Wildlife Conservation and Development: An analysis of the reintroduction of Sport Hunting in Uganda

This research seeks to examine the ‘new’ sport hunting introduced in Uganda in 2001 as a ‘modern’ form of governance, where managing wildlife is not only the responsibility of the government, but also of non-governmental stakeholders. It therefore aims at bridging the existing theoretical and empirical gaps in the understanding of the use of sport hunting to address the conservation-development divide in the developing world. It will make use of the policy arrangement approach (PAA) and the concept of governance capacity (GC) to help understand the nature of and reasons for change and/or stabilization within the sport hunting policy arrangement. It will therefore be guided by the overall objective; to evaluate the development and implementation of the ‘new’ sport hunting in Uganda.

It will make use of the policy arrangement approach (PAA) and the concept of governance capacity (GC) to help understand the nature of and reasons for change and/or stabilization within the sport hunting policy arrangement. It will therefore be guided by the overall objective; to evaluate the development and implementation of the ‘new’ sport hunting in Uganda.

Management of wildlife in Africa has traditionally been the sole responsibility of governments. Shifting conservation practices in the last decades towards more participatory approaches depict conservation organizations in Africa as struggling to develop new forms of wildlife conservation and management to promote a conservation-development ‘win-win’ logic. This is in recognition that protected areas’ adjacent residents suffer from wildlife conservation costs such as crop loss, pasture depletion due to wildlife, and grass, saltlicks, water competition between wildlife and cattle (Ochieng, 2011), thus necessitating the creation of a conservation-development balance.

To bridge the conservation-development gap, advocates have identified sport hunting as a form of Community-Based-Conservation (CBC) with the potential to enhance conservation and development. Sport hunting involves chasing and killing animals for pleasure (Loveridge et al., 2006). The practice started in the 19th century when colonial governments, traditional kings and chiefs designated areas abundant with wildlife to hunt for pleasure, show of prowess, and to attain trophies for rituals (Loveridge et al., 2006). This involved little or no consideration for residents’ development needs, nor did residents participate in formulating its guiding principles (Ochieng, 2011). This became increasingly problematic as local residents continually poached for bush meat to supplement their diet, and reportedly poisoned wild animals with no sense of attachment to wildlife, negatively affecting game populations.

Supervisors:
prof. Rene van der Duim
dr. Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers