ABSTRACT
Africa has more savanna than any other continent. Evolution, habitat diversity and stochasticity have given rise to a diversity of large mammals unrivalled by any other continent, over 90 in all. However, this wildlife is being rapidly lost both outside and inside protected areas, often replaced by a few species of domestic animals and by domestic plants. This raises the question of why Africa’s wildlife is being lost when it is obviously a unique and valuable resource well-suited to Africa’s climates and ecosystems. It also raises the question of the institutional misfit, whereby control and benefits are national or global whereas costs are local and local people in the final analysis determine land use and wildlife outcomes. The challenge is how to govern a fugitive, mobile and potentially valuable resource that imposes costs as well as benefits on landholders, but which has long been treated as a national or global resource.
