A FUTURE FOR WILDLIFE IN WESTERN CHINA - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 217

Figure 10.2 A conceptual diagram of the potential for net social benefit of a commercial hunt
for species of high value, where wild habitat is assumed to be prioritized as part
and parcel of allowing the harvest. The best argument (top, back) can be made
where the biological risk of added human mortality is low, the cultural benefit
from obtaining the wild product high, and the ability to control the harvesting and
marketing of the product high. Worst prospects (bottom, front) are at the opposing
set of conditions.
of the marketed product forms a critical third dimension to this model. 10 The vertical
axis in Figure 10.2 is essentially a measure of the strength of property rights, which
in this case would presumably be land use and access control by a community of local
citizens (rather than the absolute rights of an individual owner, as often assumed in
Western economics).
In suggesting the potential of commerce in wild areas to aid in conservation, I do not
wish to minimize the risks. If North American furbearers have thrived despite a market in
their pelts, it is not so much because markets per se have served as incentives for conserva-
tion as because other factors (institutional or cultural) have interceded to provide for their
needs. If demand and/or technology is high—thus fueling a tendency toward overharvest
or even extirpation—the social institutions favoring long-term over short-term use must
be that much stronger. Human communities must be able to effectively provide habitats
for the species they benefit from, and simultaneously police those habitats to exclude free
riders. It is far from inevitable that these conditions will be met.