Dr Clements Hayley

158800 €

Assessing the role of legal hunting in support of biodiversity conservation, people and the economy in southern Africa

Tieteellinen tutkimus / siihen pohjautuva työ | Nelivuotinen

The role of legal hunting in support of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development is highly debated. Opponents argue that hunting is both unethical and unsustainable, threatening biodiversity. Supporters argue it provides benefits to the people living alongside biodiversity, thus helping to achieve biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. There is limited evidence in support of either position, but global outcry regarding the hunting of charismatic wildlife (e.g., lions) in southern Africa is calling for the practice to be banned. I aim to quantify, for the first time, the role of trophy hunting in support of biodiversity conservation, people, and the economy from local to regional scales in southern Africa. The project objectives are to assess (1) the sustainability of trophy hunting and its contribution towards biodiversity conservation targets; (2) whether trophy hunting contributes to human well-being and economic development; and (3) the preferences and attitudes of hunters towards different sustainable and ethical hunting practices. I will make use of an interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach, including literature reviews, large-scale spatial analyses of biodiversity trends on hunting areas, case-study interviews with local communities, and online surveys of hunter preferences and attitudes.