In recent years, environmentalists and United Nations bureaucrats have become increasingly alarmed by the practice of hunting and selling wild animal meat, or bushmeat, in central and western Africa. The market for bushmeat has been booming, ranging from $20 million to $200 million in African nations, but critics claim that it is decimating endangered species – including gorillas, chimpanzees, lions, hyenas, hippopotamuses, and many others – and depleting the food supplies of some of the poorest people in the world.
Recent studies have shown that between one and five million tons of bushmeat is taken from the Congo Basin each year and that the bushmeat trade is threatening the long-term survival of 60 percent of the mammal species hunted there. The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) released its own study last week warning of the "bushmeat crisis" and the potential extinction of the great apes. According to ZSL research fellow Dr. Guy Cowlishaw, "It would be a crisis if the bushmeat resource disappeared. We have a duty to make sure it remains for local people and is sustainable for the future of the species affected by it."
The typical environmentalist solutions to the problem are to call on governments to establish parks and conservation areas, to outlaw the hunting of endangered species, and to increase policing activities to prevent illegal hunting on the "protected" government lands. Indeed, Nigeria and Cameroon are planning to create such a park across their joint border to protect endangered birds and a type of chimpanzee jeopardized by the bushmeat trade. From a practical perspective, however, it is virtually impossible to effectively police such large areas of land, the costs of which would be crippling to the already poor nations. Furthermore, since the bushmeat trade is very profitable (even more so than the coffee and cocoa industries), the emergence of a black market is inevitable. Since wild game hunting is often illegal, the costs of engaging in the trade are high (i.e., imprisonment). Consequently, the result of this government intervention is to make the price of bushmeat artificially high and even more profitable for those willing to risk breaking the law. Thus, establishing wildlife parks to tackle the bushmeat problem creates conditions no different from those of the illegal drug trade.
The risk and costs of violating wild game hunting laws are much lower, however, for perpetrators within the government. (Recall the words of Orwell: "All are equal, but some are more equal than others.") In civil-war ravaged Burundi, for example, locals are blaming the army's soldiers for decimating the hippo population. This despite the fact that, according to Burundian law, a hippo can only be killed if it has killed a person or destroyed crops, and then only with the approval of the nation's Ministry of Environment. According to resident and conservationist Patrice Faye, quoted in a Reuters article, "Hippo meat can be sold between 1,500 and 2,000 Burundian francs per kg (2.2 lb). And when you have one ton of hippo meat, you can easily earn between 1.5 million and two million francs ($1,500 and $2000). Imagine when you have three tonnes of meat – because a big hippo can weigh three tonnes – you have three million francs." Faye added that most dead hippos have been found in military areas.
Not to fear, however, the ZSL has the solution: computer models. Yes, the conservationist organization is fighting illegal hunting and the negative affects of the bushmeat trade by using mathematical models to simulate the bushmeat hunting system so scientists may devise management policies to ensure a legal and sustainable bushmeat trade. Such policies include "encouraging" the hunting of smaller, plentiful species with high reproductive rates, such as rodents and antelopes. How such behavior will be encouraged is unclear, but it is unlikely to significantly affect the industry, given that much of the trade is already illegal.
It is generally stipulated that the bushmeat trade is essential for the poor in many African nations, which have been desolated by civil wars and economic collapse. In fact, according to the ZSL, bushmeat supplies 50–85 percent of the protein requirements for those living in Africa's tropical forest-dwelling communities. One recent CNN Headline News guest acknowledged that some bushmeat trade is necessary to prevent Africans from starving, but then complained about the "commercialization" of the practice. Environmentalists are thus torn between their desire to protect endangered animal species and the humanitarian desire to allow Africans to alleviate their hunger and poverty. If only a system existed that could resolve this dilemma! It does, of course, in the form of the free market.
What is needed is more private property – not more government property – and even more commercialization. In a true free (laissez-faire) market, all land would be owned by individuals. Private landowners would have a strong interest in policing their own property to protect against poachers and other thieves. By contrast, since no one really owns government wildlife preserves, there is little incentive to preserve the land or the plants and animals that live there and wild game is free for the taking so long as you can avoid getting caught (which is not difficult for the reasons discussed previously). Landowners would likely hire guards to protect their property, providing the added benefit of jobs for the poor. Those that decide to go into the bushmeat business would have a powerful incentive to ensure the survival of their products (wild game). No species, no product, no profit. Gorillas and chimpanzees and hippos would not go extinct for the same reason cows, pigs, and chickens will not go extinct: they are too valuable! (Note that those who oppose the farming of these animals would have equal opportunity to purchase land for the purpose of creating private zoos and preserves, which could also prove profitable.)
Thus, private property allows for the provision of the needed bushmeat while preserving endangered species (and the environment in general, for that matter). By creating wildlife preserves, government takes the value out of natural resources and creates a tragedy-of-the-commons problem that inevitably leads to scarcity (extinction) and lost economic opportunity in a section of the world that desperately needs economic development. The true challenge is not establishing enough parks or passing enough laws against hunting endangered species or spending enough public money to enforce such laws, it is establishing strong institutions of private property and the rule of law. In a continent where nations are plagued by war and government corruption, this is the overlooked solution to both economic and environmental problems in the region.
September 22, 2003
