ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the history of three of the four stages in the political economy of wildlife including the pre-modern wildlife economy, the destruction of wildlife on the frontier of the Industrial Revolution, and the public management and nationalisation of wildlife and wildlands. It describes the models that have emerged, including public protected areas (the Yellowstone Model for National Parks), the public management of wildlife outside parks (the North American Model for Wildlife Management), and the transfer of these principles to African wildlife through the London Convention, with parallels through the nationalisation of community lands and forests. Many of the current controversies over wildlife conservation approaches, including the acrimonious debate about hunting, have emerged because the public governance of wildlife and wildlands in the tropics is no longer aligned with contemporary conditions.
