ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a broad overview of why policies for wild resources may be delivering the wrong outcomes. Governing wildlife as a public good on private or community land outside parks is an idea that has failed, and has failed catastrophically. The pressures of demography and a global economy shine an ever harsher light on the underlying deficiencies of the misfit between public goods on non-public land. Demographic growth is fastest in rural areas where people are poor and women are disempowered. Urban slums in Africa, Latin America, and Asia have absorbed some of this demographic growth. The institutions for governing wild resources are so egregious that we waste resources while over-utilising them. The use of wildlife, and its democratisation, are both controversial. Wildlife became a public good, not the property of the local people who had lived with it since time immemorial. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
