Leopard Panthera pardus are an economically valuable asset and when used in sustainable consumptive use programs can provide tangible benefits to communities to improve human livelihoods and the conservation of the species. Sport hunting is increasingly proposed as a tool to generate funds to support the conservation of leopard and other large carnivores. However, to assess the value of sport hunting as a conservation tool it is critical to understand its economic impact and ensure that the off-takes are sustainable. In this study I assessed the conservation status of leopard and the ecological sustainability of legal and illegal off-take in Niassa National Reserve (NNR) the largest protected area, 42,000 km2, in Mozambique, which is inhabited by 35,000 people. I also investigated whether the revenues from leopard sport hunting off-set the costs of depredation on livestock in local communities and individual benefits from poaching by local hunters. To perform this study, I interviewed hunting operators and villagers, collected camera trapping data, and analyzed long-term leopard sport hunting data. Leopard had high value for sport hunters, however, the economic benefits from the legal hunting did not off-set the costs from livestock depredation and did not compete with benefits from the illegal hunting which accrued to individuals at the household level. Leopard population densities in Niassa Reserve were comparable with the study sites in central and southern Africa. The numbers of leopard legally hunted in NNR appear to be ecologically sustainable, however a high percentage of the leopard taken as trophies were under the recommended age of seven years. The illegal off-take was unsustainable and resulting in high turnover and combined with the operators’ off-take is likely to be negatively affecting leopard populations. For the future ecological and economic sustainability of leopard quotas, I recommend improvements in the distribution of economic benefits and creating economic incentives to encourage villagers not to engage in the illegal hunting and quantification and inclusion of the illegal off-take in the annual quotas. My study also indicates the need to zone community and wildlife areas in NNR to reduce the anthropogenic effects on leopard and other carnivore populations. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2012.

The majority of the rural population in developing countries sustains their livelihoods through small-scale family farming on subsistence level. However, agricultural productivity is far from its potential and food insecurity and high absolute poverty rates are widespread challenges in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), including Mozambique. Global actors, such as the World Bank (WB), frequently publish policy guidelines, strategy papers and reports, all aiming at tackling the focal problem of low agricultural productivity and claiming to be dedicated to the overall goal of economic, social, inclusive and sustainable development. But as agricultural productivity rates in many developing countries remain low, and food insecurity rates have been high for several decades, the adequacy of global policy guidelines for local structures, conditions and needs is questionable. The aim of this study is therefore to analyze the suitability of and identify possible discrepancies between global strategies – that claim to raise agricultural productivity and food security – and the local level. A strong emphasis is placed on a people-centered, local grassroots perspective. To gather data, a five-week field study in Lago District, Mozambique, was carried out, following an abductive approach and using semi-structured interviews on household level, and with a variety of other stakeholders from the public and private sector. The Logical Framework Approach was applied to structure the findings from the WB report and from the field work, with the aim to create a basis for the analysis and comparison of that data, which provides an answer to the research problem of the suitability of global policies on local level. Additional analytical guidance is provided by the concept of human security and a gender perspective. Conclusions from the study demonstrate that the neoliberal point of departure and the different understandings of small-scale farming underlying the problem and objective of (low) agricultural productivity rates identified by the WB, are not coherent in comparison to the local situation identified in Lago District. The development interventions suggested by the WB rather tend to be an obstacle for sustainable rural and agricultural development, as well as local food security/sovereignty, poverty alleviation and inclusive economic growth in the context of Lago District.