ABSTRACT
This paper is a commentary on the suitability of using law in wildlife management, and on the role that the law can play in conservation and management of wildlife and wildlife resources. It is based on the hypothesis that law is an important tool for regulating social conduct and enforcing policy, and can play an important role in achieving sustainable wildlife management. The author holds the view that having no law at all, or having irrelevant, unsuitable, inappropriate and ineffective laws is unhelpful, and will in the end be counter-productive and a liability to the conservation agenda. The paper has critically addressed these concerns. Being a commentary, it presents the author’s personal views and opinion(s), but also draws from documented research and diverse views of other researchers, scholars, and commentators on the subject. It has also drawn from literature survey and arm-chair study, as well as views and information gathered by the author in previous research whose data and findings have been published. Virtually all societies, from the primitive society to the modern society, have had some form of law or legal ordering; with informal legal ordering in the former and more formalized laws in the latter. The enterprise of law (legal ordering) is so crucial that it has permeated all sectors of society and aspects of life, in such a way that a society without law is unfathomable. Laws have been used from time immemorial including the antecedent biblical times for: Societal ordering; defining rights and duties; prescribing standards for actions and conduct; proscribing harmful and undesirable conduct; punishing undesirable and prohibited conduct; addressing society’s problems; establishing mechanisms for dispute adjudication and dispute resolution; as well as reconciling and mitigating competing (and often conflicting) interests. Admittedly, law has permeated all sectors of society, including the wildlife sector; such that there are rules, regulations and laws on wildlife. This is to the extent that there has even developed a genre of law that may be described as wildlife management law, or simply wildlife law; with its own professionals, its own textbooks, and its own jurisprudence. This law has provisions: On wildlife ownership and use; for establishing wildlife agencies and spelling out their respective duties; for protecting wildlife from harm, especially that arising from human conduct and activities; for protecting wildlife habitats from encroachment by humans; and for mitigating the negative costs of wildlife such as competition for resources as well as wildlife predation and depredation. While law has some advantages that make it suitable for that purpose, it also has certain limitations. There are also several factors that determine or affect the effectiveness of laws (determinants)—mainly institutional ones. In that even with properly formulated laws, for law to be effective and play its intended role, there is need for those factors (determinants) to be addressed. They include: The relevance and suitability of the particular laws to the local circumstances of the locality in which they are applied; the acceptability of such laws to stakeholders and the general public; whether those laws set up effective mechanisms for dispute adjudication and dispute settlement; whether those laws are backed with appropriate policy frameworks and effective institutional arrangements.