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

• Published in: Nature communications 2016-11, Vol.7 (1), p.13379-13379, Article 13379
• Main Authors: Naidoo, Robin, Fisher, Brendan, Manica, Andrea, Balmford, Andrew
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 704/158/2458; 704/158/672; 704/844/843; Costs; Elephants; Humanities and Social Sciences; Ivory; multidisciplinary; Poaching; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Tourism
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13379

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. An ongoing elephant poaching crisis is threatening not only elephant populations but also the local economies that rely on nature-based tourism. Here, Naidoo and colleagues use an economic model to estimate the financial contribution of elephants to tourism and the possible consequences of their loss.