The Importance of Ethics in Wildlife Conservation

In the face of rapidly declining populations of wildlife, humans have an obligation to protect a species that defines the African landscape and its people. The obligation and decision to act is an ethical one. Over the decades, human scientists, researchers, conservationists and local people living among wild animals, have acquired a prodigious amount of knowledge and information on them, but it is in the field of ethics that informs us what to do with that knowledge. Given that we know many wild species in Africa are facing an existential crisis, our overriding duty as humans is to save them before it’s too late. 

However, the field of ethics is not an exact science, it is governed by value systems and choices that differ widely among humans.

Consider, for example, these two statements: ‘Voortrekker was an elephant who was killed by a trophy hunter’ and ‘It was wrong to kill Voortrekker’. The first is a truth statement – Voortrekker was indeed an elephant who was killed by a trophy hunter. The second, is an ethical one and cannot be regarded as a fact because while it may have been wrong to kill Voortrekker given that we know elephants are in decline, in certain circumstances, some may think it was the right choice.

The Ethical Dilemma: Voortrekker’s Death and the Human-Elephant Conflict in Namibia

Voortrekker was killed because he was deemed a threat to impoverished local human communities in north-west Namibia. He had been destroying crops and would likely injure or kill a human trying to defend their crops. The government authorities held the view that the moral standing of humans trumps that of elephants – it was either the potential death of a human or the death of an elephant that governed their ethical choice.

Some of us disagree with that choice. Many may feel that elephants have a moral standing similar to humans, and in at least one African culture, elephants are scarce and that killing them under any circumstances is wrong. And while this view may not place elephants on a higher moral standing to humans, the feeling instead is perhaps there were other non-lethal choices the Namibian authorities could have explored, which would have saved both Voortrekker and the potential harm to humans. 

Others, however, would counter that the death of Voortrekker could generate funds (the proceeds from the trophy hunter who paid to shoot him), which could be used to save more elephants from being killed, such as building or electrifying a fence to keep them away from human settlements and perhaps pay those communities as compensation for their losses. This is a utilitarian choice, one which argues that by killing one, many are saved and people benefit.

The Ethical Dilemma of Conservation: Balancing Value Systems and Consequences

In other words, the field of ethics involves differing value systems on how best to act. The problem though is to determine which of these is best. One way to do that is by analysing the consequences of each choice. Killing Voortrekker, a prime breeding bull, and other males that potentially could harm humans, may have severe consequences on the future survival of the population of elephants in north-west Namibia – the so-called desert elephants. Studies have shown that there are only a few dozen left and killing just one, especially a breeding male, could tip their survival rates over the edge. Furthermore, funds generated from trophy hunting or selling ivory rarely gets ploughed back into conservation, nor benefits local communities. Ethically, this calls for a better solution, one that is debated ad nauseum in conservation circles.

However, while debates rage over which course of action to take, most conservationists these days do agree on one ethical requirement: the key to successful wildlife conservation must include both humans and wild species. Providing ethical consideration for wildlife without including humans leads to all sorts of problems, chief among them the exclusion of local communities from participating in the conservation of wildlife. Fencing off wildlife and excluding surrounding human communities (what is known as ‘fortress conservation’) leads to alienation and eventually antagonisation which fosters poaching and even violence.

The Crucial Role of Local Communities in Wildlife Conservation

Therefore, wildlife conservation ultimately requires the consonant participation of local communities. If wildlife is to benefit from protection, poor communities ought to be considered too. The remaining question is: How?

Dr Adam Cruise