Eye in the Sky: Dr. Adam Cruise
One of the central pillars of wildlife conservation, particularly in southern Africa, is the notion that if wild species are to be conserved, they must have economic value. The basic thinking behind this concept is that if animals such as elephants, sable antelopes or lions could earn people money, they would tend to be preserved. Trophy hunting, game ranching and photographic tourism operates on the principle of ‘if it pays, it stays.’ The official term of this principle is known as sustainable utilisation, which is the prolonged use of wildlife for sustaining human economic well-being. Southern African politicians, and many conservationists, point to the fact that without sustainable use, we would not have the abundance of wildlife the region is renowned for.
However, there is a caveat…
The Economic Blind Spot in Wildlife Conservation
One basic weakness of a conservation system based on economic motives is that the majority of the wildlife community have no economic value. Economic models do not consider the millions of little-known or unknown species of amphibians, birds, insects, fish and reptiles, who are prone to total annihilation mainly because there is no economic value in them even though many species ‘invisibly’ benefit the overall ecology, and by extension human life, such as the pollination of food crops by insects.
In South Africa, charismatic megafauna like lions, leopards, cheetah, giraffe, buffalo and elephants are major drawcards for game ranchers, trophy hunters, and wildlife-watching tourists, but the little-known rabbits, toads, bats and beetles have almost zero value in the model of sustainable utilisation. Consequently, they are all but disregarded by national and international policy-makers and conservationists, uncared for and ignored, often with dire consequences to their future survival.
Neglected Conservation: The Overlooked Crisis Facing South Africa's Mammals and Reptiles
In South Africa, about 20 percent of the country’s mammals are threatened with extinction. A dozen or so species are on the critically endangered list. These include golden moles, bats, a riverine rabbit and a red squirrel. They are rarely, if ever seen, and therefore not known and not considered. The only critically endangered mammal in South Africa that most of us will be familiar with, is the one that is economically valued, namely the black rhinoceros.
Reptiles in the region fare even worse. The region comprises of exceptional reptile diversity with high levels of endemism. Of the 421 indigenous reptile taxa, 45 percent occur nowhere else in the world. Yet, reptiles have largely been ignored in conservation plans. Over 17 percent of the reptile taxa in the region are of serious conservation concern. Five species are listed ‘Critically Endangered’, ten as ‘Endangered’, twenty-one are ‘Vulnerable’ and thirty-seven species are classified as ‘Near Threatened’. This is mainly as a result of human factors such as habitat loss, land degradation and fragmentation, pollution, human disturbance, harvesting, climate change and invasive aliens.
Reptile conservation in the region, and globally, has lagged behind that of all other terrestrial vertebrates since most reptile species have rarely any direct economic use and usually have limited appeal to ecotourism ventures. They do not, therefore, play much of a part in tourist, trophy hunting, and ranching enterprises. As a consequence, reptiles remain largely neglected in a fragile economic climate and a conservation paradigm that views wildlife not for its intrinsic value, but in terms of its use to people.
Preserving Biodiversity: Beyond Endangered Lists to Protect All Wildlife
Thus, conservation measures for the silent, unseen, and unknown majority of wild species are limited to little more than adding their names to endangered lists. To save them, we need to conserve the overall biodiversity and that means conservationists must go beyond the notion of sustainable use for some species and consider all wildlife and the natural spaces they exist in. Wildlife must be protected, not for their instrumental use, but for their intrinsic value, which ultimately benefits the well-being of humans too. Intact and expansive biodiversity means clean air, unpolluted water and healthy soils that mitigate climate change and aid in better food production.
Because without these measures, humans might then be also be adding their names to the endangered list.
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