewing permit is $400. In the bet- life. The rationality assumption the study ter-developed market of Bwindi Forest National makes for its basic premise necessitates a Park in Uganda, the permit costs $450–$600. In comparison of the primary economic value Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, which has creation, wildlife tourism, with currently created the best tourism infrastructure of these unsustainable activities. countries and draws high-end tourists, the price Bushmeat hunting: The estimated value is $1,500 for foreign tourists. of wildlife tourism has the potential to More important than fee generation, howev- outweigh that of the bushmeat trade, er, is the economic development potential, which, including self-consumption of especially when leveraged through innovative bushmeat in rural areas, is estimated to collaborative management models and chan- have a gross economic benefit of $413 neled through benefit-sharing schemes (see million across Cameroon, Gabon, and the section 5.b). ROC, but a net economic benefit (including the opportunity cost of labor) of only $112 million. Of the estimated $120 million in net profits the sector produces across the three countries, about 50 percent accrues to rural areas.a While tourism would not have to outweigh this amount to displace bushmeat hunting as an income source— since, if managed sustainably, bushmeat hunting and tourism can in theory be ad- ditive activities—it is clear that for tourism to provide adequate incentives to “distract” bushmeat hunters from their activities, tourism will have to be structured to pro- vide substantial returns for rural areas. Sport hunting: The paucity of data does not allow a full accounting of the current or potential revenue from sport hunting across the WCB countries, although ex- perience from other Sub-Saharan African countries suggests the contribution could be significant. Also see Box 4 for a discus- sion of the conditions under which sport hunting would constitute a viable option in the WCB. a. Lescuyer (2015); Lescuyer and Nasi (2016); Valimahamed, Lescuyer, and Nasi (2017). Before it’s too late 47 Box 5 UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS CAN SPORT HUNTING SUSTAINABLY PROVIDE ECONOMIC VAL- UE FOR WILDLIFE? The assessment of the economic potential of wildlife tourism does not include sport hunting. The hunting of wild animals for sport can generate considerable economic returns to rural commu- nities and can contribute to national GDP. In Cameroon, sport hunting has been estimated to generate $14 million annually.a Hunting provides an economic value to wildlife and to protected areas, the latter because they are reservoirs of wildlife for surrounding areas. Economic incentives to protect wildlife and protected areas are indispensable for their long-term survival. Sport hunting is an element of nature-based tourism when it is a recreational activity practiced by visitors to a natural area. From an economic perspective, sport hunting can be a positive nature-based activity, generating substantial returns from payment of fees and related spend- ing of hunters. If hunting targets problem animals causing human-wildlife conflict, it can have an additional positive impact by reducing the economic cost to local communities from animals that destroy crops or take human lives. But at the same time, hunting can have adverse economic impacts if it affects negatively the sustainability of a rare or endangered species. If the economic returns of sport hunting are not fairly shared or are captured by elites, this can negate the activi- ty’s positive contribution to a country’s economy. There can be intense opposition to sport hunt- ing, and in particular trophy hunting, on the basis of moral objections. Under what circumstances, considering the economic potential, does it make sense to allow or promote sport hunting? Major criteria need to be met to allow sport hunting, including the fol- lowing: §§ Do national laws and regulations, including international conventions such as CITES, allow hunting of the species of interest? §§ Is hunting permitted in the target area? This would exclude all hunting in national parks. §§ Are the target species monitored and managed to prevent impacts on the sustainability of populations? §§ Are adequate controls in place to ensure the hunting does not provision illegal markets for animal products? §§ Are there sufficient measures in place to manage hunting (well-trained and regulated hunt- ing guides, regulatory framework)? §§ Is a reasonable proportion of the sport hunting fees earmarked for direct conservation pur- poses in the area of interest? §§ Is a reasonable proportion of the sport hunting fees earmarked for local communities and is it sufficient to generate conservation incentives? In many areas outside of national parks, the development of nonconsumptive tourism is unlikely. In these areas, sport hunting may be the best option to provide enough incentives to local popu- lations to ensure the survival of wildlife populations. In some countries in Africa—for example, Zimbabwe and Namibia—the above criteria are met and sport hunting generates critical reve- nues both for conservation and for local communities. The WCB countries face significant barriers to the development of high-value wildlife tourism (see below). This observation would suggest the importance of favoring other ways of generating revenue from wildlife populations, or else accept their loss if the value of wildlife is less than the Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 48 opportunity cost of poaching, or if converting them to agriculture or another land use is more attractive. Do the WCB countries meet minimal criteria for promoting sport hunting? Legally, sport hunting is possible in all the states of the WCB, but in most countries this does not extend to elephants (save Cameroon, where adult elephants can be hunted), the largest generator of sport hunting revenue in southern Africa. The IUCN considers the Central African elephant population endangered. Sharply declining numbers in virtually all parts of the elephants’ range mean that hunting of this species would be problematic and face considerable international op- position. Other species, such as the bongo, are currently being hunted for sport in the WCB. None of the WCB countries have sufficient regulations and capacity to ensure either the reason- able management and monitoring of target wildlife species or the sustainable management of hunting operations. If more detailed feasibility studies carried out on a scientific basis were to identify specific areas and species that offered potential, it could be possible in the medium term to sufficiently strengthen regulations and capacity. Any such arrangements would also need to ensure strong and enforceable regulations, monitoring, and revenue sharing. a. Eba’a Atyi et al. (2013). Addressing Barriers to Building a pockets of tourism activity in the WCB—for ex- Wildlife Tourism Sector ample, in Odzala-Kokoua, Nouabalé-Ndoki, Dz- anga-Sangha, and Loango National Parks—from As outlined above, the greatest potential for which lessons can be drawn, and on whose creating new, unrealized economic value for fledgling successes growth could be built. This wildlife in the WCB resides in developing section outlines priorities for this process. wildlife tourism. While the potential for devel- opment exists, the WCB countries perform poor- While the tourism sector requires a favorable ly in international comparisons of their compet- overall business environment to flourish, six itiveness (see Table 2). The analysis of the state primary structural barriers impede optimal of tourism in the WCB (see appendix A) identi- wildlife tourism development. Recognizing fied structural barriers to tourism development. that there are variances between the WCB The path to building the sector at scale is long countries and within each country, and that and requires strategically addressing barriers some of these barriers have been addressed in to its development. However, there are small certain instances, these can be grouped into three thematic areas (Figure 6). Table 2: Competitiveness Rankings of WCB Countries World Economic Forum Tourism World Bank Ease of Doing Country Competitiveness (out of 138 countries) Business Ranking (out of 190) Cameroon 119 163 Central African Republic Not included 184 Gabon 108 167 Congo, Rep. Not included 179 Sources: WEF (2016); World Bank (2018). Before it’s too late 49 Strategic Planning and Market Development holder interviews, and individual protected area assessments (see appendix A). Emphasis has 1. National and protected area conservation been placed on models that maximize returns vision, strategies, and plans that protect for national economies and local communities. wildlife and landscapes and link to tourism Creating an enabling environment for develop- 2. National and protected area tourism strat- ing wildlife tourism and implementing region- egies and plans that provide guidelines for al and national strategies and priority policy tourism concessions and promote wildlife actions is a significant undertaking. According- tourism ly, strategic sequencing is required to optimize execution, with established short-, medium-, 3. Tourism zoning guidelines for product de- and long-term priorities (Table 3). However, velopment within protected area manage- these will naturally depend on each country’s ment plans, and monitoring of prioritized individual context. indicators to inform decision making 4. Tourism marketing and promotion to at- Strategic Planning and Market Development tract target markets and drive demand Successful tourism development requires Business Climate political will at the highest levels of gov- ernment, a clear and aspirational tourism 5. Policy and regulatory environment that policy, coherent actionable strategies, and supports wildlife tourism development an enabling environment for private sector development. To drive economic development Infrastructure and Tourism Capacity and create jobs through tourism, governments 6. Tourism infrastructure and human resource must protect the assets upon which the sector capacity at a national level and within pro- is dependent. This requires the will to do the tected areas following: §§ Support wildlife tourism product develop- ment and marketing and promoting tour- Figure 6: Six Structural Barriers to Wildlife Tourism ism at a destination level. Development §§ Create a policy environment for enabling Conservation Vision, and regulating private sector development. Strategy & Plans §§ Create a robust conservation vision, strate- Tourism Strategy Tourism Zoning gy, and governance, recognizing that wild- and Plans and Monitoring life tourism can be of significant economic Positive Economic and strategic value. and Conservation Outcomes from Understand Market Demand. (Short term) Wildlife Tourism New tourism infrastructure and product de- Policy and Marketing and velopment should from the onset be linked to Regulatory Promotions existing market demand and an understanding Environment of market dynamics. Public-private marketing partnerships can identify and prioritize target Infrastructure markets and stimulate their development by and Capacity tourism entrepreneurs. By staying attuned to their target markets, trends in tourism, and the competitive landscape, countries can more The recommendations that follow detail how easily adapt their tourism offerings to meet governments can overcome these structural changing market needs. Existing and potential barriers and put in place the enabling condi- tourism markets, strategic visitor flows, and tions critical for success of wildlife tourism. the protected area assessments can inform They are informed by an assessment of national the identification of wildlife product develop- tourism policies, strategies and plans, stake- ment opportunities deemed to have the most Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 50 Box 6 BUILDING A TOURISM SECTOR FROM SCRATCH: THE CASE OF RWANDA Rwanda shows what is possible in terms of tourism development even with a limited resource base. The 1994 genocide destroyed the country’s human capital, image, infrastructure, and the limited tourism market it had already developed. Yet visitor numbers nearly doubled to 1.22 mil- lion between 2010 and 2014,a and in 2016 Rwanda earned $470 million from international tour- ism.b Selected key success factors illustrate how the country got there. Clear vision and strategy: Rwanda approved a clear tourism strategy in 2002, followed by a tourism policy in 2006. Both were embedded in the overall Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy. They identified gorilla tourism as the country’s unique value proposition and established a strategic focus on high-end tourism. At a later stage, concerted efforts were made to boost conference tourism. Commitment to reform: Rwanda has implemented a number of market-based reforms to strengthen the role of the private sector. These also benefit the tourism sector. The government revised laws and codes, including the investment code, company law, secure transactions law, labor law and insolvency law, and simplified customs procedures. Combined with others, these actions have made Rwanda a top performer in the Doing Business ranking, reflecting the general strong governance environment. Strong public-private dialogue: The government involved the private sector from the start, with the objective that the private sector would take over as the driving force. A tourism working group brings together private and public stakeholders. The government consults the private sec- tor in the development of new policies and strategies. Attractive investment incentives: The investment code grants tax exemptions to investors who invest $100,000 or more, and provides for tax exemptions for aircraft and vehicles that transport tourists, as well other tourism equipment. International marketing: Using an aggressive public relations and marketing strategy involving international agencies, Rwanda worked consistently to market the country and its attractions, benefiting greatly from the popularity of the gorillas. To ensure private sector participation in major trade fairs, the government provided subsidies for tour operators who otherwise would not have had the means to attend. Promotional tours of Rwanda were provided for international investors and tour operators. Domestic sensitization: The government launched a national campaign to sensitize the popula- tion on the importance of tourism and to convey that the country can benefit from tourists and should therefore be welcomed. The objective of the campaign was not to push domestic tourism, but rather to teach members of the army and police, for example, about the role of tourism and their role in the sector. Protection of key resources: Rwanda has protected its gorilla population very well, growing its numbers from 265 in 2009 to 305 in 2014. It put in place strong benefit-sharing schemes for local communities. Note: Much of this text box is based on Nielsen and Spenceley (2010). a. National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (2015). b. International Tourism, Receipts (Current US$) data set, World Bank Open Data (database), Washington, DC (accessed 2017), https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD. Before it’s too late 51 Table 3: Overview of Priorities to Address Barriers to Wildlife Tourism Short-term priorities Medium-term priorities Long-term priorities (1–2 years) (3–4 years) (5+ years) Strategic Planning and Market Development Understand market demand Optimize destination management Understand natural capital Develop branding strategies Prioritize destinations for Manage property rights investment Business climate Facilitate multi-stakeholder collaboration Create a positive and progressive policy and regulatory environment Develop protected area business plans and tender concessions Ensure local economic benefits Manage risk in protected areas Improve infrastructure, services, and access Tourism Infrastructure and Capacity Establish wildlife-based Build capacity protected area and tourism partnerships Regional strategies Offer a joint tourist visa Strengthen transboundary protected areas Exchange knowledge potential. This should also include an analysis tourism demand and supply networks enables of market segmentation to determine to what decision makers to align products and services extent to target the luxury, mid, and lower-end with travel motives and visitor behavior. markets, and national versus international markets. Determining how different types of Understand Natural Capital. (Short term) Wild- tourists travel through the WCB can provide life dynamics and landscapes are the core of a market-driven, realistic, and forward-look- any related tourism product offering. A strong ing perspective on tourism infrastructure and understanding of these elements is required product development. The understanding of to evaluate the existing and future potential of strategic visitor flows and their connections to wildlife tourism. There is no set rule as to where Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 52 tourists will or will not travel. However, devel- opment plans, strengthening and improving oping tourism products in the most attractive the transparency of tourism-related rules and locations in terms of scenery and wildlife in- regulations, and disseminating each of these creases the probability of commercial success. A and securing input from the private sector weighted assessment of the following variables and other key stakeholders, such as NGOs and and related threats can help determine the communities, prior to their adoption. Tourism potential for tourism development in prioritized ministries should also help establish and re- areas: source a tourism authority at the national level to implement strategies and action plans and §§ Wildlife dynamics: The diversity of fauna, lead marketing, product development, and other with an emphasis on iconic, endemic, rare, activities that attract visitors and enhance their and endangered species, and the diversity of experience. Protected area authorities’ involve- their habitat; population sizes for resident ment in tourism should be under the direction wildlife and migrating species; and wildlife of the ministries responsible for protected area visibility management, tourism, private sector busi- §§ Landscape: The aesthetics of the landscape ness, and infrastructure development. To help in terms of the preponderance of high-qual- balance the interests and benefits of tourism, ity scenery, especially relating to rivers, the private sector should be actively involved in lakes, forests, mountains and other natural tourism development planning, marketing, and features; the diversity of topography and product development. ecological zones (for example, rain forest, Develop Branding Strategies. (Medium/long forest-savanna, swamps); and iconic natural term) The brand image of a country and its and cultural heritage features (for example, protected areas is also very important. Nation- canyons, rocky massifs, forest clearings, al tourism brands and protected area brands rivers, villages) closely associated with wildlife tourism need Prioritize Destinations for Investment. (Short to be developed. Branding strategies that build term) Appendix 1 provides a rapid assessment brand awareness, teach brand meaning, and of the theoretical potential of protected areas grow positive brand equity over time engage for tourism development. Its conclusion is that target markets, emotionally connect them with much investment is still required for tourism to sites, and foster stewardship among visitors.76 be able to flourish in the WCB. Current tourism development strategies too often attempt to Business Climate cover all bases, thus risking the dilution of valu- able potential public investments. It is there- Supply-driven tourism development is rarely fore necessary to identify those tourism assets successful in emerging tourism destinations. whose development potential is greatest, using Governments should concentrate on regu- objective criteria (including financial analyses lating and creating an enabling investment of the potential profitability of tourism devel- environment for tourism rather than develop- opment). This will enable a concentration of ing tourism facilities and services themselves. priority investments to develop beachheads on The private sector will best react to market op- which the sector can build a broader base and portunities and therefore will stand a stronger develop outwards. chance of being commercially sustainable. With the right conditions for investment and oper- Optimize Destination Management. (Medium ation, the private sector will bear most of the term) To attract more investment and thus tour- costs of tourism development. ism development, the structure of the tourism sector should be optimized. Politics need to be Facilitate Multi-stakeholder Collaboration. separated from implementation to inform de- (Short/medium term) Experience has shown cision making, accountability increased, and an that interministerial, cross-sectoral multi-stake- enabling environment for tourism development holder coordination on tourism destination created. The relevant ministries’ role in leading management, marketing, and development tourism should include developing policies and strengthens private sector competitiveness, strategies, prioritizing infrastructure devel- enhances the enabling environment for en- terprise development, and boosts benefits for Before it’s too late 53 host communities. Such coordination increases Manage Property Rights. (Medium term) Land accountability, establishes a system of checks tenure and property rights have a strong influ- and balances, and ensures communication and ence on protected area conservation strategies, coordination between the public and private landscapes, and commercial entities. They sectors and civil society. Establishing a national include local communities’ and business’ rights tourism development committee to engage key to hunting and fishing, forestry, minerals and stakeholders—securing their input on tourism mining, and concessions and tendering. For policies, strategies, and action plans—and to example, the property rights of local communi- oversee implementation would provide one ties might be leveraged to strengthen wildlife such avenue. protection in protected areas and buffer zones, which could be sustained by commercial tour- Create a Positive and Progressive Policy and ism investment resulting in clearly structured Regulatory Environment. (Short/medium local benefits. This might include the creation term) Enabling policies and smart incentives of community wildlife conservancies in certain can support and guide the private sector to key locations, drawing upon successful commu- maximize local production in the supply chain nity conservation initiatives in other parts of at a community level, build local capacities, and Africa. remove barriers to trade.77 Therefore, incen- tives should be linked to protected area and Develop Protected Area Business Plans and private sector business plans and models that Tender Concessions. (Short/medium term) Pro- support both conservation and socioeconomic tected area management plans, zoning guide- outcomes. Incentives such as tax reductions or lines, and a system for concession tendering exemptions from value added tax (VAT), income within protected areas prioritized for tourism excise taxes, and customs duties for reputable development should be developed alongside international and local investors can help drive protected area business plans to optimize eco- tourism infrastructure construction and provi- nomic development potential. This approach sion of transport and equipment. Comparable enables governments to define how tourism incentives and subsidies should be established should be developed and managed, and if there for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MS- is private sector participation, it helps to ensure MEs) involved in tourism and benefits should commercial viability, community benefit, and trickle down to them. Any incentives should be conservation outcomes. transparently structured and uniformly applied. In some cases, existing taxation regimes should also be investigated for their efficiency. For Example example, in the ROC, import duties start at 57 percent; in addition, there is a 19.1 percent VAT, Increasing the Commercial Value of Nat- a 10 percent tourism levy, and high taxation at ural Capital through the Private Sector in all levels. Kenya. Until the late 1990s, most land in Laikipia County was managed as livestock International and domestic tourism operators ranches. Since then, with progressive and local MSMEs interested in establishing new government legislation in place, most have businesses or growing their existing business migrated to new business models based require unencumbered access to businesses around wildlife conservation. Without licenses, compelling tourism development any donor funding, Loisaba Conservancy opportunities, low-interest loans and commer- has become recognized as one of Kenya’s cial capital to finance them, and secure rights premier high-end tourism destinations to investment to minimize their risk. Many and integrated wildlife-livestock conser- banks perceive the risks of extending loans to vancies, generating $1.5 million a year the private sector to be prohibitively high in the in commercial revenue. Overall wildlife countries concerned. Those risks can be reduced populations are increasing, and in 2015 the to acceptable levels in many ways. Rendering Nature Conservancy purchased Loisaba for the business environment more competitive is $10 million.a key to that process.78 Where barriers to market entry are particularly high, grant mechanisms a. Birnie and Davies (2017). may be necessary. Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 54 Example Example Planning for Managing and Developing Creating Communal Wildlife Conservan- Tourism in Gabon. Gabon has protected cies to Economically Empower Commu- area management plans for its 13 national nities in Kenya. The Northern Rangelands parks. The plans address tourism infra- Trust represents and supports 27 com- structure, product development, and guide munity conservancies totaling an area of training; revenue sharing mechanisms; 31,000 square kilometers, equivalent in monitoring of tourism activities; key size to over 60 percent of Kenya’s formal performance indicators related to tourism; protected area estate of national parks and and budgeting and projections for tourism reserves. These conservancies have created development. This planning is set within revenue and benefit flows to over 100,000 a broader process of national protected people and are now seen as a benchmark area tourism development and business for community-based conservation.a planning that focuses on new commercial tourism models, including all aspects of a. Birnie and Davies (2017). tendering, concessioning, and contracting with commercial tourism partners. Longer-term, exclusive-use concessions within Concessions in protected areas offer various and adjacent to protected areas create invest- ways to maximize the economic benefits of ment certainty for concessionaires. Initial tourism and ensure that these benefits primar- concessions should be relatively inexpensive for ily accrue to national and local communities’ base rental, with a percentage of gross annual economies. Protected area concession and ten- turnover offered as an incentive for government dering systems should require concessionaires and investors to benefit as occupancy rises. to hire a predetermined percentage of their staff from local communities and provide them Ensure Local Economic Benefits. (Short/medi- with training and opportunities for upward um term) The two main threats to wildlife tour- mobility. In some cases, concessionaires can be ism are ecosystem degradation and poaching. A required to establish and manage guide-train- rising and impoverished human population in ing programs and invest a percentage of their the communities surrounding protected areas fees in community development funds. Con- is likely to exacerbate these threats. Rural com- cessionaires should also be encouraged to munities often resent that considerable resourc- buy a percentage of goods and services from es go into protecting wildlife for the benefit of local businesses and producers if they are of a wealthy tourists. In South Africa, for example, sufficient quality, and/or to help develop local it is relatively easy for kingpins engaged in supply chain capacity. poaching to recruit from the villages around Kruger National Park.79 Since communities National systems for the distribution of protect- coexisting with wildlife typically bear the costs ed area entrance and other fees between the of loss of livestock, crops, and life without gain- state, individual protected areas, and local com- ing significant economic benefit, the wildlife munities should be based on detailed economic itself may have little or no positive economic assessments (for example, fees in comparable value to the community.80 To combat the illegal parks, visitor willingness to pay). To maximize wildlife trade in the long term, tourism must be domestic tax revenues, tourism operators and designed to benefit communities to incentivize concessionaires should be required to declare them to protect their natural capital assets. all revenues they generate in-country, recognize it within a local company or subsidiary, and ensure financial audits are undertaken by a recognized national audit firm. Improving tour- ism accommodation and circuits within and Before it’s too late 55 between protected areas also helps to increase and services. This requires commercial tour- visitor spend and tax revenue. ism operators, NGOs, and local communities based in and around protected areas to be very Manage Risk in Protected Areas. (Short/medi- strongly aligned and for their inputs to the um term) The success of the tourism is inex- partnership to be carefully planned and struc- tricably linked to the ability to provide a safe tured. There are multiple examples of successful and secure environment for visitors.81 To ensure PPPs throughout Africa between governments, a quality tourism experience, protected areas private sector actors, and NGOs such as Wildlife should have risk management plans to reduce Conservation Society (WCS), Wide World Fund risk and improve emergency preparedness and for Nature (WWF), and African Parks. Such PPPs response, and law enforcement to protect the have shown to hold significant potential for un- tourists. Access to adequate health care facil- locking the economic value of wildlife-centered ities and preparation for serious health emer- economic activities, in particular of tourism, gencies is also important. which can then also fund conservation. In these Make Visitors Feel Welcome. (Medium term) arrangements, the government remains the Visa and border-crossing processes should be legal custodian responsible for policy and man- streamlined. For example, tourists should be agement planning, while management part- able to apply for and secure a visa online prior ners are generally responsible for day-to-day to arrival, or they should be able to easily secure management and securing of protected areas, a visa upon arrival. The visitor welcome at air- habituating key species, and helping to secure ports, border crossings, and police checkpoints donor funding. Once a protected area is secured, can also be improved. Tourism enterprises and private investors are more willing to build in- tourists should not be met with corruption, ag- frastructure, create wildlife tourism programs, gressive police, or obstructive immigration and/ train guides, and manage external marketing or customs officials. and reservations. Donors have also increasingly shown a willingness to support protected areas under PPP arrangements. Tourism Infrastructure and Capacity Improve Infrastructure, Services, and Access. (Medium/long term) Investments in tourism Example infrastructure increase competitiveness, effi- Stimulating Investment in Communities ciency of production and distribution of tourism through Wildlife Tourism in Namibia. services, and the supply of tourism services in Namibia’s policy to award communi- remote destinations.82 Successful tourism devel- ties the right to benefit from wildlife in opment requires the provision of many services, communal areas created an enabling including different levels and types of lodging, environment for the establishment of pri- transport, activities, and dining. vate-community tourism partnerships on Access, which determines the time and ex- conservancy land. The private sector that pense required to travel to, from, and within a sells wildlife tourism product to consum- destination, is also an important consideration ers invests in communal conservancies.a for attracting target markets. It includes the Private sector partners have on average transport of goods and services and involves invested $1.2 million in a typical joint-ven- international, regional, and domestic air, road, ture lodge with an average of 32 beds and and water transportation. Investments in public 55 staff members,b and paid communities infrastructure and the facilitation of businesses $2.13 million from 2011 to 2013.c to provide such services are therefore import- a. World Bank (2014). ant. b. FENATA (2010). Establish Wildlife-Based Protected Area c. Naidoo, Weaver, et al. (2016). and Tourism Partnerships. (Short term) Public-private partnerships (PPPs) and pub- lic-private-community partnerships can be established to jointly provide tourism facilities Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 56 Build Capacity. (Medium/long term) Human be targeted for development to respond to the resource capacity needs to be developed to challenge that a lack of income-generating unlock the economic potential of the WCB’s options plays at least a partial role in driving natural assets. This includes capacity in protect- rural inhabitants into poaching (see section ed area management, with support from NGO 3.b). However, responses that simultaneous- partners, for professional tour guides, and in ly can improve the management of natural hospitality, with support from the private sector resources and provide sustainable income concessionaires. High-quality education and streams for the population are obvious targets. vocational training will increase visitor satisfac- Community-based natural resource manage- tion, decrease reliance on importing labor, and ment (CBNRM), and specifically community provide residents with jobs and opportunities forest management, is one such approach. It for upward mobility. has yielded promising results in Latin America, for example, where forests under community management have displayed lower rates of Regional Strategies deforestation than forests otherwise managed Offer a Joint Tourist Visa. (Medium term) A while also providing economic advantages to joint tourist visa through ECCAS could enable the communities who own them.83 That said, visitors to more easily traverse the borders of community forestry is not a cure-all,x and it the WCB countries without having to apply for requires sound management and regulation, individual visas, thus facilitating keeping tour- gradual experimentation, extensive capacity ists in the region. For example, the East Africa building, and time to work. Tourist Visa enables multiple entries between Community forestry should include, if possi- Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda for up to 90 days. A ble, community-based wildlife management. start was made in the WCB through the sig- This report treats this issue separately owing nature of a tourism protocol for open borders to the technical challenges involved (section between Cameroon, the CAR, and the ROC in the 5.a.iii); however, the two resources should be Sangha Trinational. thought of in one comprehensive CBNRM Strengthen Transboundary Protected Areas. framework that diversifies income streams. (Medium/long term) Promising transbound- Community forest management has two ary protected areas already exist and/or are main goals: improved forest conditions and being developed in the TRIDOM and Sangha improved livelihoods for local communities. It Trinational. Such approaches, which espouse a has been promoted to varying degrees in Cam- landscape approach to conservation, can ease eroon, the Republic of Congo, Gabon, and the the flow of visitors across borders, encourage Central African Republic. In the current context, tourists to spend more time in the region, and which is dominated by the discourse of diversi- improve protected area management through fication of national economies with the aim of joint and transboundary patrolling, the harmo- reviving growth and fighting poverty and un- nization of management protocols, and broader employment, community forest management regional collaboration and integration. is a potential option. Following a review of the Exchange Knowledge. (Medium/long term) A policy orientations that have hitherto governed mechanism for the WCB countries to come to- the development of this approach, a situational gether could provide a forum to network, open analysis will be drawn up to identify progress a dialogue, share knowledge on best practice in made and lessons learned. Recommendations wildlife tourism, and initiate efforts to create a will be made based on these experiences and community of practice. new opportunities. ii. Community-Based Forest Current Policies in the WCB Management Community forest management is one of the innovations introduced as part of forest The geographical remoteness of many of sector reforms in the 1990s. In Cameroon, the the poaching hot spots in the WCB imposes limitations on the economic sectors that can x  See, for example, Rasolofoson et al. (2015). Before it’s too late 57 government was committed to one of the four fits arising from protected areas. xii This regime orientations of the new forest policy—namely, corresponds to the land management contracts to improve the integration of forest resources promoted in Gabon or to the eco-development into rural development to contribute to raising zones set up in the peripheries of protected the standard of living of the population and areas. to engage it in the conservation of resources. Through this orientation, the government A third approach comprises the joint manage- wanted not only to reduce poverty in forest ment of agroforestry areas included in forest communities but also to make these responsi- concessions. It is implemented through com- ble for forest management. All the other coun- munity development blocks (SDCs) in the ROC, tries of the subregion share this orientation, as population use blocks in Gabon, agricultural set out in the sector policy letter in Gabon and and human occupation blocks and reserved us- the forest codes in the ROC and the CAR.84 The age blocks in the CAR, and community hunting policy has been adapted to different participa- zones (zones d’intérêt cynégétiques à gestion tory forestry regimes. xi communautaire; ZICGCs) in southeastern Cam- eroon. xiii This regime is part of the social com- The rollout of community forestry has var- ponent of forest concession management plans. ied between WCB countries. Full transfer of Dialogue between local communities and forest responsibility for management through the concessionaires is facilitated by multi-stake- status of “community forests” was first intro- holder platforms and specific bodies such as duced in Cameroon in 1994, then in Gabon in farmer-forest committees (CPFs), xiv which par- 2001.85 The first attributions took place in 1997 ticipate in the development, implementation, and 2013, respectively. Fifteen years later, nearly and monitoring of the management plan.89 In 300 community forests have been attributed in most cases, it is intended to support community Cameroon, covering almost 2 million hectares, projects, including those related to communi- or about 7 percent of the forest area.86 In Gabon, ty-based natural resource management, with 51 community forests have been attributed over the resources provided by the mechanisms four years, covering 242,192 hectares, or about 1 for the retrocession of revenues derived from percent of the total forest area.87 In the CAR, Law industrial logging. xv In the ROC, a local develop- no. 08-022 of October 17, 2008, provides for the ment fund is set up for each forest concession. creation of community forests. However, the It is maintained by a fee of CFAF 200 per cubic decree setting out the procedures for attribut- meter levied on the volume of timber extracted ing and managing community forests was only and is used to finance microprojects of commu- signed at the end of 2015. In the ROC, no provi- nity-wide benefit. In Gabon, the site where the sion has been made yet to promote community timber exploitation takes place serves as a basis forests, although work is under way to integrate for sharing out the fee, which is allocated to the the concept into the new forest code. financing of projects of collective interest iden- tified by the village communities concerned. A second approach concerns the comanage- ment of the peripheries of protected areas with a view to integrating the concerns of local populations and ensuring their partici- xii  See, for example, Gabon’s Law no. 003/2007 of August pation in benefit sharing.88 Since buffer zones 27, 2007, on national parks. and peripheral areas are considered comple- xiii  Unlike in southeastern Cameroon, where ZICGCs over- mentary to protected areas, the activities car- lap with logging concessions, in the CAR, village hunting areas have been created in the northern savanna. The prin- ried out in such areas can have a direct impact ciple was based on the hiring out by a group of villages of on conservation efforts, and vice versa. Legisla- its hunting area to a hunting company and on the recovery tion therefore provides for greater consultation of the meat from the hunted game. and, in some cases, the signing of contracts xiv  The missions assigned to CPFs are described in Decision between stakeholders to prevent conflict and no. 1354/D/MINEF/CAB of November 26, 1999 (Cameroon). ensure the equitable distribution of the bene- xv  This is a significant financing opportunity for the community management of forest resources. In Camer- oon, about CFAF 40.5 billion was allocated to the riparian xi  Gilmour (2016) distinguishes between a range of five populations of the forests subjected to exploitation under generic types of participatory forestry regimes classified the retrocession of 10 percent of the annual forestry fee according to the rights enjoyed by stakeholders. between 2000 and 2006 (Bigombe Logo 2010). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 58 The Effectiveness of Community Forest a management plan tied to the management Management: Mixed Results plan of the forest concession. If SDCs are not developed in an inclusive manner, the prescrip- The effectiveness of community forest man- tive logic that dominates the development of agement is a recurring concern, and has management plans runs the risk of reducing delivered mixed results to date. While some the participation and inclusion of customary question the outcomes in terms of assets (natu- rights to a simple formality.97 This in turn will ral, social, and economic), others are concerned mean that the implementation of these man- about possible abuses of a transfer of respon- agement plans will fail to include the contractu- sibility for managing forest resources to local al bases that engage all parties.98 This situation communities. may open the way to abuse.99 As part of a World Bank–funded project, the government has been Despite the number of community forests at- supporting the development of participatory tributed and the efforts made so far in Camer- plans in several concessions. oon, the record is mixed. Although significant advances have been made, especially at the The community management of forest re- institutional level, there is still a long way to sources is not yet reaching its full potential. go despite some successful experiences.90 Local Conditions are not yet in place to allow the vari- communities are slow to become actors in their ous regimes described above to bring about the own development, and the economic rewards anticipated changes. These include a supportive are limited.91 In addition to the classic gover- regulatory framework, adequate management nance issues, the productivity of the forests and mechanisms, and strong local governance. the technical, organizational, and entrepreneur- ial capacities of local communities are called First, the regulatory framework is not suf- into question.92 In Gabon, the NGO Conservation ficiently developed. In Gabon, for example, Justice (2018) reports that “simple management texts regulating the implementation of simple plans are not respected; extraction continues at community forest management plans are not full speed, without a minimum of development. available. In addition, the methods for manag- Some community forests today are simply a ing the SDCs in the forest concessions have not means of laundering illegal timber.” These irreg- been defined. The same is true for the man- ularities led to the temporary suspension of the agement contracts concerning lands on the attribution of community forests.93 peripheries of protected areas, which remain at the experimental stage.100 In addition to these In addition, the impact of the joint manage- shortcomings, the rights and responsibilities ment of peripheral areas on the livelihoods of transferred to local communities are often not local communities is limited. This is partially clarified. Usage rights (Cameroon and the ROC) due to the weak performance of institutions in and customary usage rights (Gabon and the the comanagement of protected areas owing CAR) represent the legal basis for the engage- to conflicts of interest.94 The land management ment of local communities. In other words, the contracts promoted in Gabon are at the exper- state only transfers usufruct rights to local com- imental stage. The rights and responsibilities munities. There is a strong correlation between transferred through the comanagement of securing forest tenure and the effectiveness of eco-development zones in the peripheries of participatory forestry: In situations of rights protected areas are not always clear. Communi- insecurity, local users exploit resources in an ty ecotourism is still struggling to play the role unsustainable way.101 ascribed to it.95 Despite the positive results seen during the experimental phase, from 1992 to Second, management mechanisms are in- 2001, tourism in the Lossi Gorilla Sanctuary in adequate. In the ROC and the CAR, there is no the ROC continues to stagnate.96 forestry administration service specifically dedi- cated to community forestry. In Cameroon and The joint management of community devel- Gabon, where participatory forestry falls under opment blocks in forest concessions is not yet the remit of a subdirectorate or a directorate of fully operational. In the Republic of Congo, 14 community forests, the human and material re- SDCs covering a total of 661,289 hectares have sources are insufficient. In addition, the admin- been demarcated. Each one must put in place istrative environment still acts as a disincentive. Before it’s too late 59 For example, in one instance, sellers needed their capacity to exercise these rights and fulfill to navigate 22 roadblocks and checkpoints to their responsibilities with regard to sustainable sell Gnetum leaves in urban or cross-border management. markets.102 In such circumstances, smallholders and communities bypass official channels, as A four-dimensional approach serves to guide was observed in Nepal, where smallholders government support: have to fulfill at least 14 procedures before they 1) Multipurpose management of commu- are granted permission to cut down trees and nity management units. This approach transport timber from their lands.103 In addition, is an alternative to the current model of the procedures for the secure attribution of a community forests, which gives priority to community forest are beyond the reach of local timber harvesting.107 In practice, inspiration communities.104 can be drawn from the concept of “forest Third, the combined effect of these two short- landscapes,”108 adapting it to the scale of comings also affects the performance of insti- the community management unit. Thus, tutions devoted to community forest manage- simple management plans will have to take ment. To this must be added methodological into account different landscape options aspects, in particular the fact that, due to time concerning both forestry and agriculture. constraints, support mechanisms often favor However, it will be opportune to enrich a set of institutional innovations with a pre- this approach with entrepreneurial capaci- conceived design. As a result, these institutions ty-building approaches, such as community invest little effort in capacity building among forestry entrepreneurship as well as market stakeholders to enable them to develop new analysis and development.109 institutional arrangements through dialogue. 2) Coordination of uses in areas of overlap- In general, the performance of community ping rights. In Gabon, the future of com- management institutions is only positive when munity forestry is uncertain because of the these institutions derive their legitimacy from unavailability of space; almost all the land preexisting institutions. In Nepal, for example, is occupied by forestry concessions, mining community forestry is not tied to local politi- concessions, or national parks.110 In Camer- cal and administrative boundaries but aligns oon, CED et al. (2017) cite the maximum size with the boundaries delineated by indigenous of community forests as barriers to their institutions. This system has demonstrated its effectiveness. Recourse to other manage- strength, resilience, and durability throughout ment schemes distinct from current forest a period of political and social upheaval, includ- management models based on the special- ing revolutions and a decade-long civil war.105 ization of spaces is proving increasingly These findings are likely to cast doubt on the necessary. The Concessions 2.0 concept, an effectiveness of participatory approaches alternative to the traditional concession and reduce the discourse of participation to a model that only allows for the exploitation mere formality. In the current context, which of timber in forestry concessions,111 is part of is dominated by the discourse of diversification this perspective. of national economies, it is necessary to explore 3) This process involves a gradual devolution moving toward a second-generation approach to of rights through a multitiered approach. community management of forest resources.106 It would not only gradually consolidate local governance institutions but also provide a Lessons Learned and Recommendations solid technical foundation for the sustain- able management of forest resources. The Second-generation community manage- transition from one tier to another would be ment initiatives can only achieve their goals subject to the performance of community if the conditions described above are met. management institutions. Each tier would A far-reaching reform is therefore needed to correspond to a level of devolution of rights broaden the legal base for local community en- and responsibilities to local communities gagement. The aim is to go beyond usage rights and thus to a particular participatory forest- by recognizing the rights of local communities ry regime. This phased approach has already over forest lands and resources, and building Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 60 been used successfully in the development Current Experiences and Policies in the of community forestry in Gambia.112 WCB 4) Improved control by the state: Devolution The concept of a “community hunting terri- of rights must be accompanied by improved tory” emerged in Cameroon in the 1990s to state control to enable communities to fully promote community-based wildlife manage- exercise their rights. Since communities do ment. It is similar to the concept of community not have the right to impose sanctions on forests. Moreover, both concepts are governed illegal users of their resources, they must by the same legislation and have many simi- have recourse to police support, a course of larities since they both refer to nonpermanent action that must be mandated and provided areas demarcated in forestlands with a max- for by the state. In addition, when man- imum size of 5,000 hectares. However, the dates are granted to third-party operators, concept was quickly shown to be difficult to community forestry can easily be abused implement.113 At the same time, the concept by semi-industrial loggers, who in effect of ZICGCs has been developed in southeastern serve as a timber laundering mechanism. Cameroon and the CAR for trophy hunting The state therefore must be able to prevent (sport hunting and community-based tourism such abuses as well as control communi- in areas under community management are ty activities. Given the limitations to the discussed in Box 5 and section 5.a.i, respective- capacities of states in the subregion, part- ly). Despite the failure of community hunting nerships with NGOs could be considered territories, community-based wildlife manage- to address this challenge. Lessons could be ment remains a preferred option for Central drawn from cooperative models such as the African countries. In the Republic of Congo, Law Independent FLEGT Observers, the Monitor- 37/2008 on fauna and protected areas recogniz- ing and Anti-Poaching Units in some forest es the right of local communities to contribute concessions in the Republic of Congo, or the to the management of wildlife and offers the cooperation maintained with governments possibility of transferring to local communities by the EAGLE (Eco Activists for Governance organized into associations the rights to man- and Law Enforcement) Network to support age a community hunting area or a hunting anti-poaching efforts. Funding for such territory under a management contract. In the support should be secured, and the possi- CAR, the new law on wildlife management and bility should be evaluated of dedicating tax protected areas provides for the establishment resources to community forestry schemes of community wildlife areas, village hunting ar- to avoid excessive reliance on external eas, and community hunting areas. Meanwhile, funds. Alternatively, the responsibility for Gabon is also moving toward the establishment issuing permits could be devolved to local of community hunting areas through its draft committees, although state supervision new forest code. would remain essential. Following other initiatives,xvi it is opportune to continue thinking about better-adapted iii. Community-Based Wildlife models of community wildlife management. Management The recent Conferences of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Wildlife offers an important source of protein subregional strategy for the sustainable use of and income to rural communities through the wildlife by local and indigenous communities bushmeat trade. It is unlikely that the appetite in Central African countries implicitly set out for bushmeat can be displaced. As a result, an- the outline of these models, which are focused swers are needed for the sustainable manage- on a rights-based approach).xvii In other words, ment of that trade. Similar to community forest management, community-based wildlife man- agement offers, in theory, an income stream xvi  For example, the Global Environment Facility project to rural communities. In the same way, it also “Sustainable Wildlife Management and the Bushmeat needs to be carefully managed if it is to succeed, Sector in Central Africa,” and the Sustainable Wildlife Man- and the financial viability of a management agement program funded by the European Commission. regime is a particular challenge. xvii  See the CBD’s Decision X/32, Decision XI/25, Decision XII/18, and COP Decision XIII/8; the subregional strategy Before it’s too late 61 community-based wildlife management now make policy choices explicit and to devel- refers to the establishment of rights-based op national strategic action plans, as the management systems and to the transfer of Rainforest Foundation UK (2017) has already these rights and the associated management recommended in the CAR. responsibilities to indigenous peoples and local communities (Decision XIII/8). §§ Create a favorable legal and administra- tive environment: (a) Clarify how forest The requirements for community forest- tenure rights are recognized and how they ry management (section 5.a.ii) also apply will be translated into commercial use to wildlife management. Given the specif- rights and taken into account in the stra- ic characteristics of fauna,xviii the following tegic action plans described above; and (b) observations should also be considered: The introduce tax measures favorable to entre- harvesting of bushmeat is mainly focused on preneurship and likely to stimulate the de- small and medium-size wildlife with a very velopment of inclusive growth value chains. high natural rate of reproduction and therefore able to tolerate a certain pressure from hunt- §§ As with community forestry (section ing.xix However, it is important to recognize 5.a.ii), secure the proper supervision of that this natural rate of reproduction may be local communities by state technical insufficient when demand is too high, which is services and civil society, with a clear increasingly the case given the rate of popula- division of roles. This must go beyond the tion growth and urbanization in the subregion. project approach by putting in place appro- In practice, hunting for bushmeat remains an priate long-term support mechanisms, in- economically unprofitable activity, considering cluding innovative financing mechanisms. the time spent and the risks involved.114 Hunt- §§ Given the specific characteristics of fauna, ing for bushmeat alone cannot provide enough give preference to: (a) an adaptive manage- incentive to support community-based wildlife ment of hunting with a view to periodically management. Finally, the technical demands of adjusting the harvest;116 (b) an approach drawing up sustainable hunting management allowing for a gradual devolution of rights plans are beyond the capacities of local commu- through a multi-phased approach; and (c) a nities (Nguinguiri, Boutinot, et al., 2017).115 multi-resource, multiuser approach that also offers the possibility of combining hunting Lessons Learned and Recommendations for meat with other forms of deriving value from wildlife, including sport hunting (see Second-generation community management Box 4) and community tourism at sites initiatives are driven by a rights-based ap- where animal observation is possible.xx proach. They can only be successfully imple- mented if governments take the following §§ Adopt an adaptive approach that makes it measures: possible to identify trends based on biolog- ical and socioeconomic indicators and peri- §§ Assess the financial feasibility of commu- odically adjust the hunting harvest accord- nity wildlife management. Its decentral- ing to predefined management objectives. ized nature is likely to require substantial start-up funding. §§ Integrate community wildlife manage- ment into a territorialized approach to §§ Set out a clear vision and establish goals the management of meat products. This to achieve it. There is an urgent need to approach makes it possible to secure the contribution of meat products and to adjust was adopted in 2015 by the Council of Ministers of the according to the local context the relative Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC). share of domesticated and wild meat to xviii  These are mobility as well as a lack of knowledge of the demographic and spatial dynamics of most species hunted. xx  Community management of wildlife for sport hunting xix  Depending on the area, the most resilient species are earns substantial revenue for local communities (Bigombe the blue duiker (Cephalophus monticola), the Peters’ duiker Logo, Abessolo, and Koulbout 2006; Roulet 2007) despite (C. callipygus), the bay duiker (C. dorsalis), and the bush pig the low incomes earned by hunting guides in recent years (Potamochoerus porcus) (Fargeot 2013). (Lescuyer et al. 2016). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 62 reconcile the issues of food security and in law or upheld.120 Most restrict surrounding biodiversity conservation.117 communities’ ability to access and utilize park resources.121 Since tourism is only minimally The challenge of rights-based community man- developed in the WCB, PAs do not generate agement will require joint efforts. Each country significant sustainable financial flows. This should therefore adapt its road map while tak- increases the relative attraction of participating ing into account the local context. However, this in—or aiding and abetting—poaching. list of recommendations suggests that there is a long way to go to make community-based wild- Even in the face of limited financial flows life management economically, financially, and from with WCB PAs, the creation of employ- biologically sustainable. A rigorous evaluation ment opportunities and investments in of these aspects is necessary before pursuing community development and well-being are this course of action. key strategies for neutralizing incentives to support or tolerate poachers while enhancing the PAs’ protection. As the examples below demonstrate, these strategies are most effective b. Sharing Value at achieving conservation outcomes when the benefits are perceived as contingent on the pro- tection of wildlife while creating a new social i. Protected Area Benefit norm against poaching. Sharing Increasing Local Revenue Streams in PAs Benefit sharing, in the context of PAs, is “the process of making informed and fair trade- through Comanagement Structures offs between social, economic, and ecological In the WCB and throughout much of Africa, costs and benefits within and between stake- development and philanthropic organizations holder groups, and between stakeholders and provide much of the funding for PAs because of the natural environment.”118 While most PAs a lack of government resources. A study in Zam- deliver more net benefits than costs, policies are bia found that PAs supported by NGOs and/or often insufficiently adaptive or comprehensive the private sector have more successfully protect- to adequately address negative unintended ed wildlife.122 PPPs—which institutionalize the consequences that accrue to particular groups, role of service providers, most frequently NGOs, especially poor and marginalized nearby through long-term partnerships with state communities. Thus, equitable benefit-sharing wildlife authorities—are becoming increasingly approaches (1) incentivize communities to popular for managing PAs in weak governance contribute to the protected area’s continued settings.123 Where such arrangements profession- existence while benefiting from sustainable alize management, they tend to attract increased extractive uses, access, and job opportunities; donor and private sector investments, ultimately (2) offset unavoidable costs to particular groups; increasing employment opportunities and other and (3) consider the overall well-being of differ- revenue streams. PPPs in the WCB include the ent groups and redistribute benefits to the least CAR’s Chinko National Park and Odzala-Kokoua fortunate, particularly if they have suffered past National Park in the ROC, both managed by Af- injustices.119 rican Parks, and Noubalé-Ndoki National Park in the ROC, which the WCS manages. A combination of factors means that PAs’ costs to communities—most commonly Through their ability to mobilize increased reduced forest use and access, displacement, funding, PPPs can increase local employment and human-wildlife conflict (HWC)—are and training in surveillance, enforcement, often perceived to outweigh the benefits. In and other anti-poaching activities.124 These many locales of the WCB, population growth employment opportunities can help incentivize and in-migration are putting pressure on land. protection of wildlife in the short term while Simultaneously, rights related to indigenous safeguarding PAs’ future tourism potential, or customary land ownership, land use, or which can provide greater benefit flows in the stakeholder consultation and participation in long term. PA planning are not systematically enshrined Before it’s too late 63 Example Example Providing Wildlife-Based Employment Public-Private Partnerships to Facilitate in Tanzania. Local employment is already Revenue Sharing in Rwanda. An advan- a policy of conservation managers in tage of PPPs is their ability to innovate the WCB. Results for conservation can be revenue sharing models that can incorpo- impressive: Tanzania’s Ruvuma Elephant rate the community, conservation manag- Project trains community guards who ers, the state, and private sector operators. conduct patrols and gather intelligence In Rwanda, the community provided land in coordination with wildlife officials. for the construction of Sabyinyo Silverback The project rewards guards for positive Lodge near Volcanoes National Park. The job performance and other community lodge is owned by a community trust but members for providing information to managed by a private service provider. assist anti-poaching operations as part The community trust receives rental and of an informer network.a Throughout the community fees from the company, and it corridor between Tanzania’s Selous Game invests the money in basic infrastructure Reserve and Mozambique’s Niassa Nation- such as roads, rural electrification and al Reserve, both of which struggle with rainwater harvesting, as well as in the fur- poaching, Ruvuma has achieved among ther development of local tourism-based the most impressive reductions in poach- enterprises. This type of venture of course ing in Africa: The number of elephant requires an enabling business environ- carcasses detected declined sevenfold in ment (see sections 5.a.i and 5.c). the first three years of the project, and ele- phant populations remained stable. Community Conservancies to Facilitate Revenue Sharing in Kenya. In Kenya, the The Friedkin Conservation Fund, which Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) operates operates within several wildlife and game 33 community land conservancies on legal- reserves in the north and west of Tanzania, ly or traditionally recognized community has achieved similarly impressive results land. They are strategically located near using comparable techniques. It employs PAs and wildlife corridors to create land- 120 anti-poaching staff using aerial patrols, scape-level conservation impacts while rapid response teams, and community en- engaging in other sustainable land uses. gagement. Their efforts have led to nearly NRT conservancies focus primarily on pro- 2,000 arrests and prosecutions annually.b tecting wildlife and their savanna habitat by aligning development and conservation a. Lotter and Clark (2014). incentives of the seminomadic pastoralists b. Roe (2015). that make up most of the conservancies.a Even as poaching and land conflicts have dramatically increased, 60 percent of conservancies reported stable or increased sightings of elephants in 2016 as compared to 2015. Moreover, 92 percent of conservan- Example cy members feel safe in their communities, Even within the context of a major civil 83 percent think wildlife is important to conflict, the work of the Mali Elephant their future, and 77 percent believe that the Project reduced poaching in Mali even conservancies increase their well-being.b while it increased elsewhere in the coun- try. The project employed community a. Pellis, Lamers, and van der Duim (2015). members as guards and informants and b. NRT (2016). paid them in food.a a. Roe et al. (2017). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 64 Where the creation of significant revenue streams, such as from tourism development, is Example challenging or impossible, another model is to Livelihood Support in Exchange for create a trust fund for the community instead Abandoning Poaching in Zambia. In the of investing in costly tourism infrastructure Luangwa Valley, where three national with limited returns. The trust fund, with a parks contain rich wildlife and are popular onetime capital injection, could generate stable tourist attractions, Community Markets returns for the community in perpetuity, and for Conservation (COMACO) operates as an could be less vulnerable to shocks than tourism, agricultural extension organization that the demand for which can be fickle, especially trains farmers in certified sustainable agri- in the WCB. Such a trust fund could serve to cultural practices. It also targets identified pay wages related to conservation, and/or pay poachers with training in alternative in- for the opportunity cost of forgoing extractive come sources such as carpentry, beekeep- activities in a protected area, linking rewards to ing, and anti-poaching surveillance. Poach- collective community adoption of conservation ers are required to turn in their weapons actions.125 to participate in the program, with over 80,000 snares and 2,400 guns surren- Providing Individual or Community dered.a COMACO generates most of its Benefits Linked to PAs revenue by accessing high-value domestic and international natural food markets for Integrated conservation and development rice, honey, peanuts, and soybeans under projects (ICDPs) reflect a recognition that PAs its It’s Wild retail brand. The effect of this are more likely to achieve their conservation program on poaching appears encourag- goals if they explicitly address the needs and ing: One study reports that only 5 percent livelihoods of local communities.126 Research- of program participants returned to poach- ers have termed such projects “distractions” ing, and recent aerial surveys in Zambia because they are premised on community have found that elephant populations in members being sufficiently compelled by an in- the Luangwa Valley (and one other region) centive unrelated to poaching rather than being are either stable or increasing, while they directly disincentivized from poaching through, are declining in two control regions.b for example, payments to refrain from poach- ing, or the visible presence of PA patrols.127 However, scant evidence of the pro- gram’s conservation impact is presented Although ICDPs have been criticized for not in peer-reviewed articles.c Moreover, the addressing the root causes of environmental fact that the program created a sufficient and development challenges, in one study 63 incentive for 95 percent of former poach- percent of managers and other leaders sur- ers is consistent with poachers’ reports veyed from 87 ICDPs in 33 Sub-Saharan African that they generally only receive a very countries (including 7 ICDPs from WCB coun- small proportion of the final sale price for tries) reported positive overall outcomes.128 poached ivory.d If poachers were paid high- Whether such development projects can con- er prices—even 10 percent of the final sale tribute to anti-poaching objectives, however, is price reported elsewhere—such programs dependent upon community members adjacent would be less likely to succeed.e The high to PAs believing that funding for these projects margins on illegal wildlife products would is contingent upon successful anti-poaching make it easy for payments to poachers to efforts, and that these projects generate enough increase. value to key individuals to outweigh the bene- fits from poaching. a. SupplyShift (2017). b. Joseph (2015); Great Elephant Census (2016). c. S. Pagiola, personal communication to the author, January 25, 2018. d. Joseph (2015). e. UNODC (2016). Before it’s too late 65 Lessons Learned and Recommendations Example For governments: Providing Fixed versus Perfor- mance-Based Community Benefits. In 1. Create protected area management Uganda, an ICDP implemented adjacent to frameworks free of political interference: Kibale National Park targets communities The success of benefit-sharing approaches instead of individual poachers: A health depends on PA managers having opera- center was constructed on the border of tional control (for example, in the context the park to serve local people, which might of PPPs for park management), transparent be jeopardized if poaching and illegal log- systems, freedom from political interfer- ging continued unabated.a However, this ence, and communities’ ability to efficiently model does not provide a credible threat manage funds for productive purposes. that the benefit would be removed in case of continued poaching, weakening the 2. Explore multiple funding streams: While incentive to support anti-poaching efforts.b tourism is being developed in the medium and long term, funding from state, philan- This issue arose as part of Tanzania’s Ru- thropic, or development agencies will be aha Carnivore Project (RCP), where health needed to create revenue flows, to incentiv- care, education, and livestock-related ize conservation behavior in communities incentives were found to be insufficiently whose support is critical to conservation. tied to poaching outcomes to disincen- Another possible source of funding source tivize hunters. In response, the RCP began are offset schemes for economic sectors training and employing villagers to set with strong residual impacts on biodiversi- camera traps as part of the organiza- ty, such as mining or hydrocarbon develop- tion’s wildlife monitoring efforts. The RCP ment. rewards villages based on the wildlife captured by their camera trap with the For protected area managers: same set of incentives used previously, but 3. Emphasize cost reduction and benefit cre- with clearer linkages to wildlife presence. ation: Given the currently minimal protect- This program has been highly effective: ed area revenues in the WCB, benefit-shar- Whereas communities used to reward lion ing schemes should emphasize reducing hunters with cattle, some communities costs to surrounding communities at least now ban hunting for lions and elephants as much as increasing benefits. and fine hunters if caught.c 4. Make benefit flows contingent upon a. Chapman et al. (2014). performance: Ideally, both individual and b. S. Pagiola, personal communication to the community-based benefit flows should be author, January 25, 2018. contingent on performance, such as partic- c. “Community Camera-Trapping,” Ruaha ipants refraining from poaching, in spite Carnivore Project, accessed January 2018, http:// of the difficulty of implementing, monitor- www.ruahacarnivoreproject.com. ing, and enforcing such an approach. Even without this conditionality, “distraction” strategies may foster greater openness to more targeted anti-poaching efforts, so they should not be ruled out.129 They need to ensure, however, that communities understand their availability is tied to PAs maintaining their assets. Conditionality also needs to be factored into the overall benefit-sharing approach for a PA, where it seeks to compensate communities for lost revenues or persistent damage from HWC. Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 66 5. Target efforts: To be cost-effective, “dis- features such as the minimum payment level traction” efforts should not only be imple- needed to deter poaching, whether to target mented in the highest priority communities entire communities or a subset of individuals, (near poaching hot spots with local commu- whether payments should go to individuals or nity involvement in poaching), but also tar- a community fund, and how to avoid elite cap- get key individuals who may be poachers, ture; minimize transaction costs; and identify a as in the COMACO case, or key influencers sustainable source of financing.131 who can create new social norms against poaching. This approach requires a needs However, the focus of this analysis is on assessment and in-depth survey of the bot- targets other than poachers because of the tom of the IWT supply chain to determine if challenges inherent in creating a PES scheme a sufficient incentive (compared to poach- with this group. Such challenges include (a) the ing) can be created, particularly where en- difficulty of identifying probable poachers given forcement capacity is low. The assessment the illegal nature of poaching; (b) the unrealisti- would also need to match individuals with cally high payment amount required to cover all the right “distracting” activities and, where potential poachers; and (c) the near impossibil- income-generating activities are promoted, ity of guaranteeing that poachers refrain from sound value chain analyses to enable their poaching in the future, as poachers have been success. documented returning to poaching after being caught, fined, and/or imprisoned.132 ii. Payments for Environmental Most PES schemes incentivize individuals to Services make environmentally beneficial decisions. However, as these featured strategies of using Payments for ecosystem services (PES) refers PES to reduce poaching demonstrate, where to the creation of markets for environmental there are community-level institutions with services such as clean water, clean air, carbon effective participatory decision-making sequestration, and biodiversity, which are processes, PES schemes can be implemented often undervalued in traditional markets at the community level as well. This approach due their role as positive externalities. PES can unlock social norms that pressure individu- internalize that externality by compensating als to conform and/or invest greater effort than individuals or communities for their ability to under an individually focused scheme. A subset produce an environmental benefit or to refrain of these schemes is structured as competitions from causing environmental damage. When between communities, such as that used by the well designed and applied to specific contexts— Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust since 2003 such as water quality payments from down- to incentivize communities in Menabe, Mada- stream to upstream users, forest carbon, and gascar, to manage their forests for biodiversity the protection of endangered species—PES have and sustainable benefits rather than agricul- the potential to deliver cost-effective outcomes ture.133 The payments of community-based that may not be achievable otherwise.130 schemes can still be distributed to individuals, which may address issues of elite capture and PES may reduce poaching within a target encourage greater buy-in, although the funds population by creating a financial incentive are less likely to contribute to community-wide to either refrain from poaching or contrib- needs. ute to anti-poaching efforts. To be successful, these schemes must select metrics that can realistically be monitored, accurately reflect the objective, and account for drivers of outcomes unrelated to program participants’ behavior (for example, an influx of poachers from other communities); manage expectations among the target community that it will be paid indefinite- ly to conserve wildlife, and among neighboring communities on whether they will receive a PES scheme as well; address critical design Before it’s too late 67 Example Example Conservation Easements in Tanzania. The Payments for Conservation Outcomes in mainly Maasai pastoralist communities in Sweden. A long-running PES scheme in the Simanjiro Plains surrounding Tarangire Sweden, implemented in 2002, compen- National Park have earned income from sates groups of indigenous reindeer herders tour operators since the 1990s through based on the number of wolverines born concessions that allow jeep safaris. How- within their district. Herders suffer signif- ever, road conditions in a few key nearby icant losses from wolverine predation (the communities do not permit safaris to take nomadic herds are wolverines’ primary food place during the rainy season, when wildlife source), so in 1996 a compensation scheme is abundant. Lacking incentives to conserve was set up, in part to discourage hunters wildlife and its habitat, these communities from illegally killing wolverines. However, were permitting poaching to take place the PES scheme replaced the compensation while considering converting the plains used scheme because the latter created perverse for grazing livestock to agriculture. In 2005, incentives against minimizing predation (if local tour operators, a community develop- herders know their losses will be compen- ment organization, and the WCS funded and sated anyway) and did not offer a strong implemented a PES scheme to incentivize enough incentive for wolverine protection. one of the communities, Terat, to conserve Long-term monitoring results demonstrate wildlife and its habitat. The scheme has that because monitoring officers had to be paid the community $4,500 per year, used to stationed near denning sites, adult females construct two schools, and employs several had a significantly lower risk of being killed anti-poaching scouts to ensure the land is than males. But because breeding females not used for agriculture or unsustainable are more important to protect than males, purposes (for example, charcoal production) the PES scheme significantly increased the and that poaching is prevented.a population growth rate.a a. Sachedina and Nelson (2010). a. Persson, Rauset, and Chapron (2015); Zabel, Bostedt, and Engel (2013). Example Payments for Community Conservation Outcomes in the Lao People’s Democrat- ic Republic. In the Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area, a pilot project has directly linked the number and type of wildlife sightings by tourists with the amount of financial benefits disbursed to communities involved in an ecotourism operation. The project targets multiple villages, providing incentives to all fam- ilies that have access to the ecotourism area where hunting is prohibited. It covers a range of species using a tiered pricing system. Preliminary results suggest that as ecotourism benefits rose, hunting infrac- tions decreased; hunting did not rise in the area but did so in national PA sectors that didn’t benefit from tourism; and wildlife sightings overall increased.a a. Eshoo et al. (2018). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 68 Lessons Learned and Recommendations grow.135 The Lao PDR example also suggests that performance payments to communi- The PES strategies presented here could be ties can work, although this depends on the effective as part of a broader community en- permeability of an area to outside poach- gagement program, particularly where social ers and the value of payments relative to cohesion is strong and organizations exist income from poaching. that can receive and distribute payments. For governments: 1. Ensure presence of sustainable funding Box 7: sources: The fact that the Maasai commu- nities lacked tourism potential and were REDD+ AS A MECHANISM TO SUPPORT sufficiently incentivized by an affordable ENHANCING THE VALUE OF WILDLIFE annual payment could be illustrative given Reducing Emissions from Deforestation the limited protected area revenue streams and Forest Degradation (REDD+), while pri- in the WCB. The challenge for PES systems marily intended as a market mechanism to remains, however, to identify dependable pay for the preservation or creation of for- funding sources. Working through con- est carbon, can be designed to support the servation trust funds is one possibility in agenda of enhancing the value of wildlife. the absence of major economic actors that This occurs primarily through its potential could pay directly for services, although to help finance the preservation of wildlife biodiversity offset and REDD+ schemes (Box habitat, which in turn is a prerequisite 7) constitute other options. for any activity that enhances the value 2. Review the regulatory framework: To of wildlife. To efficiently contribute to the implement community conservation PES wildlife agenda, REDD+ should ideally be schemes in the WCB, new arrangements integrated into land use planning (see sec- will need to be made to grant communities tion 5.c.iv) or the prioritization of REDD+ permission to carry out surveillance and en- intervention areas that account for carbon forcement activities. More broadly, interven- and wildlife and its threats as layers of tions will need to target communities that analysis.a REDD+ approaches that prioritize participate in poaching outside of protected primary forest and habitat preservation areas, or that are degrading habitat for espe- over plantations are more susceptible to cially rich wildlife populations. An approach creating the conditions for enhancing the that combines habitat protection and value of wildlife. Where forests are under anti-poaching activities could also support pressure, REDD+ can provide financing a PES scheme that blends anti-poaching for improved management of the area, in- efforts with forest carbon markets (Box 7).134 cluding in protected areas, thereby helping preserve the basis for wildlife to thrive in. For protected area managers: Such arrangements require strong bene- fit-sharing and community involvement 3. Evaluate feasibility of monitoring: A PES arrangements. Where REDD+ provides scheme for elephants in forest habitats financing for improved forest governance, would require more costly and complex synergies with the governance of wild- monitoring protocols than the Tanzania life management can be pursued. REDD+ case, and spatial targets for monitoring and can also help secure property or land use enforcement of key individuals at critical rights, which, if used for improved forest life history stages are less clear than in the management, can have positive externali- Swedish case. However, through projects ties for wildlife management as well. like Elephant Expedition, which uses citizen scientists to analyze thousands of camera a. Areas of maximum carbon and wildlife trap photographs of elephants in Gabon, or content may not always overlap, requiring through machine learning approaches, the weighing of priorities in the design of REDD+ scientific knowledge and technical capacity programs. See Potts, Kelley, and Doll (2013). needed for a PES scheme in the WCB could Before it’s too late 69 iii. Managing Human-Wildlife Organization (FAO)–led HWC Toolkit, or the KoboCollect smartphone app that collects and Conflict shares geolocational information on HWC inci- While much of this study has explored ways to dents.141 These efforts to strengthen the linkages increase the value of wild fauna, this section between stakeholder groups aim to address not explores approaches to decrease the negative only the historical disconnects between land value animals have for communities when use planning decisions and community needs human-wildlife conflict arises—which in ab- but also the stovepipes that typically operate solute terms increases the value of wildlife. between levels of government and institutions. Poor governance within WCB countries also A reduction of wildlife habitat and incursion contributes to historical grievances (both pre- of human populations into wildlife habitat and postcolonial) and distrust against wildlife has driven increases in HWC. Particularly and the conservation agenda.142 around well-enforced PAs, rebounding wildlife populations can exacerbate HWC.136 In rural Technical HWC solutions can be divided into communities, HWC most often arises when those that prevent or deter elephants from large mammals enter villages or fields looking destroying crops and those that reduce the for food, also posing a risk to humans. Within negative impact of HWC.143 Deterrence-based and surrounding the forests of the WCB, hu- solutions are largely of a technical nature man-elephant conflict represents the most and need to be adapted to the local context. important HWC.137 No general solution exists, demanding a tri- al-and-error strategy. For example, fences have In most cases, HWC results in a loss of food demonstrated some degree of success. Some and income that represents an economic cost partially enclose large PAs, while others sur- that, when combined with the corresponding round a single farmer’s crops. Low-tech and psychological and physical toll, generates neg- cost-effective solutions, particularly chili pepper ative attitudes toward wildlife. These attitudes fences, beehives, and chili oil pellets fired at can lead local communities to isolated killings elephants have been shown to be effective at or support for or tolerance of poaching.138 A reducing elephant damage to crops and overall single raid by an elephant can destroy an entire encounters.144 Some fences are electric, although year’s crop overnight, potentially calamitous they are costly to build and maintain. Gabon, for smallholder farmers. A study on a village in for instance, recently built three solar-powered India, for instance, found that it lost 11 percent electric fences at a cost of $66,000 each, but it is of its crops to elephants.139 In Kenya, elephants hoping to bring that cost down significantly to killed more than 200 people over a recent sev- erect more. Gabon’s Agence Nationale des Parcs en-year period, to which wildlife authorities re- Nationaux justifies such expenses by reporting sponded by killing 50–120 “problem elephants” that chili pepper fences and beehives have been simply to appease affected communities, even ineffective.145 though this is not believed to have reduced crop raiding.140 Solutions that reduce the negative impacts of HWC include compensation and insur- It is unreasonable to expect a complete elim- ance schemes for damage to crops, livestock, ination of HWC, especially as human popula- and infrastructure, or fatalities.146 Illustrative tions grow and expand into wildlife habitat. examples that provide lessons for the WCB Targeted policy approaches to HWC in Central context follow. Africa have more recently emphasized coordi- nation, collaboration, and information sharing through, for instance, the Food and Agriculture Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 70 Several countries, including Kenya, Zimbabwe, Example Malawi, and Botswana, have implemented Deterrence Solutions Embedded in an state-run compensation schemes to pay farm- Adaptive Community Management ers for loss of livestock due to predation from Framework in Tanzania. The Ruaha Car- carnivores. There are also examples of smaller, nivore Project was started in 2009 to help community-based schemes that compensate conserve large carnivores in Tanzania’s farmers for livestock losses with the primary Ruaha landscape. The area is inhabited by purpose of disincentivizing retaliatory or pre- Maasai and Barabaig communities who ventative killings of wildlife.148 traditionally hunt lions, as well as other pastoralists who raise livestock frequently Lessons Learned and Recommendations predated by lions. Retaliatory and preven- tative killings of lions in the area are there- The above case studies are relevant to the WCB fore common, given the negative impact despite the clear technical differences in man- that predation can have on livelihoods. The aging elephants compared to carnivores. project combines in-depth landscape-scale For governments: research on carnivore science and man- agement with an extensive community 1. Provide the right policy environment: engagement program focused on reducing Policies should incentivize adaptive, com- HWC. The RCP’s multipronged HWC strat- munity-based, cost-effective solutions by egy includes (a) providing wire fencing for providing funding for deterrence and com- livestock pens that is combined with tradi- pensation in a strategic and evidence-based tional wooden fencing, which has proven manner. Such schemes should involve over 95 percent effective at a cost of $500 requirements for community beneficiaries per enclosure; (b) employing Maasai war- to share responsibility for implementing, riors to chase away carnivores, deter other managing, and maintaining projects and warriors from killing them, and respond infrastructure investments as conditions to to livestock attacks; (c) training commu- continued funding. nity members to place camera traps and rewarding them when the traps capture 2. Support compensation schemes: Com- important target species; (d) employing pensation schemes have been shown to be response teams to collect information on effective in numerous contexts,149 and need attacks from affected households; and (e) to be designed to avoid disincentivizing funding schools and education programs deterrence measures, ensure that payments for children and adults.147 The program has are sufficient to satisfy recipients and generated strong buy-in from the commu- disbursed according to a transparent and nity by generating both tangible benefits equitable methodology, and guard against from coexistence with predators and ben- counterfeit claims.150 Such programs do risk efits from learning new skills and working budget overruns when higher-than-pro- with community members to achieve jected levels of HWC occur, and have high collective outcomes.a transaction costs, so sustainable financing sources are required and expectations need a. Dickman (2015); “RCP Overview,” Ruaha to be managed. Some insurance schemes Carnivore Project, accessed January 2018, www. already exist in the WCB, though indications ruahacarnivoreproject.com. are their functioning can still be improved: A recent survey of residents living in the TRIDOM landscape found that 28 percent of respondents who experienced crop loss due to elephants and applied for government compensation had received it.151 3. Conduct land use planning: Effective, long- term HWC can be substantially facilitat- Before it’s too late 71 ed by planning land use for both human for livestock) were too indirectly related to use and conservation (see section 5.c.iv). protecting wildlife to deter further hunting. Strengthening land tenure and establishing Such insights only emerge through deep community forests, which facilitate the community engagement and are critical to creation of alternative income sources and long-term success. incentives for communities to tolerate and protect wildlife, are also key complementa- 5. Facilitate the creation of insurance ry policy instruments (see section 5.a.ii). schemes: Insurance schemes provide an- other mechanism for community members For protected area managers: to become invested in the outcome, even if most of the cost of insurance payouts is 4. Combine multiple wildlife deterrence subsidized. The success of the Project Snow approaches in adaptive, community-based Leopard scheme, for example, depends on processes: This, combined with an iterative participating herders having enough money process, allows for the understanding of the to pay into the insurance scheme, which problem (and the problem itself) to evolve. may not be the case in WCB communities. It also creates frameworks to monitor each In such cases, external support is required. element’s effectiveness and adapt as need- To ensure financial sustainability, such ed. In the RCP, for instance, the camera-trap- schemes require a strong monitoring frame- ping program emerged from the realization work to investigate loss claims and incentiv- that for hunters, existing community ben- ize effective deterrence methods. efits (for example, free veterinary medicine Example Example Compensation for Wildlife Damages in Community Insurance against Wildlife Kenya. One of the better-documented, Damages in Pakistan. In the Balistan re- effective compensation schemes is the gion of the Pakistan Himalaya, snow leop- Mbirikani Predator Compensation Fund, ards get an estimated 50 percent of their funded by Big Life Foundation, which food from domestic livestock. This creates compensates Maasai warriors for livestock significant animosity toward the snow killed. The scheme combines a baseline leopard, fueling retaliatory killings. Project payment based on livestock lost, penalties Snow Leopard piloted a community-based if insufficient deterrence methods (mainly insurance scheme in 1999 that farmers pay fencing) were not used, and fines and a into. It has since spread to 26 villages and temporary disqualification from compen- has been replicated in Nepal, India, China, sation payments to any community found Mongolia, and Bhutan.a Village Insur- to kill wildlife included in the scheme. The ance Committees assess damage claims scheme reduced the rate of lion killings by and incentivize villages to monitor each 95 percent from 2003 to 2014 compared other, effectively preventing cheating. Like to the 18 months preceding the scheme, most successful efforts that reduce HWC contributing to growing carnivore popu- impacts, the insurance scheme is part lations. This was accomplished at a cost of of a multifaceted strategy that includes $10 per person per year.a funding the construction of snow leopard– proof livestock corrals, village education a. Okello, Bonham, and Hill (2014). and awareness campaigns, and financial assistance to local schools. Note: Much of this text box is based on Hussain (2017). a. IUCN (2012). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 72 ii. Improving Law Enforcement c. Creating the Enabling Law enforcement—from protection to intel- Conditions for Creating ligence gathering, to investigations, to the judiciary and interagency collaboration—will and Sharing Economic need to become more effective. While the Value from Wildlife solutions this study puts forward can create the incentives for more sustainable management of The previous two sections have outlined ways wildlife resources, they will not be sufficient to in which the WCB countries can create and address the poaching crisis. Moreover, their im- share greater sustainable value from their plementation will take time. Thus, law enforce- wildlife resources. However, these approaches ment needs to be beefed up to better protect the are unlikely to succeed at scale unless several resource in the short term. underlying conditions are addressed. Imple- The analytical basis for doing so is already menting such recommendations will take time. partially available: The United Nations Office In the meantime, wildlife remains under signifi- on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has carried out cant threat. Therefore, in the short and medium assessments of the strengths and weaknesses terms, several broader governance reforms are of law enforcement with respect to the IWT in necessary to ensure that the countries retain Gabon and the Republic of Congo using the In- the possibility to build viable economic activ- ternational Consortium on Combating Wildlife ities based on their wildlife. Failing to do so Crime (ICCWC) Toolkit.152 Similar assessments presents the risk that the asset will quite simply would be useful in Cameroon and the Central disappear. African Republic as well. On this basis, and tak- ing into account the experience of the numer- i. Demonstrating Political Will ous government partners working on wildlife law enforcement, systematic interventions to Perhaps most crucially, governments need reinforce the effectiveness of law enforcement to display the political will to root out cor- can be designed. Resulting law enforcement ruption and fraud that participate in and aid strategies should especially target the kingpins and abet the IWT. There are strong indications of the IWT, and the objective should not be to that government officials, including from the target low-level poachers who are trying to military and security services, are directly and ensure the survival of their families. indirectly involved in the IWT in most of the WCB countries. Without concrete signals from In the short and medium term, both at the the highest political levels that such practices national and regional levels, scaled-up inno- will no longer be tolerated, it will not be possi- vative partnerships could increase the effec- ble to stem the tide of the IWT. tiveness of law enforcement and strengthen capacity. Successful examples already exist in Recent arrests in Cameroon, Gabon, and the the WCB, such as the ones with the EAGLE NGO Republic of Congo are encouraging signs that network of wildlife law enforcement organi- organized elements involved in the IWT are zations, and with organizations such as WWF not beyond the reach of the law. These kinds and the WCS in and around national parks and of instances will need to be multiplied to make forest concessions. Such partnerships could a significant dent in the IWT, and swift action is draw on existing experience, and would benefit required to decelerate the large scale of poach- from some reforms. For example, fully devolv- ing. ing wildlife management in forest concessions Moreover, for the most part, government to NGOs under the supervision of national au- budgets for conservation have been almost thorities could increase effectiveness. Partner- entirely outsourced to international partners. ships with EAGLE could be leveraged to pursue This has inevitably reduced the effectiveness of high-level targets if their institutional arrange- the state as a conservation actor. If states wish ments went beyond the ministries in charge of to protect their wildlife resources for future wildlife management. economic development, they will need to better fund its protection. Before it’s too late 73 iii. Reform and Capacity Building across social, economic, and environmental objectives. Building alliances and enforcing rules to implement the collaborative approaches sug- Land use planning is a tool to mitigate natu- gested in this study within complex political ral resource management challenges while economies requires strong institutions. Local also developing a more coherent vision for communities and indigenous peoples, NGOs, the future. Local communities currently lack the private sector, local and national adminis- incentives to value wildlife as well as access to trations, and in some cases regional cooperation reliable income streams. Inclusive planning can bodies have a role to play. The administrations create the policy dialogue necessary to improve that house wildlife managers in the WCB are community livelihoods by identifying current generally weak, understaffed, dominated by barriers and developing policy solutions to older staff lacking up-to-date skills, lacking in address them. For example, community-based career track wildlife managers, and/or concen- natural resource management approaches trated in headquarters. Equipment is generally and ecotourism initiatives have often suffered poor and requires updating. Organizational from a lack of accessible markets and reliable reform is therefore critical to create the capacity infrastructure. A multisectoral planning ap- required to adequately manage wildlife assets. proach can identify priority areas for these Beyond tackling these issues, it will also be nec- activities while also planning for infrastructure essary to improve policy coordination between needs such as roads and power lines. It can also government agencies in charge of forests, envi- define options for communities to secure land ronment, tourism, justice, policing, security, and tenure and therefore stimulate longer-term customs, among others. investment in resource management. Examples include identifying zones for development of The present lack of long-term funding ca- ecotourism, CBNRM areas, or hunting reserves. pable of supporting activities is a serious Finally, land use planning can reduce HWC impediment in light of the long-term nature by shifting development priorities away from of the conservation undertaking. Where the critical habitat. public sector is unable to do so by itself, inno- vative models—such as PPPs for protected area Land use planning—at scales ranging from management and other forms of intensive the local to the national—is a potentially comanagement, or the creation of conservation powerful framework for connecting commu- trust funds—are needed to generate value from nities to incentives for wildlife management. protected areas, crowd in private and public To be effective, these processes require political investment, and thereby increase their financial will, a robust multi-stakeholder process, and sustainability. The ongoing Global Environment investment in strengthening enabling condi- Facility (GEF)–funded project “Partnerships for tions. Land use planning should therefore be Biodiversity Conservation: Sustainable Financ- informed by high-quality information on rural ing of Protected Area Systems in the Congo land use patterns, economic potential for pro- Basin” intends to lay some of the groundwork to posed land uses, and analysis of trade-offs and address this challenge. opportunities of proposed interventions. It is equally critical that these processes be inclusive and nested across geographic scales to ensure iv. Land Use Planning that there is sufficient buy-in from rightshold- For the above solutions to succeed, it is critical ers and economic actors across scales. Finally, that they are integrated into a broader vision decision makers should ensure that land use for land use rather than remaining small- planning initiatives not only set out a vision for scale or project-led interventions. Camer- land use but also create incentives and infra- oon, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo are all structure necessary to enable communities to implementing land use planning processes that derive greater benefits from natural resources, can provide a framework for supporting viable including wildlife. models of community development that incor- porate wildlife management and conservation as part of a broader effort to balance trade-offs Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 74 Before it’s too late 75 6. Conclusion: A Course for Deriving Economic Value from Wildlife in the WCB In the face of critical levels of poaching and to have a vested interest in their sustain- unsustainable hunting, the WCB countries are able management, they must generate an at risk of losing wildlife that could play an economic return. The primary potential for important role in economic growth and diver- creating as-yet-unrealized economic value sification, and that do play an important role from the WCB’s wildlife assets is the strate- in local economies. Safeguarding this resource gic development of wildlife tourism. Achiev- for the benefit of both local communities and ing this goal requires a series of reforms in indigenous peoples, and national economies as the enabling environment for the private a whole, is possible. However, in addition to tra- sector to be able to bring its tools to bear, as ditional conservation approaches, governments well as strategic and targeted investments. need to embrace an integrated strategy that Developing tourism is a long-term under- involves creation of new economic opportuni- taking that demands a commensurate long- ties, benefit sharing, and improved governance. term vision and investment horizon. It also needs to recognize the idiosyncrasies of the different types of actors involved in the 2) Pursue collaborative management ap- IWT to build tailored responses, and to take into proaches for forests, protected areas, account the respective contexts of the four WCB and wildlife: Collaborative management countries. Such a strategy should be built along approaches hold the potential to improve three axes: creating new economic value, shar- the enabling conditions for economic ing economic value, and creating the enabling development, whether of wildlife or forest conditions for creating and sharing economic resources. They can involve multiple levels value. of government, local communities and in- digenous peoples, and the private sector or Creating New Economic Value nonprofit organizations, but they need to be structured to deliver value to local commu- 1) Develop the wildlife tourism sector: For nities and indigenous peoples. When such the WCB’s wildlife assets to be more highly arrangements produce sound management valued, and for communities and the state Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 76 outcomes and improved governance, they be severely hampered in the absence of can leverage additional resources, including demonstrated political will to address the private investments. On that basis, such IWT. Given the precipitous decline in wild- partnerships can also deliver increased life populations in the WCB, governments benefit and incentive flows to local com- will need to act quickly to contain commer- munities and indigenous peoples. Success cial poaching, including by signaling that requires careful thinking about ownership, the implication of state actors in the IWT tenure regimes, and participation in col- will not be tolerated. laborative management arrangements for multi-resource use, as well as the creation 6) Improve law enforcement: Political com- of collective interests and organization to mitment then needs to be translated into participate in resource management. It also improved law enforcement, with a focus requires strong capacity and oversight on on the kingpins of the IWT. The recommen- the part of both communities and the state. dations of existing analyses of law wildlife As both are currently limited in the WCB, enforcement in Gabon and the Republic of a gradual, milestone-based devolution of Congo could be implemented, and the anal- rights appears appropriate, and partner- ysis replicated in Cameroon and the Central ships for collaborative management with African Republic to generate the basis for a the nonprofit sector can strengthen these systematic overhaul of wildlife law enforce- functions. However, innovative financing is ment. needed to make these sustainable. 7) Organizational reform and capacity build- Sharing Economic Value ing: By and large, the current administra- tions are not well positioned to effectively 3) Protected area benefit sharing: Benefit exercise their control missions. To remedy sharing and PES schemes can share pro- this, rejuvenation, decentralization, capac- ceeds realized from protected areas and ity building for wildlife management, and help create local conservation constituen- equipment are starting points for organiza- cies. In the most effective cases, they are tional reform and capacity building. linked to performance in certain circum- stances in and around PAs to incentivize 8) Land use planning: Land use planning at conservation-friendly behavior. As ap- various scales can serve as a tool for con- proaches for providing incentives to local structive policy dialogue between commu- communities and indigenous peoples to nities, various levels of government, and the steward their wildlife resources are high- private sector; identify priorities; and con- ly context-dependent, the development tribute to the coherence of a conservation of new approaches requires long-term, vision. Ultimately, it can mitigate natural site-level experimentation and iterative resource use conflicts and reduce HWC. design thinking. In all realms, policy approaches would do well 4) Decrease economic damages from wildlife to integrate human and conservation needs, by managing HWC: In farming commu- build on community buy-in, create enabling nities subject to crop damage from wild- environments for sustainable wildlife-based life, preventative measures together with economic activities, and to base themselves on compensation or insurance schemes can hybrid governance systems. help reduce the negative value wildlife is Of course, the nature of the actions pursued perceived to have. will need to be tailored to each of the coun- Creating the Enabling Conditions for Creating tries concerned. However, benefits are also and Sharing Economic Value to be had from addressing several issues at a regional level through ECCAS and specialized 5) Demonstrate clear political commitment bodies such as COMIFAC, in particular given the to fight the IWT: The WCB’s wildlife re- transboundary nature of wildlife and poaching. sources cannot form a basis for economic Transboundary protected area complexes such development unless they are better pro- as TRIDOM and Sangha Trinational already tected. Any efforts to safeguard them will embody this spirit, as does COMIFAC itself. Before it’s too late 77 Further progress could be achieved by focusing on policy harmonization (for example, with respect to wildlife law enforcement), wildlife tourism development (for example, by facili- tating cross-border tourism and coordinating investments to achieve synergies, particularly in capacity building), the definition of collabo- rative management arrangements, and sharing of experiences. Land use planning also would benefit from the consideration of transbound- ary habitats and communities. For now, the WCB countries still enjoy rich wildlife assets. They have an opportunity to safeguard these assets and use them for their economic development and diversification. But the time left to do so, in the face of widespread poaching, is limited. Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 79 Appendix A: Assessing the Current State of Tourism in the WCB As one of the fastest-growing economic sectors in the world, tourism is increasingly recognized for its potential contribution to protecting a. Tourism Market Dynamics the natural and cultural heritage assets upon which it depends.1 This appendix analyzes the Between 1995 and 2014, tourist visitation to current state of tourism in the WCB countries. Africa nearly doubled.2 The direct contribution The analysis is based on a rapid assessment of of travel and tourism to the GDP in Sub-Saharan 34 key protected areas in the four countries con- Africa was $40.1 billion, and the total contribu- cerned, and a more in-depth assessment of the tion was $108 billion in 2016 (7.1 percent of GDP) economic potential of wildlife tourism in two (Table A.1). The direct and total contributions protected areas. The analysis and recommen- are forecast to increase to $67 billion and $179 dations for increasing the economic potential billion by 2027, respectively, representing 4.8 of wildlife tourism were informed by a detailed percent annual growth.3 literature review, formal and informal meet- ings, interviews, and questionnaires completed by 38 stakeholders, including hoteliers and tour operators in the private sector (15) and repre- sentatives from the public sector (8) and civil society (15). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 80 Table A.1: Value of the Overall Tourism Sector in the WCB Direct contribution of Total contribution of travel travel and tourism to GDP and tourism to GDP (US$, millions)* Share of GDP (US$, millions)* Share of GDP Country 2017 2028† 2017 2028† 2017 2028† 2017 2028† Cameroon 1,190 1,980 3.2% 4.8% 2,660 4,350 7.2% 7.1% Central African Republic 65 120 2.9% 2.8% 150 260 6.6% 6.3% Gabon 170 250 1.0% 1.0% 490 710 2.9% 2.8% Congo, Rep. 120 170 1.4% 1.5% 370 500 4.0% 4.4% Total 1,545 2,520     3,670 5,820     World 2,570,100 3,890,000 3.2% 3.6% 8,272,300 12,450,100 10.4% 11.7% Sub-Saharan Africa 70,300 70,300 2.7% 2.7% 116,900 186,800 7.1% 7.2% Source: WTTO (2017b). * All values in constant 2017 prices and 2018 exchange rates. †Projections. For the last 20 years, nature-based tourism has been one of the fastest-growing segments with- in the travel and tourism industry. Since 2004, b. Structural Barriers nature-based tourism has been estimated to be growing three times faster than the tourism to Wildlife Tourism industry as a whole.4 Nature-based tourism ac- Development counts for 20–25 percent of total international travel globally, and market demand continues to Despite tourism’s opportunities and its expect- grow.5 The annual growth rate of nature-based ed growth trajectory, a set of challenges inhibits tourism is estimated to be 5–15 percent, with wildlife tourism’s development in the WCB. its overall share of the world tourism and travel For example, travel to many protected areas is market estimated at 20–25 percent, a figure that expensive and difficult, tourism infrastructure is conservatively forecasted to grow to 35–45 needs to be improved, and protected area and percent by 2035.6 However, for Africa, the UN hospitality management expertise and capacity World Tourism Organization found that wildlife are limited. tourism represents 80 percent of total annual trip sales, with an upward trend.7 Based on an Based on a detailed literature review and input assessment of its inherent attributes (see table from key stakeholders throughout the subre- A.2) and its substantial untapped potential, gion, table A.2 summarizes the current state of wildlife tourism development in the WCB could factors influencing tourism development in the tap into these trends. WCB and the level of importance of each of the factors to tourism development. Section 5.a.i presents recommendations for improving the Definitions current state of each of the factors outlined in Inherent attributes (for example, natural table A.2. capital, seasonality, and so on) provide the basis for wildlife tourism development, but they are largely beyond the control of those seeking to undertake tourism devel- opment. Developed attributes are, however, under the control of those seeking to undertake tourism development and significantly affect the success or failure of tourism (for example, policy, infrastructure, and so on). Before it’s too late 81 Table A.2: Assessment of the Current State of Tourism in the WCB Importance to tourism development Central 1 (unimportant) to African Congo, Factors influencing tourism development 5 (very important) Cameroon Republic Gabon Rep. Product context Human resource capacity in tourism 5 Wildlife (diversity and visibility)* 5 Landscape (aesthetics and diversity) 4 Safety and security 4 International airport connectivity 4 Accommodation (quality and diversity) 4 Visa requirements 3 Food and beverage 3 Communication facilities (e.g., Internet) 2 Conservation linkages Protected area management capacity 5 Conservation-tourism linkages 5 Business environment Concession and tendering systems 5 Existing marketing and promotions (national level) 4 Existing tourism product 4 Policy environment National, regional, and local policies 4 Fiscal environment Tax incentives and fiscal support 4 Logistics Logistical context (e.g., itinerary development) 4 Access (e.g., road quality, transportation availability) 4 Regulatory environment Regulatory effectiveness and impact 3 Climate Seasonality 3 Health services Availability and quality of health services 3 Legend: Orange: negative or low, Yellow = moderate, Blue = positive or high. *The diversity of wildlife across the four countries is exceptional, but visibility is generally difficult due to the impact of poaching and the vegetation found in the region. Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 82 The net result of these various challenges is that §§ Transferring jobs and capital away from tourism infrastructure and development is cur- activities that threaten conservation values rently limited, and many of the WCB countries and toward conservation-friendly alterna- have a poor reputation in their target markets. tives §§ Promoting access to and enjoyment of natural areas, helping to foster national and international “ambassadors” for wildlife c. Poaching as a Challenge and nature to Tourism Development, §§ Increasing visitor presence, which acts as and Tourism as an a deterrent for poachers and other illegal Incentive for Conservation activities §§ Diversifying the tourism sector: wildlife Across Africa, 70 percent of tour operators stat- tourists tend to stay longer and spend more ed that poaching is negatively affecting wildlife during their vacations, put up with greater tourism.8 The tourism sector in Africa loses $25 hardship to reach a destination, and gen- million annually to elephant poaching alone.9 erally take on more risk when traveling to The overall costs for reducing poaching to a lev- “less safe” destinations.12 el that stabilizes elephant populations (that is, no decline and no growth) is estimated at $16.9 §§ Stimulating positive international aware- million total per year across 45 large, mostly ness of the countries’ rich natural heritage forested protected areas in Cameroon, the CAR, and thereby contributing to their “brand Gabon, the ROC, and the Democratic Republic of identity” Congo.10 Investing in elephant conservation in the WCB can therefore be smart economic poli- cy (analyses in other parts of Africa show rates of return comparable to those in sectors such as e. Rapid Assessment of education, agriculture, or electricity11), but this is conditional on generating sufficient returns Wildlife Tourism Potential from wildlife tourism. Many of the more than 50 protected areas in the WCB countries feature extraordi- nary biodiversity, but only a small subset d. The Benefits of Wildlife is ready for tourism. Table A.3 identifies 26 protected areas as having high or me- Tourism Development dium-high potential for tourism develop- ment, based on their inherent attributes The primary benefits that wildlife tourism can and the potential viability of tourism as bring to the WCB countries are as follows: informed by a detailed literature review §§ Generating tax revenues for government and input from key stakeholders through- out the WCB. Each protected area has the §§ Generating operating finance that can inherent attributes required to become a directly sustain the effective protection and globally recognized wildlife tourism desti- management of protected areas through nation. Among these, those requiring less the payment of entry fees, lease fees, and investment in developed attributes have other tourism-related levies been assessed as having high potential, whereas those requiring more investment §§ Generating direct, indirect, and induced eco- are considered to have medium-high po- nomic benefits, including employment, for tential. surrounding communities, thereby creating conservation constituencies Before it’s too late 83 Table A.3: Potential of WCB Protected Areas for Tourism Development Cameroon Bénoué National Park High Campo Ma’an National Park High Korup National Park High Lobéké National Park High Dja Faunal Reserve High Bouba Njida National Park Medium-high Nki National Park Medium-high Waza National Park Medium-high Central African Republic Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas Complex High Mbaéré Bodingué National Park High Chinko Nature Reserve Medium-high Gabon Ivindo National Park High Loango National Park High Lopé National Park High Mayumba Marine National Park High Akanda National Park Medium-high Batéké Plateau National Park Medium-high Birougou National Park Medium-high Monts de Cristal National Park Medium-high Minkébé National Park Medium-high Moukalaba-Doudou National Park Medium-high Pongara National Park Medium-high Republic of Congo Conkouati-Douli National Park High Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park High Odzala-Kokoua National Park High The overall outlook for wildlife tourism in these protected areas in terms of inherent attributes is in principle positive in the long- term. By encouraging and regulating future tourism development and strengthening park management and administration, governments can unlock their potential (see section 5.a.i). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 84 Before it’s too late 85 Appendix B: Methodology Research for this study was carried out in three eroon, and Ouesso in the Republic of Congo (see phases: The team first held consultations with chapter 4 for details). The preliminary results more than 80 government and civil society of the study were then validated in a second representatives in Bangui, Brazzaville, Libreville, series of workshops in Brazzaville and Yaoundé, and Yaoundé. The team then carried out an and the draft report was shared with COMIFAC in-depth literature review as well as a series of for inputs. A presentation and discussion of expert interviews with numerous members of the main conclusions of the study was held in the conservation community and the tourism Douala with REPALEAC, the regional network industry (including 15 hoteliers and tour oper- for indigenous peoples and local communities, ators, 8 government staff, and 15 civil society gathering 25 participants from eight COMIFAC representatives). In addition, the team conduct- states, including the WCB countries (2–3 indige- ed focus group interviews with members of nous peoples delegates per country, REPALEAC’s communities and poachers in key poaching hot secretariat, and its technical partners). spots in the WCB: Ngoyla and Mintom in Cam- Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 86 Before it’s too late 87 Notes Chapter 1 Culot et al. (2017); McConkey et al. (2012); Van- thomme, Bellé, and Forget (2010). 1. Muller-Landau and Hardesty (2005). 16. Thouless et al. (2016). 2. Yanggen, Angu, and Tchamou (2010). Land- scape-Scale Conservation in the Congo Basin: 17. Thouless et al. (2016). Lessons Learned from the Central African 18. Haenlein, Maguire, and Somerville. (2016). Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE). 19. Maisels et al. (2013). Gland: IUCN. https://portals.iucn.org/library/ 20. Thouless et al. (2016). efiles/documents/2010-037.pdf. 21. CITES (2016). 3. Strindberg et al. (2018). 22. Bale (2017). 23. Vigne and Martin. (2017). Chapter 2 24. Do et al. (2018). 1. Wilkie and Carpenter (1999a); Nasi, Taber, and 25. Underwood, Burn, and Milliken (2013). van Vliet (2011); Abernethy et al. (2013). 26. Thouless et al. (2016). 2. Abernethy et al. (2013). 27. Olingo (2017) 3. Fa et al. (2015). 28. Nkoke et al. (2017). 4. Fa et al. (2015); Brashares et al. (2011). 29. Nkoke et al. (2017). 5. Bennett et al. (2007). 30. Wasser et al. (2015). 6. Stiles (2011). 31. Nkoke et al. (2017); Poulsen et al. (2017). 7. Nasi, Taber, and van Vliet (2011); Lindsey et al. (2015). 32. Maisels et al. (2013). 8. Abernethy et al. (2013); Fa and Brown (2009). 33. Maisels et al. (2013). 9. Nasi, Taber, and van Vliet (2011); van Vliet and 34. Campos-Arceiz and Blake (2011). Also see end- Mbazza (2011). note 15, chapter 2. 10. van Vliet and Mbaza (2011). 35. Poufoun et al. (2016). 11. Randolph and Stiles (2011). 36. Poufoun et al. (2016). 12. Nasi, Taber, and van Vliet. (2011). 37. Underwood, Burn, and Milliken (2013). 13. Randolph and Stiles (2011). 38. Nkoke et al. (2017). 14. Fa and Brown (2009). 39. LAGA (2015). 15. Abernethy et al. (2013); Effiom et al. (2013); 40. Nkoke et al. (2017). Beckman and Rogers (2013); Caughlin et al. (2015); 41. Heinrich et al. (2016); Pangolin Specialist Group (2018). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 88 42. Ingram et al. (2017). 12. Tilly (1998). 43. Heinrich et al. (2016). 44. Heinrich et al. (2016). Chapter 5 45. Ingram et al. (2017). 1. World Bank (2007). 46. Li and Jiang (2014). 2. International Tourism, Receipts (Current US$) 47. Vidal (2016); Marsden et al. (2015). data set, World Bank Open Data (database), Washington, DC (accessed 2017), https://data. 48. Laing (2016). worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD. 49. WWF (2016). 3. Wilkie and Carpenter (1999b). 50. Vidal (2016). 4. Fletcher (2018). 5. King et al. (2012). Chapter 3 6. UNWTO and UNEP (2017). 1. Batchy et al. (2017). 7. World Bank (2014). 2. P. De Wachter, personal communication to the 8. Glenny (2018). author based on WWF-ETIC data. December 6, 2017. 9. GEF (2016). 3. P. De Wachter, personal communication to the 10. UNWTO (1996). author based on WWF-ETIC data. December 6, 11. Jovanovic and Ilic (2016). 2017. 12. WRI (2016). 4. Freeland and Save the Elephants (2018); Camer- 13. Gabon, Ministry of Forestry and the Environ- oon, Ministry of Forests and Wildlife (2017). ment (2004); Law no. 16-2000 of November 20, 5. Harrison et al. (2015). 2000, on the Forest Code, Republic of Congo; 6. For ROC: World Bank (2017); For CAR, Cameroon, Law no. 08-022 of October 17, 2008, on the Forest Gabon: Poverty Indicators, World Bank Open Code, Central African Republic. Data (database), World Bank, Washington, DC, 14. Law no. 94/01 of January 1994 on Forest, Wildlife https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV. and Fisheries Regime, Cameroon; Law no. 16-01 RUHC. of December 31, 2001, on the Forest Code, Repub- lic of Gabon. Chapter 4 15. Ekounou Abanda (2015). 1. African Union (2015). 16. Nguimbi (2018). 2. COMIFAC (2015). 17. Gabon, Ministry of Forestry and the Environ- ment (2018). 3. CBFP (2013). 18. Kouedji Monthé et al. (2015). 4. Law no. 94/01 of January 20, 1994. 19. Julve and Vermeulen (2008). 5. Koulagna Koutou (2001). 20. Julve et al. (2007); Bigombé Logo (2008); Rossi 6. Law no. 201/008 of May 6, 2014, Land Use Orien- (2008); Karsenty (2010); Ndume-Engone (2010); tation Law, establishing the guidelines for the Cuny (2011); Ekounou Abanda (2015); CED et al. planning and sustainable development of the (2017). territory to Cameroon. 21. Ngoumou Mbarga (2013); Mbairamadji (2009); 7. FAO (2017). Bakouma and Sève (2012); CED et al. (2017). 8. Ordinance no. 84.045 of July 27, 1984, relative to 22. Gabon, Circular 000069/MEFPEPGE/SG/DGF/ the protection of wildlife, and Law no. 90.003 DFCom, September 25, 2017. of June 9, 1990, of the Forestry Code, Central African Republic. 23. Nguinguiri (2008). 9. Forest Code, Article 32 (2), Republic of Congo. 24. Roger, Calaque, and Doumenge (2006); Rous- selot Loridan (2012); Ouallet and Ouoko (2012); 10. Law no. 43‐2014 of October 10, 2014, d’orienta- Payen (2014). tion pour l’aménagement et le développement du territoire, Republic of Congo. 25. Gami (2003); Mbété et al. (2007). 11. COMIFAC (2005). 26. Lescuyer et al. 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UNCTAD (2017). ety Congo (2017). 3. WTTC (2017a). 54. Wilkie and Carpenter (1999b). 4. TIES (2016). 55. Rights and Resources Initiative (2015). 5. CI, Rainforest Alliance, and UNEP (2015). 56. “Community Camera-Trapping,” Ruaha Carni- 6. WWF-Pacific (2015); Balmford et al. (2009); Hig- vore Project, accessed January 2018, http://www. ginbottom (2004); Christ et al. (2003). ruahacarnivoreproject.com/benefits/communi- 7. UNWTO (2015). ty-camera-trapping/; Duffy and St. John (2013). 8. UNWTO (2015). 57. Milder et al. (2014). 9. Naidoo, Fisher, et al. (2016). 58. Lindsey et al. (2015). 10. Naidoo, Fisher, et al. (2016). 59. Ezzine-De-Blas et al. (2016). 11. Naidoo, Fisher, et al. (2016). 60. Lindsey et al. (2015). 12. WWF-Pacific (2015). 61. Gettleman (2012); Lotter and Clark (2014). 62. Sommerville et al. (2010). 63. Dinerstein et al. (2012). Deriving Sustainable Value from Wildlife in the Western Congo Basin 90 Before it’s too late 91 References Abernethy, K. A., L. Coad, G. Taylor, M. 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