Wildlife Management in the Tropics - An Overview

This chapter gives an overview of wildlife management (WM) as it is currently conducted in different tropical regions of the world. These are divided into four WM realms as defined by natural and political geography. It examines, with the benefits of hindsight, what Dasman, one of the seminal American writers on WM, stipulated for the tropics in the early 1960s and how his model of western intervention has been applied around the tropical world as it changed from colonies to independent states. It exposes how western myths have, often negatively, affected that management and how collapses of many traditional and indigenous wildlife management systems, the proliferation of firearms, conflicts, wildlife trade but also the spread of the environmental and protected area movements and tourism have further affected that world. It concludes that wildlife continues to play a crucially important role, in particular for poor and disadvantaged people, for many of which it has however become inaccessible through legislation and global society trends. It also shows, however, that models have started to emerge, often not from the west and community based, which hold promises for the future. What should a forester working in the tropics know about wildlife management? In this chapter for the 2nd edition of the Tropical Forestry Handbook I have chosen the wide view because I believe that our increased specialization and expertise has come at a cost. The understanding of why these things are being done, who does them, what they will do, and, most importantly, what we will achieve by that is what really matters, and that understanding is not so readily available. In order to provide that I have divided this chapter into five sections. In the first one I will show the differences we deal with when we talk about various regions of the vast tropical belt as it stretches around our globe. In this section I have tried to dwell on the specific, aware of the many similarities those regions share. In the second section I have given an overview of the crisis resulting from the growing impacts modern society has on the wildlife in the tropics. In the third section I will present some of the responses to this wildlife crisis by a growing number of parties and stakeholders. This section describes a growing arsenal of tools to better manage wildlife. It shows that global and national communities have developed not only science but, more importantly, frameworks, conventions, programs, networks, and databases, for an informed and unified response. In the fourth section I will identify the programs and approaches where we have made real progress but also will be critical where I think the international responses can – need to – be improved. In that section I will also examine Dasmann’s (1964) premise with the benefits of 50 years of hindsight. In the last chapter I will “reimagine” wildlife management for the tropical world where the new meets the not-so-conventional and where I suggest we have to change our approach. If I have managed to make the reader realize that wildlife management in the tropics is not so much about the application of western science but about the development of sustained visions and activities by a growing number of empowered and collaborating actors, I have succeeded. *Email: johannesj.bauer@gmail.com Tropical Forestry Handbook DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-41554-8_172-1 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015