WP2

About institutional aspects of hunting in Europe & Eastern Africa

• On the multufunctionality of hunting - an institutional analysis of eight cases from Europe and Africa
• The vertical dimension - Interplay between institutions at different levels, and the influence of international policies on local governance
• The horizontal dimension: Interplay between institutions and institutional change at the local level
• The "scenario workshop" method - a participatory tool to develop governance approaches to address conflicts over hunting and wildlife management

 

Depletion of resources and loss of biodiversity has led to an increasing political interest in addressing these issues at all levels of governance from the global to the local. A number of resent international agreements and treaties point out the need for biodiversity conservation and sustainable (wildlife) management. However, this growing engagement has also revealed inherent conflicts over biodiversity management, conflicts that are often attributed to the clash between biocentric and anthropocentric values. One example of a source of conflict is the opposing rules and regulations between conservation policies and hunting rights, which may often interfere with established practices at local, national and international levels. In addition conflicts may arise between international and local levels of government, where global long-term interests may conflict with local immediate needs.

WP2 analyses how institutional arrangements and institutional change, i.e. the rules of the game, influence hunting, the game itself, and also how these rules are perceived and interpreted by the players.