Comparing Conventional and New Policy Approaches for Carnivore Conservation – Theoretical Results and Application to Tiger Conservation

Abstract

New policy approaches to facilitate the co-existence of wildlife and livestock are needed for situations where predation incidents greatly impact households’ income and retaliatory killing threatens endangered carnivore species’ survival. In this paper, models are developed to assess how two alternative policy approaches impact a herder’s decisions on carnivore hunting and livestock protection. We find that while the well-established ex-post compensation policy induces suboptimal livestock protection it can generate sufficient incentives for the herder to refrain from hunting so that the carnivore population reaches its socially optimal level. Performance payments are proposed as alternative policy. They are found not to distort livestock protection incentives and can also help achieve a socially optimal carnivore population level. Which of the two scheme types gives rise to less cost is ambiguous. An empirical analysis of the model with data from tiger-livestock conflicts in India is presented.

Published in

Environmental and Resource Economics
2011, volume: 48, number: 2, pages: 287-301
Publisher: SPRINGER

SLU Authors

• Bostedt, Göran

  • Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Global goals (SDG)

SDG15 Life on land

UKÄ Subject classification

Social Sciences
Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Economics and Business

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-010-9411-4

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/47401