Wildlife Harvest in Integrated Conservation and Development Projects: Linking Harvest to Household Demand, Agricultural Production, and Environmental Shocks in the Serengeti

This paper develops a model coupling wildlife population dynamics to endogenous human consumption and poaching behavior in an environment of imperfect labor and product markets and static agricultural production technology subject to environmental shocks. Using a model of the Serengeti wildebeest herd, we simulate how long an integrated conservation and development project based on managed wildlife harvest might effectively delay biodiversity loss by preempting poaching. Alternative interventions that more directly tackle the problem of time-varying returns to peasant agricultural labor appear to offer more durable solutions to the challenge of wildlife conservation in the midst of endemic rural poverty.