University of Kent academic calls for national wildlife strategy

27/11/2009 17:24:15 Road traffic accidents involving deer on the rise
November 2009. Douglas MacMillan, Professor in Conservation and Applied Resource Economics at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), University of Kent, has suggested that the UK needs to align itself with most other European countries and develop a national strategy for managing wildlife that aims to deliver social and economic benefits to local areas.

£100 million reward for rural communities
Overall, he has estimated that a national strategy to tackle the rising wildlife population and its associated costs would inject over £100 million into remoter rural areas of the country, creating employment and prosperity for hard-pressed communities.

Road traffic accidents with deer
In many parts of Great Britain, wildlife populations are increasing and as a consequence so are the financial, environmental and social costs associated with them. These include serious road traffic accidents with wild deer, whose populations have doubled in the last 30 years and damage to agricultural crops by wild geese, whose numbers have tripled over a similar period. The economic cost from deer-related road traffic accidents in England alone, due to injury, death and damage, is estimated to be in excess of £10 million per annum.

Archaic anti-poaching laws
Professor MacMillan has studied the economic impact of wildlife in the UK for 20 years and he believes the government needs to redefine archaic anti-poaching laws and gold-plated conservation protection if we are to successfully tackle human-wildlife conflict in the UK.

He said: ‘We need legislation and policies that encourage the sustainable use of wild animals in order to control ever-increasing populations. Current legislation handicaps land managers' ability to achieve this because it is intended to restrict hunting, not promote it.'

Win win situation
Professor MacMillan has suggested that unless something is done, direct intervention by the public sector in wildlife management will increasingly be required across both public and private lands, with the bill sent to the taxpayer. However, legislative reform to apportion legal responsibility for wildlife management, with associated rights to manage the species sustainably, would create a win-win solution because landowners would be encouraged and empowered to manage wildlife species for economic gain by, for example, bringing in hunters to shoot, which in turn would bring significant economic benefits to the entire local economy.

Courtesy of The University of Kent,