Financial compensation for damage to livestock by lions Panthera leo on community rangelands in Kenya

Abstract

Compensation schemes can contribute to equitable sharing of benefits from wildlife. We describe a scheme that uses tourist fees for partial and conditional compensation of damage to livestock caused by wildlife on Kuku Group Ranch, Kenya. The explicit aim of the scheme is to decrease the killing of lions Panthera leo by Maasai on community land in the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem. During - the scheme spent a mean of USD , per year, and although livestock losses remained constant the killing of lions decreased significantly. The percentage of claims where part of the compensation was withheld as a penalty for negligent husbandry practices decreased significantly over time but remained high; poor herding in particular remains a problem. We weigh our results against arguments found in a literature survey; our findings support the negative arguments of moral hazard (i.e. the risk that compensation reduces the incentive to prevent damage) and post-project collapse. Despite these weaknesses the compensation scheme was effective, affordable and sustainable. We conclude that compensation is a useful conservation tool in situations where there is an imminent threat to biodiversity, and sustainable funding sources are available.

Managing conflict between large carnivores and livestock

“…; Bauer et al. ). Insufficient data were available to compare other mechanisms, but the high success rate of the Lion Guardian program (Hazzah et al.…”

Evidence for increasing human‐wildlife conflict despite a financial compensation scheme on the edge of a Ugandan National Park

“…Although it is not yet proven whether the compensation scheme has reduced the killings of large carnivores on nonprotected land surrounding LMNP, our study makes important recommendations on how to better manage the MCF to ensure financial sustainability for the fund and similar proposed schemes in the future. More importantly it re-emphasizes some of the concerns highlighted by Bauer et al (2017) and Nyhus et al (2003) in that financial sustainability (in terms of the source of compensation funds and the size of the fund itself) of any compensation fund requires careful thought. In a Ugandan human-carnivore conflict context further investigations are required into how the communities affected by carnivore depredation could be more involved in the mitigation process.…”

Conservation payments in a social context: determinants of tolerance and behavioural intentions towards wild cats in northern Belize

“…Depredation of livestock is the most frequent source of conflict involving large felid carnivores, such as lions Panthera leo , tigers Panthera tigris , leopards Panthera pardus and jaguars Panthera onca (Inskip & Zimmermann, 2009). Thus, coexistence with these predators may impose severe economic costs on rural, livestock-dependent populations (Bagchi & Mishra, 2006; Bauer et al, 2015). When predators kill livestock, people sometimes respond through retaliatory killings that can lead to population declines of already threatened species (Dickman et al, 2011).…”

“…Such payments are increasingly attractive as a means of involving private landowners in conservation, particularly in areas where wildlife habitats and agricultural lands overlap (Nelson, 2009). Compared to compensation schemes, which despite some successes are prone to moral hazard, fraud and financial problems (Dickman et al, 2011; Bauer et al, 2015), conservation payments are considered a direct and cost-effective way of incentivizing coexistence with wildlife (Ferraro & Kiss, 2002; Bulte & Rondeau, 2005; Zabel & Holm-Müller, 2008). However, rigorous evaluation of payment programmes is needed to demonstrate the extent to which they benefit both people and predators (Nelson, 2009; Persson et al, 2015).…”