IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v7y2016i1d10.1038_ncomms13379.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating economic losses to tourism in Africa from the illegal killing of elephants

Author

Listed:
  • Robin Naidoo

    (World Wildlife Fund US
    Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia)

  • Brendan Fisher

    (Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont)

  • Andrea Manica

    (University of Cambridge)

  • Andrew Balmford

    (University of Cambridge)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Robin Naidoo & Brendan Fisher & Andrea Manica & Andrew Balmford, 2016. "Estimating economic losses to tourism in Africa from the illegal killing of elephants," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13379
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13379
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms13379?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. van de Water, Antoinette & Henley, Michelle & Bates, Lucy & Slotow, Rob, 2022. "The value of elephants: A pluralist approach," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    2. Vincent R. Nyirenda & Bimo A. Nkhata & Oscar Tembo & Susan Siamundele, 2018. "Elephant Crop Damage: Subsistence Farmers’ Social Vulnerability, Livelihood Sustainability and Elephant Conservation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-19, October.
    3. Meyer, Maximilian & Hulke, Carolin & Kamwi, Jonathan & Kolem, Hannah & Börner, Jan, 2022. "Spatially heterogeneous effects of collective action on environmental dependence in Namibia’s Zambezi region," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    4. Chidakel, Alexander & Child, Brian & Muyengwa, Shylock, 2021. "Evaluating the economics of park-tourism from the ground-up: Leakage, multiplier effects, and the enabling environment at South Luangwa National Park, Zambia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    5. Silvio Cristiano & Francesco Gonella, 2020. "‘Kill Venice’: a systems thinking conceptualisation of urban life, economy, and resilience in tourist cities," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Brander, Luke & Eppink, Florian & Hof, Christine Madden & Bishop, Joshua & Riskas, Kimberly & Goñi, Victoria Guisado & Teh, Lydia & Teh, Louise, 2024. "Turtle Economic Value: The non-use value of marine turtles in the Asia-Pacific region," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    7. Chidakel, Alexander & Child, Brian, 2022. "Convergence and divergence in the economic performance of wildlife tourism within multi-reserve landscapes," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13379. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.