For some years past I have had a feeling that our approach to the conservation of the flora and fauna all over the world, but especially in Africa, has been too static. This does not fit in well with the natural situations which we want to perpetuate, for they are nearly all dynamic situations. Admittedly we have moved our standpoint to some extent recently: for instance, the idea that particular species endangered by advancing civilization could survive by giving them individual protection has been generally discarded in favour of conserving the habitats in which such species live and which are prerequisites to their continued existence. But there is still much emphasis on trying to retain the status quo, say in a national park or strict natural reserve, by putting around it a real or symbolic fence and regarding the area and its ecology as sacrosanct and there for ever. And yet wherever a particular ecological situation has been studied, whether it is hinged on elephants or earthworms, the conclusion is always reached that it is dynamic–subject to continual change of balance of populations, of food relations, of chemistry and physics of the environment. Indeed nature will never stand still however much we might sometimes wish it to; and on top of all the natural changes are others imposed by mankind.

Since 1993 the Serengeti Regional Conservation Project (SRCP) in Tanzania has conducted a game cropping operation (the commercial utilization of wild animal populations in natural habitats) in areas immediately outside the Serengeti National Park in order to provide adjacent villages with incentives to abstain from illegal hunting. In this study we carry out a comparative economic analysis of the SRCP cropping operation and illegal hunting. The extent of illegal hunting was mapped by utilising questionnaires distributed to Village Game Scouts employed in five of the Project villages. Our research indicates that the cropping operation is not economically sustainable and makes only a minor economic contribution to the Project villages compared to illegal hunting. Furthermore, cropping quotas are small, utilization of quotas low, and the level of community involvement limited. Illegal hunting was extensive around both Project and other villages. We suggest that SRCP discard the inefficient cropping operation and instead concentrate on diversifying income opportunities for the Project villages.

Two issues of central importance to conservation are developing an improved understanding of the relative roles of state protected areas and local institutions and developing effective strategies for creating community-based incentives for conservation. We provide a case study of northern Tanzania’s Maasai Steppe to explore these issues in the context of a savannah ecosystem where wildlife is mobile and depends extensively on community lands for seasonal habitats. We compare the impacts and outcomes of four approaches to developing local incentives for wildlife conservation on community lands: protected area benefit-sharing, trophy hunting donations, village–private tourism concession contracts, and a direct payment scheme for habitat conservation. Tourism and direct payment concession areas have resulted in large areas of community land being protected for wildlife by villages as a result of the conditional and contractual nature of these ventures. By contrast, other approaches that provide economic benefits to communities but are not conditional on defined conservation actions at the local level demonstrate little impact on wildlife conservation on community lands. In spatially extensive ecosystems where protected areas cover limited areas and wildlife relies heavily on community and private lands, strategies based on maximizing the direct income of communities from wildlife are fundamental to the sustainability of such systems.

The Serengeti National Park in Tanzania is famous for its huge herds of migrating wildebeest, zebras and other ungulates. But these herds spend much of the year in neighbouring reserves where their survival depends on preserving the right conditions. The authors made a study of two of these reserves with disturbing results. The Maswa Game Reserve they found was seriously threatened by invading (illegal) settlement with a fast-growing population cultivating land and felling trees; in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area they report that the Maasai have taken to poaching, both for subsistence meat and for trophies to sell – skins, ivory and rhino horn. In both places the guards are so poorly equipped they can do little to stop poaching.

Populations of the African lion Panthera leo are declining dramatically, with the species’ survival in some areas closely linked to levels of tolerance by rural communities. In Tanzania and Kenya several of the remaining lion populations outside protected areas reside adjacent to rural communities, where they are hunted. As many of these communities are Maasai, research and conservation efforts have focused on understanding and curbing Maasai lion hunting practices. Much of this work has been informed by a dichotomous explanatory model of Maasai lion hunting as either a ‘cultural’ ritual or a ‘retaliatory’ behaviour against predation on livestock. We present qualitative data from interviews (n = 246) in both countries to illustrate that lion hunting by Maasai is related to overlapping motivations that are simultaneously social, emotional and political (in response to conservation initiatives). Additional case study material from Tanzania highlights how politics associated with conservation activities and age-set dynamics affect lion hunting in complex and overlapping ways. Our findings contribute an ethnographic perspective on Maasai lion hunting, people–predator relations, and how these relations are linked to conservation politics.

Lion Panthera leo populations and distributions in Africa have contracted considerably in the past 30 years. Recent policy debates focus on restricting trophy hunting as a measure to address concerns about excessive offtakes of lions. We review the impact of trophy hunting in relation to lion conservation goals, using comparative case studies from Southern and East Africa, which together contain most of Africa's remaining lion populations. The comparison demonstrates that the impact of trophy hunting on lion populations is variable and shaped by the way trophy hunting is managed and wildlife is governed in different range states. In Tanzania, the most important lion range state, hunting produces significant revenues but weaknesses in how hunting is managed and revenues are distributed undermine the potential of hunting and encourage overharvesting. In Southern Africa linkages are stronger between revenue generated by trophy hunting and lion conservation outcomes on private and communal lands. Trophy hunting is most beneficial to lion conservation where revenues and user rights over wildlife are devolved, ensuring benefits from lion hunting compensate for their costs to local people, and where hunting is managed through long-term and competitively allocated concession systems. Policy interventions should focus on supporting trophy hunting as a conservation tool where it is effective and well-managed, and work to promote reform of hunting and wildlife governance elsewhere.