Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-1-2016
Abstract
Recent surveys suggest tens of thousands of elephants are being poached annually across Africa, putting the two species at risk across much of their range. Although the financial motivations for ivory poaching are clear, the economic benefits of elephant conservation are poorly understood. We use Bayesian statistical modelling of tourist visits to protected areas, to quantify the lost economic benefits that poached elephants would have delivered to African countries via tourism. Our results show these figures are substantial (∼USD $25 million annually), and that the lost benefits exceed the anti-poaching costs necessary to stop elephant declines across the continent's savannah areas, although not currently in the forests of central Africa. Furthermore, elephant conservation in savannah protected areas has net positive economic returns comparable to investments in sectors such as education and infrastructure. Even from a tourism perspective alone, increased elephant conservation is therefore a wise investment by governments in these regions.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights Information
© 2016 The Author(s).
Recommended Citation
Naidoo R, Fisher B, Manica A, Balmford A. Estimating economic losses to tourism in Africa from the illegal killing of elephants. Nature communications. 2016 Nov 1;7(1):1-9.
DOI
10.1038/ncomms13379
Link to Article at Publisher Website
Included in
Community Health Commons, Human Ecology Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Sustainability Commons