Understanding the socio-ecological impacts of the hunting moratorium in Botswana

Hunting and conservation in Africa have been linked throughout much of the conservation movement's lifetime. The contribution of trophy hunting to conservation is however, a matter of intense debate, in part fuelled by the lack of evidence as to the efficacy as a conservation tool for, and there have been increasing calls to ban the practice. After decades of following a conservation approach which included sustainable wildlife use, the government of Botswana set a moratorium on hunting on all state and tribal land in January 2014. This moratorium provides a natural experiment for adding to the evidence base on the efficacy of trophy hunting as a conservation tool. Using Botswana as a case study and a mixture of research techniques, this project aims to understand some of the social and ecological impacts of that policy decision and its implications for conservation. The project aims to review the conservation impacts of the Africa-wide hunting industry to synthesise existing evidence of the efficacy of trophy hunting as a conservation tool. It them aims to determine the impact the moratorium in Botswana has had on the well-being of participating communities and the broader socio-political factors affecting these. It further aims to understand the impacts the moratorium has had on community tolerance towards wildlife, wildlife population trends and local and regional land use. Throughout, the complexity of these issues will be acknowledged, and confounding factors highlighted.