Lessons from COVID-19 for wildlife ranching in a changing world

Hayley S. Clements (), Matthew F. Child, Lehman Lindeque, Kyra Lunderstedt and Alta Vos ()
Additional contact information
Hayley S. Clements: Stellenbosch University
Matthew F. Child: South African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
Lehman Lindeque: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Kyra Lunderstedt: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Alta Vos: Rhodes University

Nature Sustainability, 2022, vol. 5, issue 12, 1040-1048

Abstract: Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to assess the impacts of a global disturbance on conservation land uses and learn from responses to the crisis to enable more resilient conservation systems. To understand socio-economic responses of diverse wildlife working lands to COVID-19, we surveyed owners and managers of 78 private wildlife ranches (wildlife working lands), 23 agricultural farms (conventional working lands) and six public protected areas (conventional conservation lands) in South Africa. Most protected areas lost more than 75% of their revenues during 2020, while most agricultural farms lost less than 10%. The impact on wildlife ranches was more varied. Ranches with more diverse activities, particularly mixed wildlife–agriculture systems, lost less revenue, shifting their activities from those heavily impacted (international ecotourism, trophy hunting) to those less affected (for example, wildlife meat, livestock). This adaptive capacity suggests that wildlife-based enterprises could represent key ecosystem-based adaptations, providing lessons for integrated global policies that seek to incorporate private land models in the 2030 Biodiversity Framework.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00961-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natsus:v:5:y:2022:i:12:d:10.1038_s41893-022-00961-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-00961-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Sustainability is currently edited by Monica Contestabile

More articles in Nature Sustainability from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().