Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
tions in part to limit the ultimate population density they might reach, such territoriality
provides a potentially critical advantage to any scheme in which local communities would
limit their own harvest rates and to protect their musk deer from outsiders who might
free-ride on the system. With the price of each male musk deer so high, it would be dif-
ficult to manage a sustainable harvest if individual pastoralists were allowed to compete
against each other, or to procure for themselves the entire benefit of killing one. However,
if entire communities took on the burden of caring for musk deer habitat and protecting
local musk deer from poaching, and if financial benefits were distributed in some fair
way among community members, a community-based harvest system might well be
economically attractive.
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But the sustainability of even a community-based system could
be tenuous if there were a mismatch of spatial scales between the typical size of a male
musk deer's territory and the typical size of an area that could be defended from human
incursions. In the case of musk deer, the spatial scale would seem to be just right, offering
the potential for naturally bounded human communities to identify forest patches that
logically “belonged” to them, and therefore to identify, protect, and potentially harvest
“their” musk deer.
Clearly, the devil of such community-based harvest schemes would still reside in the
details. How much (if any) reduction in grazing pressure from domestic livestock (or
protection from excessive timber harvest) would be necessary to maintain a sufficiently
dense musk deer population? Could such forgone financial benefits be compensated by
the sale of musk? How would financial benefits from musk deer living in a community-
managed area be allocated among community members? How would purchasing agents
distinguish between presumably legal community-generated musk and presumably illegal
poached musk? Would it be necessary to initiate active patrols to guard against poaching
(both from within the community and from outsiders), or would the presence of herders'
eyes, already routinely in the field, be sufficient to deter poaching? There is little doubt
that a high degree of social cohesion and coordination would underlie any such system,
at least on the village level. As well, government oversight, in the form of a more highly
developed wildlife management bureau, would probably become necessary.
Alas, the current direction of Chinese policy suggests that we will never get a chance to
find out just how difficult these questions are to resolve. Despite the continued interest in
musk as a traditional Chinese medicine, there appears to be little support for the concept
of proceeding along the lines suggested above (and indeed, in many areas, it is probably
already too late, the musk deer populations having declined to densities that require restora-
tion before any harvest could be considered). To the degree that attempts are being made
to cope with the current demand for musk, Chinese policy appears to have given up on the
potential for wild habitats in the forested or shrubby regions of the west to satisfy it.
FROM THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE:
PRZEWALSKI'S GAZELLE
Where a once more widespread species has become quite rare, either through human
habitat alteration or overexploitation, a logical assumption would be that the relict popu-
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