We know that within parks, tourism suffers when elephant poaching ramps up. This work provides a first estimate of the scale of that loss.
- Andrew Balmford
The current elephant poaching crisis costs African countries around USD $25 million annually in lost tourism revenue, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications. Comparing this lost revenue with the cost of halting declines in elephant populations due to poaching, the study determines that investment in elephant conservation is economically favorable across the majority of African elephants’ range.
The research, undertaken by scientists from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the University of Vermont, and the University of Cambridge, represents the first continent-wide assessment of the economic losses that the current elephant poaching surge is inflicting on nature-based tourism economies in Africa.
“While there have always been strong moral and ethical reasons for conserving elephants, not everyone shares this viewpoint. Our research now shows that investing in elephant conservation is actually smart economic policy for many African countries,” said Dr. Robin Naidoo, lead wildlife scientist at WWF and lead author on the study.
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Image:A male savannah elephant uses his trunk to eat inTarangire National Park, Tanzania.
Credit: James Morgan/WWF
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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