Wildlife conservation policies and incentives to hunt: An empirical analysis of illegal hunting in western Serengeti, Tanzania

This paper estimates functions for effort use in illegal hunting using cross-sectional survey data from households in western Serengeti, Tanzania. One purpose of the analysis is to investigate the impact on illegal hunting of the integrated conservation and development project established in this area, namely the Serengeti Regional Conservation Project (SRCP). We also investigate how the pattern of crop production in agriculture and wildlife-induced damage to crops and domestic animals affect illegal hunting. The empirical results show that the hunting effort is inversely related to participation in SRCP and positively related to the degree of crop production for own consumption. However, the data indicates that the SRCP of today cannot improve the economic conditions in the project villages. Instead, in order to promote both wildlife conservation and human welfare, policymakers should encourage a higher degree of crop production for the market. In addition, assistance and support for preventing wildlife-induced damage have the potential of reducing the hunting pressure and improving the economic conditions in agriculture.