Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 8.2
Approximate Allocation of Foreign Hunter Fees/Argali Trophy to Each Administrative
Level, Chinese Gansu Argali Hunting Program, 1997-98, According to Local Officials*
Funds
allocated
Funds remaining for
next lower level
Percentage
Use
Paid by foreign hunter
21,500
15% of 21,500
3,225
Foreign booking (Commission)
18,275
16% of 18,275
2,924
CITES, Export/ Import (Admin.)
15,351
20%
3,070
National level
}
30% of 15,351
4,605
Provincial level
5%
768
Prefecture level
6,908
50% of 6,908
3,454
General county funds
3,454
74% of 3,454
2,400
Aksai hunt expenses
~1,054
1,054 Conservation in Aksai
*Hunters participating in groups were charged $19,500 each (rather than $21,500 illustrated here). All
figures are U.S. dollars. (Adapted from Harris and Pletscher 2002.)
were subject to a 22 percent national tax. Thus, funds available to the Dulan hunting area
amounted to approximately 22.6 percent (i.e., 29% x 78%) of the total reaching China.
As in Gansu, all local expenses required to outfit the hunt were Dulan's responsibility,
and generally amounted to $1,500 to $2,500 per hunt.
However, unlike in Gansu, very few hunters in Dulan have sought or killed high-priced
argali; the main species hunted have been blue sheep, and some hunters have added smaller
trophies from Tibetan gazelles. Under this funding scheme, if a foreign hunter wished to
travel individually to Dulan with the intent of killing a single blue sheep, the Dulan hunting
area would receive only approximately $1,518 ($7,900 x 85% x 22.6%), and would thus
operate at a loss (see Table 8.3). In practice, Beijing-based agents usually combined such
individual hunters into groups, and most hunters added other species, so that such losses
were rarely incurred (although even for a pair of hunters, net revenue to Dulan would be
only about $2,495, barely breaking even). Still, that the system—ostensibly developed to
provide high value to local people in exchange for protecting a resource that they might
otherwise use—even allowed for the possibility that funds transfer would run in reverse
(i.e., that a rural county operation would essentially subsidize a foreign hunter rather than
the other way round), suggests a problem, to say the least. (This inverted Robin Hood
dynamic would, in all likelihood, not be evident to a hunter who had paid $7,900 plus
airfare and other travel expenses to shoot a single animal.)
Dulan also differed from the Gansu hunting areas in its scope. Because it had focused
on blue sheep, because blue sheep were (and continue to be) far more numerous than
argali, because they are priced much lower, and possibly because Americans had not been
prohibited by U.S. law from bringing their trophies back home, the number of foreign
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