Wildlife Conservation Policy

This is a book on wildlife conservation policy. It aims to bring some understanding to the obscure but vitally important, area of conservation policy; it discusses what we in the conservation community need to uphold and defend if wildlife is to thrive, if biodiversity is to be maintained, if natural renewable resources, of which wildlife is a part, are to be used in a sustainable fashion. In this, the North American system of wildlife conservation and management holds important lessons. This book focuses on an ongoing, but ancient, struggle between public and private ownership of wildlife. Historically, wildlife has been a pawn in the eternal battle between the rich and powerful and the not-so-wealthy of modest political power. Today's tensions arise not only from private interests gaining on public ones in the area of wildlife conservation and the negative consequences that entails, but also from the inadequate application of available knowledge to decisions on this matter.