Informal Bushmeat Hunting Throughout Africa

Hunting for food began millennia ago with the first humans. Today, many rural communities across the continent still heavily rely on bushmeat, both for food security and income (e.g. Loibooki et al., Reference Loibooki, Hofer, Campbell and East2002; van Vliet and Mbazza, Reference Van Vliet and Mbazza2011; Friant et al., Reference Friant, Ayambem and Alobi2020). Consumption of buffalo meat occurs broadly across the wide range of wild animal species consumed (Table 16.1). The pay-off for hunting a buffalo is high: a single buffalo represents one of the greatest amounts of meat that can be obtained per capita, and buffalo meat is one of the most nutritive among the wild species usually hunted (Cawthorn and Hoffman, Reference Cawthorn and Hoffman2015). Buffalo is highly prized in urban markets and restaurants. While not the case everywhere, in some places like in Bangui, Central African Republic (Fargeot et al., Reference Fargeot, Drouet-Hoguet and Le Bel2017), or Manica Province, Mozambique (Lindsey and Bento, Reference Lindsey and Bento2012), its meat is among the most expensive. This makes buffalo one of the species most targeted by poaching in several areas (Skikuku et al., Reference Skikuku, Makenzi and Muruthi2018; Gaodirelwe et al., Reference Gaodirelwe, Masunga and Motsholapheko2020). Buffalo meat may also be obtained as a by-product of conflicts between the species and the local communities; several communities hunt buffalo in retaliation after the species has raided their crops or attacked people (Long et al., Reference Long, Mojo and Fu2020).

Local communities also hunt buffalo for purposes other than meat (Table 16.1). In Ethiopia, for instance, poachers hunt buffalo as trophies to increase their social acceptance and respect in society (Erena, Reference Erena2014). For the Bisa people in Zambia, there are multiple dimensions to hunting buffalo, including social positioning and cohesion of their society (Marks, Reference Marks1976). In many areas, buffalo body parts are used for cultural ceremonies and in traditional medicine (Whiting et al., Reference Whiting, Williams and Hibbitts2011).

There are some communities that are reluctant to hunt buffalo. First, because hunting buffalo may be perceived as too dangerous by local hunters (Dell et al., Reference Dell, Souza and Willcox2020). In many traditional systems, hunters also have to share the meat from their hunts with a large number of community members. They therefore tend to avoid large species such as buffalo to limit the expense of delivering parts of the hunted animals to relatives living in distant places (Eniang et al., Reference Eniang, Ebin and Nchor2017). Finally, for some communities, the buffalo is regarded as a totem or taboo animal, and its hunt is not allowed (FAO/CIG, 2002; Duda et al., Reference Duda, Gallois and Reyes-García2018; Chapter 1).

That said, hunting for bushmeat largely contributes to local declines of buffalo populations, even sometimes to the vanishing of the species (Prins, Reference Prins1996; Batumike et al., Reference Batumike, Imani, Urom and Cuni-Sanchez2021). Basically, bushmeat hunting is unselective and unlimited; where snares and gin-traps are set for buffalo and other game, any calf, female or male can be taken, and with no limitation in numbers given that traps can be reset. Bushmeat hunting is often considered one of the greatest threats to biodiversity in African savannas and forests, often ahead of other major threats such as deforestation and habitat fragmentation (Wilkie et al., Reference Wilkie, Bennett, Peres and Cunningham2011; van Velden et al., Reference Van Velden, Wilson and Biggs2018).

Regulated Bushmeat Hunting

Some countries, such as Tanzania, allow hunting quotas for meat purposes (including buffalo), while others allow subsistence community hunting, like CAR (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021). In most countries, trophy-hunting concessionaries are mandated by their lease agreements to provide local communities – free of charge – the meat obtained by tourist hunters. This is quite stringent in West and Central Africa, where wild meat is extremely sought after. In Zambia, 130 tons of fresh game meat – of which 24 per cent is from buffalo – are provided annually by the hunting tourism industry to rural communities at an approximate yearly value for the meat alone of over €500,000 exclusive of distribution costs (White and Belant, Reference White and Belant2015).

In some southern African countries, the production of wild meat constitutes a real industry, one that is organized and regulated. In Namibia, with an annual mean of between 60 and 75 kg of venison produced per square kilometre in 2013 on farmland, hunting for venison is an important sector which contributes more to national food security than livestock, as beef is mainly exported (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Havemann and Lines2013). However, most of the venison is from antelopes, not from buffalo, which is restricted by veterinary regulations. In South Africa, ‘biltong hunting’ is a recreational hunting by local hunters who harvest wild meat and process it into biltong (dried meat) or sausage (Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Lindsey and Davies-Mostert2015). It is a major value chain in this country, much larger than trophy hunting; however, it mainly targets common game rather than buffalo.

What Are We Talking About?

This section addresses lawful and regulated hunting only, in contrast with outlawed and unregulated hunting, commonly called poaching (see Prins, Reference Prins2020). The terminology of hunting categories has been debated at length (Booth and Chardonnet, Reference Booth and Chardonnet2015). One reason is that the terms used in each language are often difficult to translate literally into other languages. Another reason is that the various categories of hunting often overlap (IUCN, 2016). For IUCN, ‘trophy hunting is hunting of animals with specific characteristics and involves the payment of a fee by a foreign or local hunter for a hunting experience, usually guided; it may be a distinct activity or overlap with recreational or meat hunting’. While trophy hunting reflects the quest for an outstanding trophy, sport hunting rather reflects the quest for a challenging fair chase of the game by tracking on foot, whatever the trophy. The trophy is a key part of a safari, but the hunting experience and adventure in the bush are also what attracts clients, and there also has to be the feeling of a fair chase to the proper hunter with no guarantee of success (Hurt and Ravn, Reference Hurt, Ravn, Prins, Grootenhuis and Dolan2000). While some authors prefer the term ‘regulated hunting’ (Dickson et al., Reference Dickson, Hutton and Adams2009; Booth and Chardonnet, Reference Booth and Chardonnet2015), many other terms are commonly used, for example safari hunting, recreational hunting, tourism hunting, hunting tourism. For Spenceley (Reference Spenceley2021), ‘hunting tourism is a consumptive mode of nature-based tourism that uses renewable natural resources in a wild or undeveloped form for the purpose of enjoying natural areas or wildlife and contribute to conserve and value wilderness areas’. It is a typical tourism value chain with (i) emitting countries, that is countries of origin of the clients (hunting tourist or tourist hunter), and (ii) receiving countries, that is countries selling operating rights to tourism operators (hunting company or hunting operator or outfitter), themselves selling tourism services (hunting safari or hunting trip or hunting party or hunt) to their clients.

Throughout Africa

To most hunters, the buffalo is a fascinating game for being (i) one of the so-called ‘dangerous game’ and (ii) one of the ‘Big Five’, the term commonly used to describe the five major big game species. Hunting accidents with buffalo are not uncommon, even with experienced professional hunters. The buffalo is widely regarded as dangerous to hunt, which certainly adds to the attractiveness of its hunt: ‘He looks as if you owe him money’ (Ruark, Reference Ruark1987, italics added for emphasis). In 2022, buffalo can be legally hunted by hunting tourists in 16 sub-Saharan African countries, that is in 43 per cent of the 37 buffalo range countries (Figure 16.1). The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 prevented hunting tourists from travelling, which severely impacted hunting tourism like all forms of tourism. The situation slightly returned to normal in 2022.

Figure 16.1 Buffalo range countries where hunting tourism is lawful in 2022 for the four subspecies of buffalo recognized by the IUCN Red List so far. Note: Buffalo in northern and central Angola were categorized as ‘Cape buffalo’ by IUCN (2019), but phenotypically and perhaps even genetically they are ‘forest buffalo’.

Source: Author.

Among the four subspecies thus far recognized by the IUCN Red List (Chapters 3 and 4), the Cape buffalo is by far the most hunted, being legally hunted in nine countries. This obviously reflects its much higher abundance than the other subspecies, but also other factors like a greater development of the tourism industry, a safer security situation, a larger expansion of CBNRM programmes, etc. The forest buffalo is the least hunted subspecies with only three countries where it can be hunted legally, a situation resulting from a more restricted range, landlocked hunting grounds, the difficulty of the hunt in thick habitats, and also probably a degraded conservation status. The West and Central African savanna buffalo, both subspecies being rather similar and intermixed, can be hunted in eight countries. However, the overall number of buffalo trophy-hunted annually in these two regions has always been quite low, about 300 a year. We need to mention that the hunting community recognizes a fifth subspecies, the Nile buffalo, which ranges in Ethiopia, northern and western Uganda, and appears as an intermediate form between the Central African savanna buffalo and the Cape buffalo. The reality of the transitional shape of its trophy explains that hunters specifically hunt this particular buffalo and register their trophies distinctly in the records books.

Hunting quotas (the maximum number of adult male buffalo allowed to be hunted per year per Hunting Area) and offtakes (number of buffalo effectively harvested per year per Hunting Area) vary greatly between regions, with the highest figures in Tanzania and Southern Africa and the lowest in West and Central Africa (Table 16.2). The national offtake rate (ratio of offtake to quota) is not only the result of the number of buffalo taken per Hunting Area, but also of the percentage of Hunting Areas being leased and operational, which is a sign of the functionality of the industry in the country. In nearly all of the hunting countries, the hunt concerns free-ranging buffalo in unfenced Hunting Areas. South Africa, where buffalo hunting happens behind fences, is a major exception. Another peculiar feature of South Africa is that hunting quotas are set by the landowner, while they are generally set by government authorities quasi-everywhere else.

West Africa

Three countries of West Africa allow legal hunting of buffalo. In Senegal, with a relict population of West African savanna buffalo in the far south-eastern corner of the country, buffalo trophy hunting is anecdotal. In contrast, Benin and Burkina Faso have developed a well-organized and regulated big game hunting tourism industry with the West African savanna buffalo as the main attraction together with the roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus). Buffalo hunting there is renowned for being a challenging, fair chase by stalking on foot with excellent local trackers.

In Burkina Faso, in 2017, 303 hunting tourists (9 per cent of all tourists) harvested 424 mammals for a production of 86 tons of meat and a direct revenue of about €827,000 (Ouedraogo, Reference Ouedraogo2018). Over seven years between 2012 and 2018, the average national annual quota was 166 buffalo/year (147–183), and the average national annual offtake was 106 buffalo hunted/year (81–136) for a national annual offtake rate of 64 per cent (44–84) (DFRC, 2018; Table 16.2).

In Benin, over the two hunting seasons 2017–2018 and 2018–2019, the five existing Hunting Areas (only four of which were operational) harvested an annual average of 58 buffalo out of an average annual quota of 75 for an average annual offtake rate of 77.3 per cent (PNP, 2018, 2019; PNW, 2018, 2019; Table 16.2). In 2018, the W National Park ecosystem earned 76 per cent of its revenue from 19 hunting tourists visiting the Mekrou Hunting Area and 2 per cent from 476 photographic tourists visiting the W National Park (PNP, 2018, 2019; PNW, 2018, 2019; Table 16.2).

Since 2019, the severe degradation of the security situation in the region (with terrorism taking over vast wilderness areas) has prevented many National Parks and Hunting Areas from operating in West Africa.

Central Africa

Central Africa is the region where buffalo are the most diverse, with three subspecies occurring out of four. Buffalo there is not the first game of appeal for tourist hunters, who mainly look for the Eastern giant eland (Tragelaphus derbianus gigas) and the Western or lowland bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus). However, buffalo is part of the hunting package and is sought after for providing serious stalking by foot with outstandingly skilful trackers from local communities.

Cameroon is the country with the highest number of legal big game hunters in all of West and Central Africa in recent years. In 2018, 285 tourists came to Cameroon for hunting (MINFOF, 2019). In this country, Hunting Areas are a major component of the national network of Protected Areas: 71 gazetted Hunting Areas (Zones d’Intérêt Cynégétique) cover 57,000 km² (11.9 per cent of the country), that is 1.5 times the size of National Parks and Reserves (39,000 km², 8.2 per cent of the country; MINFOF, 2019). Over four hunting seasons between 2016 and 2020, the average annual quota was 358 buffalo (341–381) with 69 per cent savanna buffalo and 31 per cent forest buffalo. During this period, an annual average of 141 buffalo (99–184) were hunted for an average annual offtake rate of 39 per cent (MINFOF, 2020; Table 16.2). Such a low offtake rate reflects an important proportion of unleased Hunting Areas, as a number of them are no longer operational due to degradation by all sorts of activities which are illegal in protected areas: poaching, livestock invasion (Figure 16.2), cotton encroachment, gold mining, logging, and the charcoal trade.

Figure 16.2 Livestock sightings in the BSB landscape covering the transboundary national parks of Bouba Ndjidda (Cameroon) and Sena Oura (Chad) as well as the seven neighbouring Hunting Areas (Cameroon), during the aerial wildlife survey in 2018 (total surface of about 10,500 km²). The estimated livestock population (117,134 heads) was six times higher than the estimated population of the 11 largest wild mammals (20,136 individuals), and located mostly within the Hunting Areas surrounding the National Parks.

(data and illustration reproduced from WCS and MINFOF, 2018, with permission)

The Central African Republic (CAR) could be named the ‘buffalo country’, as it is the only one on the continent where three subspecies of buffalo occur and can be legally hunted, although the forest buffalo is rarely hunted there. In this country, 89 gazetted Hunting Areas cover 220,000 km² (35 per cent of the country), that is 3.6 times the size of the National Parks and Reserves (61,000 km², 10 per cent of the country). Before the political unrest initiated in 2012, CAR was a prime destination for big game hunting. It is still practiced in 2022, but so far remains marginal. Before the collapse of tourism, the buffalo was the second most abundant large game species after the giant eland in the Zones cynégétiques villageoises (ZCV, Village Hunting Zones) of northern CAR, with a density of 1.1 buffalo per km² (Bouché, Reference Bouché2010). In these ZCV only, the buffalo was the most hunted game species: in the 2008–2009 hunting season, 44 buffalo were harvested by hunting tourists, ahead of 26 giant eland (Bouché, Reference Bouché2010).

Chad is renowned for hosting the typical form of Syncerus caffer aequinoctialis with its wide, flattened horn shape. The country used to be famous for big game hunting until the contemporary civil turmoil. Despite these constraints, hunting tourism continued to be practiced in 2022, but at a lower scale.

In the Republic of Congo, hunting tourism has recently resumed with only a few forest buffalo harvested per year.

The security situation in Central Africa has been deteriorating for a longer time than in West Africa, and this has undermined the hunting industry as well as conservation. The region is experiencing what Scholte et al. (Reference Scholte, Pays, Adam and Chardonnet2021) call a conservation overstretch: with increasing insecurity and declining revenues, governments find themselves confronted with too few resources to protect vast areas.

East Africa

In East Africa, three countries have developed a well-structured hunting tourism industry. In Ethiopia, few buffalo are hunted for the simple reason that the Hunting Areas are not exactly located within the buffalo range in this country. The buffalo is not the game of appeal for tourist hunters coming to this country. In Uganda, the hunting industry has developed over the last 20 years to a point where it is now a real alternative to the other East and Central African hunting destinations. A special attraction is the so-called Nile buffalo, and Uganda is the place to find it (Siege and Siege, Reference Siege and Siege2020).

Tanzania, which hosts the largest number of African buffalo on Earth, unsurprisingly comes first among all African countries for regulated hunting of free-ranging buffalo. Tanzanian buffalo are famous for their large herds and their magnificent wide horns.

The hunting domain is an essential pillar of the national network of Protected Areas in this country. In 2004, proclaimed Protected Areas gazetted as Hunting Areas covered over 250,000 km² (26.4 per cent of the country), nearly twice the size of the National Parks (134,881 km², 14.1 per cent; Baldus and Cauldwell, Reference Baldus and Cauldwell2004). The number of Hunting Areas was progressively reduced from 164 to 113 in 2020 with the gazetting of several Game Reserves as National Parks. However, Hunting Areas still cover nearly a quarter of Tanzania’s surface. Many if not most Hunting Areas are not viable for other conservation options such as ecotourism due notably to remoteness, lack of scenery and poor visibility of wildlife compared to the top National Parks.

Hunting tourism is an important and organized sector in Tanzania. For the 2013–2018 period, out of 164 Hunting Areas, 149 were awarded to 60 hunting companies. However, there was considerable financial pressure during this period due to adverse publicity regarding sport hunting, and the impact of hunting bans on elephant and lion trophy imports to the USA, Europe and Australia (TAWA, 2019). With fewer hunting clients visiting Tanzania than in previous years, hunting tourism revenues dropped from €44 million in 2008 with 1673 hunters (Booth, Reference Booth2010) to €28.3 million in 2014 with 708 hunters (Booth, Reference Booth2017). When the cost of maintaining Hunting Areas became higher than the income, many hunting companies returned their Hunting Areas to the wildlife authorities. By the end of 2018, 81 Hunting Areas were handed back, representing slightly less than 130,000 km² (approximately 52 per cent) of the area set aside for hunting (TAWA, 2019).

This downtrend also impacted buffalo conservation in two contrasting ways. First, when the Hunting Areas formerly leased for hunting were abandoned, these 13 million ha of wilderness became vacant, and hence were exposed to poaching and encroachment by other land uses detrimental to the environment. Highly susceptible to these threats, buffalo became a collateral victim of the bans on the importation of hunting trophies directed at elephants and lions, two species listed on CITES Appendices. Second, as the buffalo is not a CITES-listed species, the bans turned the buffalo, once considered a secondary game species, into a first-choice species for hunters travelling to Tanzania. The character of the Tanzania hunting industry has changed over the last 10 years from being a ‘big four’ game hunting destination to one that is now heavily dependent on leopard and buffalo (TAWA, 2019).

However, although the trophy fee for buffalo is cheaper than that of the flagship game species, buffalo remains the first tax-earning species in this country due to the larger number harvested: in 2019/2020, the trophy fees (€2080 per buffalo) of 737 buffalo hunted in 77 Hunting Areas earned €1.53 million, to which all other revenue sources should be added, that is hunting block fees, licences, daily fees (Wildlife Division, personal communication).

Over eight years between 2012 and 2020, the average national annual quota was 1681 buffalo/year (1456–2130), and the average national annual offtake was 781 buffalo hunted/year (625–940) for a national annual offtake rate of 46.3 per cent (41.7–56.8; Wildlife Division, personal communication). A yearly offtake of 781 individuals represents an annual taking of about 0.3 per cent of the roughly evaluated 250,000 buffalo population in Tanzania (see Chapter 4 for actual best estimates).

Southern Africa

In Southern Africa, there are six countries with legal hunting tourism, and the Cape buffalo is a major game. In Botswana, buffalo hunting was resumed in 2020. Hunting is organized in registered Hunting Areas covering 75,000 km² (13 per cent of the country) for an annual revenue of €40 million in 2012 (Di Minin et al., Reference Di Minin, Leader-Williams and Bradshaw2016). In Zambia, buffalo is a major game species for 36 hunting concessions within Game Management Areas covering 170,000 km² (23.6 per cent of Zambia; Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021). In Zimbabwe, hunting is undertaken in 78,000 km² (20 per cent of the country) and generated €24.4 million revenue in 2015 (Chitauro, 2016 in Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021). Buffalo is an important game outside the central plateau in both State land and in the 10 CAMPFIRE communal areas. In Mozambique, buffalo is also a major game species for the various categories of Hunting Areas (Coutadas, Fazendas do bravio, etc.) covering 135,000 km² (17 per cent of the country) (Di Minin et al., Reference Di Minin, Leader-Williams and Bradshaw2016). In Namibia, buffalo hunting is restricted to the Caprivi strip because existing veterinary policies prevent the reintroduction of buffalo, although it is a key species for tourism and safari hunting (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Havemann and Lines2013). Hunting is a major driver of the wildlife-based tourism in Namibia, with €26.6 million direct revenue in 2016 (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021) over 287,000 km² (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Havemann and Lines2013). Hunting is undertaken in two land categories: (i) communal conservancies (86 of them in 2021 cover 166,000 km², i.e. 20.2 per cent of Namibia), which collect 100 per cent of the hunting fees (€2.3 million in 2018) in their 48 hunting concessions (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021); and (ii) private game ranches (so-called ‘freehold lands’), which contain 21–33 times more wildlife than Protected Areas (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021).

South Africa has the largest African hunting industry in terms of numbers of operators, visiting hunters, animal collected, and revenues generated (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Roulet and Romañach2007). South Africa also hosts the highest number of buffalo in southern Africa, yet with a peculiar situation that contrasts sharply with the rest of the continent: there are no free-ranging buffalo in this country, all of them being enclosed, so that buffalo are always hunted behind fences (Chapter 13). Hunting Areas there are hence considerably smaller in size than anywhere else in Africa, largely due to the requirement for fencing (Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Lindsey and Nicholson2020). The average size of a game ranch is slightly less than 3000 ha (Cloete et al., Reference Cloete, Van der Merwe and Saayman2015), that is in the order of between 10 and 100 times smaller than Hunting Areas in the rest of Africa (e.g. the average size of the 17 Hunting Areas of Niassa Special Reserve in Mozambique is 2486 km²). Overall, Hunting Areas cover 150,000 km² in South Africa, that is 12 per cent of the country (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021). Since the Game Theft Act of 1991, properly fenced wildlife in South Africa is the property of the landowner, a situation almost non-existent in most other African countries. This ownership of wildlife allowed the private sector to develop a dynamic wildlife industry providing substantial benefits to local and national economies (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021). For half of the nearly 10,000 game ranches, hunting is a source of income, and for 30 per cent of them hunting is the main source of income (Nel, Reference Nel2021).

Buffalo in South Africa is a typical example of a high-value species producing high income from a very low percentage of the population harvested. It does not appear on the list of the 10 most hunted game species in South Africa (NWU, 2017 in Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021), yet it is the top income-earning species with €13.2 million generated in 2016 and €9.2 million in 2019 (South African Professional Hunters statistics, 2019), well ahead of the second high-value game species, sable (Hippotragus niger).

Since the amendment in 2019 of the Animal Improvement Act of 1998, buffalo are legally subject to selection programmes for enlarging and reshaping their horns in order to raise their commercial value for live sales and hunting trophies (e.g. the first 50-inch-wide trophy live bull in South Africa was auctioned at an all-time record for buffalo of €10.5 million). The selection methods combine (i) extreme inbreeding among the most desired individuals and (ii) outbreeding with East African buffalo, which have greater horn spread than South African buffalo. Whether this development is a matter of manipulated genetic engineering or the restoration of historic natural genetic integrity is an issue of tense debate, including in the international arena (IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2015; IUCN WCC, 2016). There is considerable concern about the negative genetic consequences of intensive selective breeding of wildlife, as well as about the image and tourism economy of South Africa (e.g. Selier et al., Reference Selier, Nel and Rushworth2018; Russo et al., Reference Russo, Hoban and Bloomer2019; Somers et al., Reference Somers, Walters and Measey2020). Game ranching in South Africa is certainly a success story in many ways (socioeconomic, rewilding, recovery of endangered species, etc.; Chapter 13), for example there are roughly three times more wildlife in private game ranches than in the National Parks (Kitshoff-Botha, Reference Kitshoff-Botha2020). The sustainable-use approach of wildlife ranching has furthermore proved to be a legitimate way to conserve biodiversity, and one that may even be advisable for other African countries to be considered (Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Lindsey and Nicholson2020). However, a great many stakeholders and observers disapprove of the creation of so-called ‘superior’ bigger trophy animals, as well as of introducing exotic taxa and canned or put-and-take hunting (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021).

International Scene

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) does not list the African buffalo in any of its Appendices of protected animals (CITES, 2022). No CITES Party has passed stricter domestic measures for the African buffalo to date. For example, the European Union does not list this species in the Annexes of the EU Wildlife Trade Regulations (European Commission, 2010), and the USA do not include this species in the list of foreign species of its Endangered Species Act (ESA) (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2022). Therefore, international trade of buffalo and their parts including trophies is not subject to specific controls beyond general custom, wildlife and veterinary regulations. In 2022, the African buffalo is listed in the ‘Near Threatened’ Category of the IUCN Red List, the second lowest category on the risk scale (IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2019). Thus far, the Red List does not distinguish between buffalo subspecies, a matter for discussion as the conservation status of each subspecies is evolving differently (Chapter 4).

National Settings

Each buffalo range country has established its own environmental legislation with an array of laws and regulations to protect and manage biodiversity. All of the countries that allow the legal hunting of buffalo have set their respective permit systems with precise rules, so that hunting buffalo without the proper licences is taken as poaching and subject to penalties. In most countries, the rules, taxes and fees are different between citizens, resident expatriates and foreigners. The cost to hunt a buffalo is much higher for foreign hunting tourists than for citizens. Costs consist of government levies, payments for the services of safari operators and royalties or retention schemes for local communities and landowners (Hurt and Ravn, Reference Hurt, Ravn, Prins, Grootenhuis and Dolan2000). The revenues generated by buffalo hunting provide incentives for (i) the State to preserve the national network of Protected Areas, and (ii) communities and landowners to keep game on their lands and avoid landscape conversion into alternative land uses that are environmentally unfriendly.

Monitoring Buffalo Populations

Knowing how many animals there are in a given area at different times helps to measure the population trend. However, this is not simple, and a selection of appropriate methods and techniques (Collinson, Reference Collinson1985) is crucial, underpinned by clear objectives and a decision-making process (Caughley, Reference Caughley1977). While the aerial survey is often the method of choice in open savanna landscapes (Norton-Griffiths, Reference Norton-Griffiths and Grimsdell1978), it is not appropriate for forest or savanna–forest mosaics. However, as a herding species, buffalo are usually non-randomly distributed in clusters, which makes the count less reliable than for more evenly distributed species (Norton-Griffiths, Reference Norton-Griffiths and Grimsdell1978; Taylor and Mackie, Reference Taylor and Mackie1997). Nevertheless, the aerial survey (with photography) remains the most cost-effective approach in large savanna landscapes (1000–10,000 km² and above). Ground counts using distance sampling methods (Buckland et al., Reference Buckland, Anderson and Burnham2001), also referred to as road strip or line transect counts, are also used either on foot or in vehicles, including for community-based game counts (NACSO, 2021).

Counting buffalo in forest landscapes is much more tedious and time- and money-consuming, using either transect surveys (line, recce or strip transects) or point sampling in, for example, forest clearings. More recently, camera traps have been utilized to assess densities by using distance sampling methods (Hofmeester et al., Reference Hofmeester, Rowcliffe and Jansen2017; Howe et al., Reference Howe, Buckland, Després‐Einspenner and Kühl2017). Another method, the Pooled Local Expert Opinion (PLEO) method, is based on traditional knowledge. A number of local hunters are asked to estimate wildlife abundance in a specified area, after which densities are calculated per species, and the estimates are pooled and extrapolated for the whole area (Van der Hoeven et al., Reference Van der Hoeven, de Boer and Prins2004). Using citizen science and local communities as resource managers contribute to improving conservation monitoring (Rigava et al., Reference Rigava, Taylor and Goredema2006; Keeping et al., Reference Keeping, Burger and Keitsile2018).

Quota Setting for Hunting

The primary objective of monitoring a hunted population is to assess the demographic trend in that population in order to set hunting quotas that allow sustainable hunting. However, detecting trends on a regular basis is often fraught with the difficulty of making decisions based on inadequate and/or imprecise data (Taylor, Reference Taylor, Hulme and Murphree2001). Consequently, it is important to consider multiple sources or lines of evidence that can provide more robust data or information on the species being hunted. In addition to survey data, other indices of abundance should be used as well as the local knowledge of multiple stakeholders ultimately involved in the management and use of the species. Fortunately, the buffalo lends itself comparatively easily to this approach.

In a number of African countries, annual trophy hunting quotas are still set by the wildlife management authorities as a percentage of the total population size of the given species, for example 1–2 per cent of the buffalo population size. However, such a method appears impractical in most African conditions where population sizes are usually either unknown or imprecisely known or not updated on a yearly basis (Bell, Reference Bell, Bell and McShane-Caluzi1984). Quota-setting methods relying on wildlife censuses face serious limitations because estimating the density or population size of large herbivores with high precision and accuracy is difficult, especially over large areas, and requires considerable investment of time, people and money (Morellet et al., Reference Morellet, Gaillard and Hewison2007). In these situations, it is meaningless to attempt to set quotas on a percentage basis, and it is preferable to set quotas either (i) by specifying biological rules such as minimum trophy size or age of individuals to be taken (Morellet et al., Reference Morellet, Gaillard and Hewison2007) and/or (ii) by adjusting quotas according to participative assessments of population trends (WWF, 1997, 2000) as has been done with success for decades in several southern African countries as well as in North America and Europe.

The quota-setting method based upon trends requires the involvement of an ‘extended peer community’ consisting of those with a stake in the issue of concern (Funtowicz and Ravetz, Reference Funtowicz and Ravetz1993). This is counter to conventional wisdom, which seeks to maintain centralized control (Bell, Reference Bell, Anderson and Grove1987). Failure to integrate knowledge held among all stakeholders undermines effective resource management (Hulme and Taylor, Reference Hulme, Taylor, Lee and Kirkpatrick2000). Participatory quota setting for the harvesting of wildlife species reflects a relatively recent departure from the conventional norm, whereby local resource managers become active participants in an adaptively managed process with greater devolution of responsibility and accountability (Taylor, Reference Taylor, Hulme and Murphree2001; Rigava et al., Reference Rigava, Taylor and Goredema2006).

The Participatory Quota-Setting Process

The process should ideally bring together all of the parties involved in establishing a quota and its subsequent use. Typically, this would include wildlife authority managers and ecologists, land occupiers (farmers or resource managers), safari operators and hunters, local communities and even hunting trackers as applicable, regardless of background, education or training. Each stakeholder brings different sets of information, recognizing the importance and value of the information and its source. The use of a facilitator provides greater understanding and demystifies the process of establishing and using a quota. This information provides a set of matrices that can be triangulated. Triangulation comprises an iterative process of examining, assessing and sense-making of information, which results in a reliably informed decision being made (Greyson, Reference Greyson2018). Trend data are assembled by participants and graphically represented for each species and entered into the matrix. The current quota is assessed against the available data and information, and the proposed quota adaptively determined using the full set of indices (Table 16.3). The proposed quota can be submitted to the regulatory wildlife authority for review and approval with or without adjustment, and subsequently used by the safari operator in the coming hunting season.

Monitoring Buffalo Hunts

Hunting during the season is monitored by representatives of the stakeholders and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations as required by specific countries. Regardless of such requirements, completion of a ‘Hunt Return Form’ (HRF) is essential. This is a crucially important monitoring tool that captures key biological and economic variables associated with every individual hunt. At the end of the hunting season, the set of HRFs collected per hunting area is analysed and used at both national and hunting area levels for the establishment of further sustainable hunting quotas. Subsequent data analysis provides insights into trends in quotas, offtakes, trophy quality and assessments of ‘catch-effort’ (Grobbelaar and Muselani, Reference Grobbelaar and Masulani2003).

Using Quotas for Buffalo

Hunting quotas for buffalo are only set for adult males, ideally old ones. Neither females nor subadult males are hunted by trophy hunters. However, hunting buffalo for trophies is challenged by the fact that the size of the trophy does not well reflect the age of the individual because the horns of old buffalo tend to wear down (Grobbelaar and Muselani, Reference Grobbelaar and Masulani2003). The largest trophies are thus obtained from animals at or just above middle age, which coincides with the age at which males are breeding bulls. Males aged 5–10 years constitute the breeding cohort, a period when they wear their largest horns. Moreover, trophy males have to be replaced by maturing younger males in order to have trophies available in the next seasons. Trophy hunting will be unsustainable if inappropriate hunting practices take place that remove these younger males in their prime instead of harvesting the oldest bulls. For this reason, trends in trophy quality and age should be carefully monitored (Crosmary et al., Reference Crosmary, Loveridge and Ndaimani2013).

Trophy Quality

For most species, trophies only represent a small fraction of the older adult males in the population, mainly after their breeding time, and therefore a very small proportion of the total population. Removing this segment of the population does not impact the survival of the population because no females are hunted and only a tiny proportion of the old males are harvested as trophies. However, selection pressure on bulls actively breeding can impact on characters in a population such as horn length. Removing breeding animals with superior horns can possibly result in a decrease in such specimens in the population, and increase specimens with inferior horns (Crosmary et al., Reference Crosmary, Loveridge and Ndaimani2013). Therefore, trophy quality should be monitored per hunting area per hunting season. The trophy quality is indexed by the trophy size of hunted individuals.

The Rowland Ward (RW) system of measurement, founded in 1870, has been the traditional method for measuring hunting trophies, for example 30th Edition for Africa in 2020 of Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game (Rowland Ward, 2020). In 1977, North American trophy hunters introduced the Safari Club International (SCI) Record Book of Trophy Animals (SCI, 2022) with a measurement system built upon the original RW system, but nonetheless quite different. For buffalo, the RW system measures the greatest outside spread of the horns, which is not affected by the wear of the horns (RW method 12-a for Cape, Central African and Nile buffalo, rowlandward.org; Figure 16.3). Note that RW uses a different method (12-b) for West African and Dwarf buffalo. The SCI system measures the so-called ‘tip to tip length of the horns’ following the curves all along both horns, which is obviously much affected by the horns’ wear (SCI method 4 for African buffalo, safariclub.org). Thus, by penalizing worn horns, the SCI system encourages hunters to hunt younger breeding bulls with longer tip-to-tip lengths (Grobbelaar and Muselani, Reference Grobbelaar and Masulani2003; Taylor, Reference Taylor2005). Using Taylor’s (Reference Taylor1988) predictive tooth wear and age relationship, and relating this to trophy score with both RW and SCI systems (Taylor, Reference Taylor2005), it is clear that the SCI scoring system favours the attributes of younger individuals and leads to rates of offtake that are too high for sustaining trophy quality. The Namibian Professional Hunters Association is considering adopting an Age-Related Measuring System that scores according to age in addition to other criteria, and where immature animals are disqualified (NAPHA, 2021).

Figure 16.3 Method for measuring the trophies of Cape, Central African and Nile buffalo according to Rowland Ward’s Records of Big Game, Rowland-Ward-Method-12-a-Cape.pdf (rowlandward.org).

Illustration reproduced from © RowlandWard.org with permission.

While determining the age of individual hunted animals provides an additional refinement to monitoring, it can also be considered as a further imposition on safari operators, professional hunters and their hunters. However, where there may be concern over sustainability and possible diminishing trophy size, the measurement of the first molar tooth for age determination of hunted buffalo (Taylor, Reference Taylor1988) should be implemented as part of good adaptive management. This will necessitate the proper collection, labelling and storing of lower jaws (mandible).

Overall and simply, when hunting a male trophy buffalo, ideally:

1. (i) do not hunt buffalo males in herds; rather, hunt males in bachelor groups or individually,

2. (ii) think RW not SCI when selecting the individual to hunt,

3. (iii) select the oldest of the old males; however, if none of the bulls is old enough refrain from hunting,

4. (iv) post-hunt measure trophy using RW should be mandatory and SCI optional,

5. (v) hunter/hunting guide/hunting operator must determine age of hunted buffalo by extracting the first permanent molar and measuring tooth cusp height.

Hunting Areas More Than Double the Land Area Dedicated to Wildlife Conservation

Buffalo hunting tourism is conducted in officially gazetted Hunting Areas proclaimed as such by the law of each country. Hunting Areas are recognized by IUCN as Protected Areas under both IUCN Categories IV and VI. They contribute to the national networks of Protected Areas covering the percentage of a country’s surface internationally declared as set aside by the country as Protected Areas. In sub-Saharan Africa, Hunting Areas cover a minimum area of 1,394,000 km^², exceeding the area encompassed by National Parks (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Roulet and Romañach2007). This means that financial incentives from trophy hunting effectively more than double the land area that is used for wildlife conservation, relative to the area that would be conserved by national parks alone (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Roulet and Romañach2007). Hence, trophy hunting sustains these immense wilderness areas acting as biodiversity reservoirs, carbon sinks and ecosystem service providers.

The large proportion of Hunting Areas that neighbour National Parks act as buffer zones amortizing the human pressure from outside. Many Hunting Areas are also the last ecological corridors linking National Parks that otherwise would become conservation islands in a human landscape devoid of wildlife. In the final analysis, Hunting Areas are the ‘last frontier’ of buffalo and large wildlife outside National Parks. Typical examples are two buffalo strongholds: the three National Parks (W, Arly, Pendjari) of the transboundary WAP complex (Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger) in West Africa, and the three National Parks (Faro, Bénoué, Bouba Ndjidda) of northern Cameroon in Central Africa. These National Parks are all embedded in Hunting Areas that also link the parks together with no discontinuity.

In South Africa and Zimbabwe, trophy hunting has been the entry point for the conversion of thousands of livestock ranches to wildlife ranches with the reintroduction of locally extinct species like buffalo and the subsequent multiplication of wildlife populations (Bond et al., Reference Bond, Child, de la Harpe and Child2004; Leader-Williams et al., Reference Leader-Williams, Hutton, Woodroffe, Thirgood and 478Rabinowitz2005). Similarly, trophy hunting was the initial driver for local communities to establish the CAMPFIRE programme in Zimbabwe, Community Conservancies in Namibia, Wildlife Management Areas in Tanzania, and Village Hunting Zones in CAR, etc. where wildlife often are more abundant than in neighbouring National Parks. In Mozambique, trophy hunting played an important role in facilitating the recovery of wildlife populations in Hunting Areas after the war (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Alexander and Franket2006) by permitting income generation from wildlife without jeopardizing wildlife population growth (Bond et al., Reference Bond, Child, de la Harpe and Child2004). Buffalo in particular is making a remarkable comeback in this country, with Hunting Areas within Niassa Special Reserve and Marromeu complex as sources of founders for reintroducing locally extinct or depleted buffalo populations in National Parks like Gilé and Zinave (Chardonnet et al., Reference Chardonnet, Fusari and Dias2017; Fusari et al., Reference Fusari, Lopes Pereira and Dias2017; Macandza et al., Reference Macandza, Bento and Roberto2017). Trophy hunting may be a viable alternative for Protected Area-based wildlife conservation in countries or areas where National Parks fail to protect their wildlife (e.g. Western et al., Reference Western, Russell and Cuthill2009), in regions of political instability, in remote wilderness areas, or where wildlife densities are low (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Alexander and Franket2006).

Conservation Funding from Buffalo Hunting

Not only are Hunting Areas the only Protected Areas that cost nothing to the State, they also provide funds to the State through leasing taxes, hunting taxes, income taxes, etc. that sustain wildlife administrations and, in several countries, even represent the main source of income for the wildlife administration. In Tanzania, while the funding of TANAPA (Tanzania National Parks, in charge of wildlife within National Parks) mainly comes from park entry fees, 80 per cent of the funding of TAWA (Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority, responsible for wildlife all over the country outside the jurisdiction of TANAPA) comes from hunting tourism (TAWA, 2019). Buffalo is the top tax-earning game in this country (TAWA, 2019), making it crucial for TAWA to maintain all of the Protected Areas other than National Parks in a country where 68 per cent of the Protected Areas rely on income from trophy hunting (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Allan and Brehony2020). In South Africa, becaue buffalo is the top income-earning game species for the hunting tourism sector (DEA, 2016; South African Professional Hunters statistics, 2019), it is a pillar sustaining the privately owned wildlife conservation areas. In this country, trophy hunting contributed more than €341 million and supported more than 17,000 employment opportunities in 2015/2016 (Saayman et al., Reference Saayman, van der Merwe and Saayman2018). In Zimbabwe, 80 per cent of the budget of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority comes from tourism, including trophy hunting (Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Allan and Brehony2020). In Benin, in 2018, the W National Park ecosystem earned 33 times more money from hunting tourism in the neighbouring Hunting Areas (which provide income to the State) than from photographic tourism within the National Park (which costs the State) with 25 times fewer hunting tourists (19) than photographic tourists (476) (PNW, 2019). In South Africa, in 2013, each foreign leisure hunter spent about €8250, that is about 14 times more than that spent by the average foreign tourist arriving by plane (Oberem and Oberem, Reference Oberem and Oberem2016). According to Hurt and Ravn (Reference Hurt, Ravn, Prins, Grootenhuis and Dolan2000), safari hunting produces an income per hectare some seven times higher than that from cattle or game ranching and from far fewer animals harvested. They also reckon that wildlife-viewing tourism can generate even higher returns, but only in areas that are scenic and have very high concentrations of wildlife, and from massive numbers of tourists (Earnshaw and Emerton, Reference Earnshaw, Emerton, Prins, Grootenhuis and Dolan2000). Lindsey et al. (Reference Lindsey, Balme, Booth and Midlane2012) hold a different view, observing that net returns from livestock in semi-arid African rangelands ($10–30/km²/year in areas with 400–800 ml of annual rainfall according to Norton-Griffiths Reference Norton-Griffiths2008) are similar to those from trophy hunting in some areas ($24–164/km²). However, they conclude that maximizing returns from hunting is key to ensuring the competitiveness of wildlife-based land uses.

Some critiques of the socioeconomic effects of trophy hunting suggest that its contributions to country-level gross domestic product (GDP) are small relative to non-hunting wildlife tourism (Ghasemi, Reference Ghasemi2021). ’t Sas-Rolfes et al. (Reference ’t Sas-Rolfes, Emslie, Adcock and Knight2022) disagree, arguing that the claim is misleading because national GDP contributions are a poor indicator in terms of both broader socioeconomic relevance and appropriate scale of analysis: (i) GDP metrics fail to consider essential ecosystems services and natural capital (Costanza et al., Reference Costanza, d’Arge and de Groo1997) and (ii) nation states are an arbitrary level at which to make such assessments. More relevant are the global benefits of effective species conservation and ecosystem services provided by intact habitats, functionally populated with large game, and the more localized benefits that flow to specific rural landowners and communities, who are thereby incentivized to actively support conservation (’t Sas-Rolfes et al., Reference ’t Sas-Rolfes, Emslie, Adcock and Knight2022).

Overall, hunting tourism drives a virtuous chain with financial flows of hard currency originating from developed countries (tourist-emitting countries) and directed to developing countries (tourist-receiving countries), from wealthy individuals to poorer people, and supporting vast conservation areas and local communities, as well as providing States of the South with revenues from their renewable natural resources.

Buffalo Hunting Sustaining Livelihood

When sustainable, consumptive utilization of wildlife can promote conservation beyond the borders of National Parks while at the same time generating revenue for local communities (Crosmary et al., Reference Crosmary, Côté and Fritz2015a). Where properly managed, trophy hunting can provide income for impoverished and often landlocked rural communities (IUCN, 2016), that is royalties, employment, venison, community infrastructures, social services, etc. Namibia is one of the best examples in this regard, well ahead of many other countries. Trophy hunting finances the budgets of 82 communal conservancies, which cover ~20 per cent of the country (162,000 km²) and encompass ~189,000 community members, or 9 per cent of Namibia’s population (Naidoo et al., Reference Naidoo, Weaver and Diggle2016). However, a number of other countries or areas are not as successful for various reasons, for example when the benefits from hunting are captured by local elites (Leader-Williams et al., Reference Leader-Williams, Baldus, Smith, Dickson, Hutton and Adams2009) or when the benefits are substantial at the community level but too small at the household level. In northern Cameroon, Mayaka et al. (Reference Mayaka, Hendricks, Wesseler and Prins2005) proposed a series of recommendations to improve the benefits of wildlife harvesting, notably by increasing the return to local communities for resource custodianship. In the same area, Akito Yasuda (Reference Yasuda2011) pointed out that while sport hunting certainly generates tax revenues and provides profit sharing and employment opportunities to local communities, the latter two are too limited and inequitably distributed in the community. Similarly, in south-eastern Zimbabwe, Poshiwa et al. (Reference Poshiwa, Groeneveld, Heitkönig, Prins and van Ierland2013) described the benefits of wildlife tourism but emphasized their limited magnitude. Because high levels of poverty (Matseketsa et al., Reference Matseketsa, Krüger and Gandiwa2022) and poor governance, such as the leakage of hunting revenues for communities (Burn et al., Reference Burn, Underwood and Blanc2011), are powerful drivers to poaching by local communities, the allocation of sufficient benefits of Hunting Areas to communities is an absolute critical factor for a successful deal between the local community (living on the land), the State (owning the land) and the hunting operator (protecting and valorizing the land).

Access to natural resources is also important for the livelihoods of local communities. In northern Cameroon, populations complain that locals’ rights over natural resource use are regulated (Akito Yasuda, Reference Yasuda2011). However, while National Parks are strict exclusion areas for local communities, most Hunting Areas are less stringent and allow for some activities by local communities, such as harvesting firewood and non-timber forest products.

Finally, concerns about the negative cultural and environmental impacts of tourism are growing with mass wildlife tourism in Africa (Spenceley, Reference Spenceley2005; Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Roulet and Romañach2007), for example in the Okavango Delta, Botswana (Mbaiwa, Reference Mbaiwa2003). However, due to their very small number, the impacts of hunting clients, such as habitat conversion for infrastructure development and all sorts of pollution, are considerably lower compared to mass tourism.

Ill-Managed Hunting Undermines Well-Managed Hunting

There have been and there are cases of hunting poorly conducted by some hunting operators and of hunting sectors poorly regulated by some wildlife administrations (IUCN, 2016). A variety of problems may hamper the proper functioning of the hunting tourism industry and undermine the conservation role of sustainable wildlife utilization, for example depending on countries, poor governance of the hunting sector (Burn et al., Reference Burn, Underwood and Blanc2011), lack of professionalism in the administration and control of the hunting activity (Booth and Chardonnet, Reference Booth and Chardonnet2015) and risk of corruption (Leader-Williams et al., Reference Leader-Williams, Baldus, Smith, Dickson, Hutton and Adams2009). We concur with Lindsey et al. (Reference Lindsey, Roulet and Romañach2007) that the inequitable distribution of hunting revenues represents the most serious threat to the long-term sustainability of the industry. In some countries, there is insufficient sharing of hunting taxes by government administrations reluctant to decentralize and empower communities. Too often, benefits are centralized into the hands of elites or captured by local rulers so that promises from trophy hunting fail to materialize at the grassroots level (Nelson et al., Reference Nelson, Nshala and Rodgers2007). In a number of situations, the management of Hunting Areas certainly needs to be improved. One failure, for example, is the reduction of anti-poaching activity outside the hunting season. Another is the lack of proper monitoring by hunting operators, which weakens their credibility and constraints the sustainability of the activity (Selier and Di Minin, Reference Selier and Di Minin2015). Nevertheless, all of these problems are far from being specific to the hunting industry, they are also fully shared by other industries, including photographic ecotourism (Christie and Crompton, Reference Christie and Crompton2001; Walpole and Thouless, Reference Walpole, Thouless, Woodroffe, Thirgood and Rabinowitz2005). Finally, poorly managed trophy hunting can cause local wild population declines (Packer et al., Reference Packer, Brink and Kissui2011). However, in the case of buffalo, no example is known of a buffalo population driven to extinction by hunting tourism, while poaching is well recognized as being responsible for many local extinctions across the buffalo’s range.

Poaching Versus Hunting

The African buffalo does not give the impression of being a fragile animal. However, it is indeed extremely sensitive to poaching, notably because it is quite easy to stalk on foot provided you strictly approach against the wind. The buffalo shows little resilience under poaching pressure. Poaching means limitless and indiscriminate offtake of any kind of buffalo, whatever sex and age, whereas tourism hunting harvests a tiny percentage of only old bulls (Table 16.4). Legal and illegal hunting are mutually exclusive: where poaching flourishes, hunting tourism deteriorates and even fails. Just like National Parks, Hunting Areas require anti-poaching engagement to be protected and avoid wildlife depletion.

Hunting Bans and the Future of Buffalo

One of the biggest challenges facing the hunting industry is the prescriptive unilateral decision by Western countries to ban imports of hunting trophies from Africa (Ares, Reference Ares2019), which could have a long-lasting negative impact on many economies, and in turn on conservation, in Africa (Snyman et al., Reference Snyman, Sumba and Vorhies2021). For local communities in northern Botswana, the safari hunting ban of 2014 led to a reduction of tourism benefits to local communities, for example income, employment opportunities, social services and scholarships. This led to the development of negative attitudes by community-based organizations of rural residents towards wildlife conservation and to an increase in incidents of poaching (Mbaiwa, Reference Mbaiwa2018; Blackie, Reference Blackie2019; Strong and Silva, Reference Strong and Silva2020). For game ranchers and other owners of private conservation areas in South Africa, most believe that the economic viability of their enterprises, biodiversity conservation and the livelihoods of owners and employees would be lost following a hunting ban (Parker et al., Reference Parker, De Vos and Clements2020). Without hunting activity, most Hunting Areas would no longer protect buffalo, which means that the persistence of buffalo outside of National Parks would be short-lived, as experienced in CAR after the 2012 political events when buffalo was one of the first large mammals to disappear from the Hunting Areas (Matthieu Laboureur, personal communication). With the authoritarian restrictions by Western countries on imports of elephant and lion hunting trophies from Africa, many Hunting Areas were returned to the governments in Tanzania and Zambia. Without funding or surveillance, these areas are left to poaching, greatly impacting the fate of buffalo.

Hunting trophies import bans dictated by some northern countries without an alternative global conservation framework providing conservation incentives will likely reverse the gains in wildlife conservation and rural development in some southern countries where sustainable utilization is an integral part of the wildlife conservation practice (e.g. Di Minin et al., Reference Di Minin, Leader-Williams and Bradshaw2016; Dickman et al., Reference Dickman, Cooney and Johnson2019; Nyamayedenga et al., Reference Nyamayedenga, Mashapa, Chateya and Gandiwa2021). Where trophy hunting is planned to end, alternatives should be implemented to avoid land conversion and biodiversity loss in Hunting Areas (Di Minin et al., Reference Di Minin, MacMillan and Goodman2013). However, most of these areas appear unsuitable for alternative wildlife-based land uses such as photographic ecotourism because of, for example, difficult and expensive access, absence of infrastructure, lack of attractive scenery and of high densities of viewable wildlife (Wilkie and Carpenter, Reference Wilkie and Carpenter1999; Lindsey et al., Reference Lindsey, Alexander and Franket2006; Winterbach et al., Reference Winterbach, Whitesell and Somers2015). IUCN (2016) states that unless better land-use alternatives exist, hunting reforms should be prioritized over bans, while such reforms have proved effective (Booth and Chardonnet, Reference Booth and Chardonnet2015; Begg et al., Reference Begg, Miller and Begg2018).

Surprisingly, bans and restrictions on importing hunting trophies of game species listed on CITES Appendices diverted the attention of the hunting industry to buffalo, a non-CITES-listed species. While becoming a new focus, the buffalo has either reinforced or taken the lead as a flagship game in an attempt to compensate the loss of CITES-listed game, even though it does not attract as much income. Buffalo hunting does not draw much public awareness, in contrast with the hunting of the four other representatives of the Big Five, a bit like the wild boar in Europe compared to red deer or chamois. Therefore, the less-charismatic member of the Big Five is now gaining more importance for sustaining Hunting Areas and for wildlife conservation outside National Parks. In other words, from a commodity game, buffalo is turning out to be a high-value game species.

In 2021, Van Houdt et al. surveyed international networks to investigate the divergent views on trophy hunting in Africa. Unlike European respondents, African respondents showed significantly more support for trophy hunting and, unlike North Americans, African respondents supported external subsidies of wildlife areas presently funded by hunting. Oddly, while Europeans and North Americans carry out trophy hunting in their own countries, they tend to oppose it in African countries. The inquiry concluded that policies on African hunting should better integrate African perspectives, in particular those of rural communities (Van Houdt et al., Reference Van Houdt, Brown and Wanger2021). While opponents to hunting tourism in Africa often qualify this activity as a colonial relic, it cannot be denied that most Protected Areas have deep roots in the colonial period, either National Parks for wildlife viewing tourism or Hunting Areas for hunting tourism, ‘but that makes it even more important that today, the decisions-making and rights of African countries and communities are respected; Westerners must not continue to externally impose their own ideals upon Africans, such as pushing trophy hunting bans and restrictions’ (Dickman et al., Reference Dickman, Child, Hart and Semcer2021). A group of African countries called for a ‘New Deal’ for rural communities (Southern Africa Trust, 2019) that allows them to achieve the self-determination to sustainably manage wildlife and reduce poverty. Dickman et al. (Reference Dickman, Cooney and Johnson2019) stated that it is incumbent on the international community not to undermine that. More recently, in response to the call of a UK parliamentary committee in 2022 for ending trophy hunting in Africa (but not in the UK), the Community Leaders Network of Southern Africa responded: ‘It’s a form of colonialism to tell us Africans what to do with our wildlife’ (Louis, Reference Louis2022).