Exploring multiple dimensions of conservation success: Long‐term wildlife trends, anti‐poaching efforts and revenue sharing in Kibale National Park, Uganda

Abstract

Parks are essential to protect biodiversity and finding ways to improve park effectiveness is a topic of importance. We contributed to this debate by examining spatial and temporal changes in illegal activities in Kibale National Park, Uganda between 2006-2016 and use existing data to evaluate how changes were correlated with the living conditions of people in neighboring communities and patrolling effort. We explore the effectiveness of conservation strategies implemented in Kibale, by quantifying changes in the abundance of nine animal species over two to five decades. While uncertainty in such animal survey data is inherently large and it is hard to generalize across a 795 km 2 area that encompases diverse habitat types, data suggest an increase in animal abundance in the National Park. An increase in patroling effort by park guards over the decade was correlated with a decline in the number of traps and snares found, which suggests patrolling helped limit resource extraction from the park. The park's edge was extensively used for illegal forest product extraction, while the setting of snares occurred more often deeper in the forest. Perhaps counter-intuitively, increased community wealth or park related employment in a village next to the park, were positively correlated with increased illegal forest product extraction. Overall, our results suggests that the portfolio of conservation strategies used over the last two to five decades were effective for protecting the park and its animals, though understanding the impact of these efforts on local human populations and how to mitigate any losses and suffering they sustain remains an important area of research and action. It is evident that complex social, political, and economical drivers impact conservation success and more inter-disciplinary studies are required to quantify and qualify these dimensions.

Addressing the Southeast Asian snaring crisis: impact of 11 years of snare removal in a biodiversity hotspot

“…We found that snare occupancy was higher in more remote areas. Other studies have found both inverse (Plumptre et al, 2014; Kimanzi et al, 2015) and positive (Sarkar et al, 2022) relationships between snaring and remoteness. In our landscape, we posit that hunters are spending more time in remote areas with higher wildlife densities.…”

30 years brings changes to the arthropod community of Kibale National Park, Uganda

“…The pattern of increase was similar among the sites, and the increase averaged 4.56% across species and areas. Details are presented in (Sarkar et al, 2021). There was a similar increase in the ungulates (see Hou et al, 2021).…”

“…Changes in large animal populations can directly affect invertebrate populations through predation or by modifying the forest environment (Chapman et al, 2013; Omeja et al, 2014; Smart et al, 1985). We have assessed changes in the populations of 11 mammal species over 23 years and this information can be found in our previous publications (Chapman, Struhsaker, et al, 2010; Hou et al, 2021; Omeja et al, 2016; Sarkar et al, 2021). We present new detailed information on elephants as their foraging and trampling can significantly modify forest habitats (Coverdale et al, 2016; Smart et al, 1985; Struhsaker et al, 1996; Terborgh et al, 2016).…”

The future of sub-Saharan Africa’s biodiversity in the face of climate and societal change

“…To help ensure success, debt should only be offset against demonstrable progress and outcomes, which will take time to measure. We would be amiss if we did not add a cautionary remark that throwing money at a problem without properly assessing what is truly needed and building the capacity to accept the funding will do little to rectify the biodiversity crisis (Sheil, 2001;Sheil et al, 2017;Sarkar et al, 2021).…”