Where there are needs, there are opportunities.

Profile This is a paper describing, in ways that may not be expected, our perspective on what Wild Harvest needs to address questions about the monetary values of wild flora and fauna. While we do express tactics, the paper is about a national strategy for Senegal, one moving toward a sophisticated, dynamic, rural system. We believe it is possible to create a premiere wild biotic resource system for the country, one that is changing, profitable over time, and perhaps exemplary for the world.

by Alioune Diallo Chargé de Programme Ambassade Royale des Pays-Bas 37, Rue Kléber BP 3262 Dakar email: alioune.diallo@minbuza.nl and Robert H. Giles, Jr., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech Home: 504 Rose Avenue, Blacksburg, VA, USA 24060 email: RHGiles@RuralSystem.com

The Foundation of the Strategy

We apologize for possible redundancies herein but we have become aware of the great differences among people in their understanding and perception of the wildlife resource system. The foundation for this document is needed for a common understanding of major dimensions of that resource and for progressive solutions for the future.

1. While we approve of and depend on ecology (the study of the relations of plants and animals to each other and to their environment), we first work with a terrestrial biotic resource system. It is a system of land animals to be restored, created, managed, and stabilized at a high, constrained level.
2. It is limited to terrestrial only to the extent that aquatic resources, particularly oceanic fish, crustacean, and mammal resources need to be further integrated as a subsytem. Aquatic plants and animals are inseparable from those that are terrestrial (e.g., fish as terrestrial animal foods), and must be managed together.
3. It is biotic in emphasis, considering both wild plants and animals, totally integrated with and dependent on the litho-, atmo-, hydro-, and eco-spheric domains ... all linked by energetic flows.

4. A sketch of a general system relevant for analyzing and designing a strategy for the rural future of Senegal

   It is resource oriented with decisions and actions taken to produce and control valued and perceived supplies of goods, services, and opportunities within limits for net human benefits
5. It is general systems oriented. Some call it "a closed system" for it is concentrated on Senegal, but we are fully aware that in the next analytical moment it will be treated as a different system, larger or smaller as related to other systems.
6. It is values oriented, but specifically financial as within "gross domestic product." Its calculus is expected net discounted gains over time, that is, net present value, profit. We strongly hold the importance of the religious, spiritual, cultural, historic, ethical, and esthetic dimensions of wild plants and animals but we think that most of these can only be manifest or experienced if the populations are present, well cared for, and managed. "For profit" in no way detracts from the importance or value of wild life but is the index of an effective system perpetuated so that all of these benefits can be experienced by a diverse local and visiting human population likely to be changing in its valuations over time. Reasonably stable biotic resource benefits available to people can be seen as conditional upon profit. Evidence is available that grant-based funding, even government funding, is unstable and thus ecological communities that are dependent on stable management (requiring stable funding for expertise, equipment, etc.) are in continual jeopardy.
7. Although some people will argue that wild animals and plants should not be managed or that if managed, they are no longer "wild" we deal with them as a resource in a changing, human-influenced world, where no communities any longer are "natural" and where wild or semi-domesticated systems must be managed to reduce losses, risks, and problems and simultaneously to make gains from the products and services of things now known to be resources. Predation, crop losses, allergens, or rampant disease vectors, all major aspects of these resources, are generally unacceptable in society and are to be reduced. There are others aspects of nature that will become positive dimensions of these resources after ideas emerge and research findings are used.
8. About wild flora and wild fauna, our proposal is really about protecting and improving local conditions and their people.
   
9. Easily lost to the large populations of people in cities is the direct relationship between the Senegal cook stove and the future of wild plants and wild animals and a potential rural economy built upon them.

   Charcoal, a major energy source after the occurrence of discouraging urban methane house-fires, destroys forests that are essential for stabilizing the land, improving the water balance, and gaining other lasting economic benefits such as those from under-story plants and foraging wild animals.

   In slow-growing conditions, with prior land use abuses, trees are over harvested to produce charcoal. The dictum is well known: animals are a function of their environment. Continued use of charcoal is a direct route to destroying that environment for the very long future. A "wild harvest" of any kind requires strategies to reduce wood harvests for charcoal. This, at minimum, requires efficient stoves, use of natural gas, use of wind and solar energy, recycling, and new processing of foods and menus to reduce cooking time. The distance between an improved stove and a profitable wild faunal and floral resource seems very great. It is not.
   
10. The litany of need for human population control and its use of resources is long. We agree, and believe that improving economic development, education, and quality of life for people tends to produce incentives for such control. There is evidence for the needs for improving land use practices and reducing intensity of use, both of which will enhance conditions for greater biotic diversity and abundance....improvements for human quality of life.
    
11. Unlike conventional business that may have a financial planning horizon of 30 years, natural resource policies must engage the very long term future, at least the advanced age of forest trees, elephants, and topsoil development. We propose using 150 years as a minimum planning horizon and with computer planning systems, slide plans along one year, each year.

Questions

"How far is it to Nikolakoba Park (from Dakar)?" may be asked. "It depends!" is the answer... on many things: time or distance?, what units of measure?, how confident?, how precise? direct-line or road? center or near-side boundary?, ...and others. Framing a proper question in resource management is equally difficult and has the same uncertainties. Asking the wrong questions leads to partial or wrong answers. Perhaps this paper will help ask appropriate questions, perhaps supply some answers to a persistent worrry that has perplexed many groups for a century.

That question is about the worth of wildlife and the appropriate amounts of government investment that should be made. We know of at least 26 published ways, Table 1, to estimate wild faunal values. All are limited; all are fairly specific for use; all have been criticized. We take seriously the creative work as well as the critiques.

Table 1 . Possible means by which monetary or related values may be assigned to fauna. Each has relevance only in a situation.

Maximum Benefit: "Saved at all cost" implies they are of infinitely great value, at least in modern terms, billions of dollars Comparative Richness: This area has more species so it is more valuable than another area, at least by a stated amount. Gross Tax Base: The managed increase in fauna results in increased real estate value, tourism, etc. that increase the tax base. The addition to the base is the minimum worth of the animals or the return on the managerial investment. Gross Land Value: Wildlife enhances or reduces land value. The differences from local lands with or without it may be instructive. Reduced Costs: Managed birds populations reduce pests, enhance nutrient uptake, distribute seeds, improve water percolation, reduce erosion, all having equivalent costs if actions are not performed or if the animals are absent. Direct Worth: Purchase of hides, antlers, trophy mounts, flesh, bushmeats. Replacement Value: Costs of animals from zoos, game farms, international exchange, etc. Indirect Worth: Purchase of an opportunity or rights to hunt, trap, observe an animal; typically an expected value, the product of perceived worth and a probability of success. Parallel Worth: Comparison to things or events of similar value (e.g., "at least X-times the value of a pound of common meat in a local market"). Assigned Value: A value assigned by an expert or professional appraiser. Management Cost: The cost to produce an "extra" animal (over that which is produced in natural conditions). Destruction Value: Capitalized value of a loss, i.e., estimated value divided by the estimated interest rate. Damage and Control Cost: Loss of a farm animal to wildlife is valued at the capitalized value of the loss. Control costs are the median worth to society of eliminating each animal. Gross Expenditures: The procedure counts all expenditures for food, lodging, licenses, guns, ammo, etc. related to a hunt or to a recreational event. License Fees: A small part of most expenditures but a lower value. Vacation Time Value: The worth of a working hour ... spent on vacation. Foregone salary in pursuit of wild animals is a strong expression of willingness to pay for faunal resource opportunity. User Fees: Direct payment to hunt or for access to an area, amounts reflecting diversity or abundance of animals present. Willingness-to-Pay: Travel time; often visitor hours spent on-site per round-trip travel hour is a reasonable measure to relate to other monetary values. It needs to be modified by camp set-up time, searching time, and probability of early success (hunting, bird watching, etc.). Expressed Willingness to Pay: Response by the public or users to questions about maximum and likely amounts people will pay for certain events or services. Added Willingness to Pay: Estimates of how much extra wildlife species, size, abundance will add to willingness to pay for other activities and services. Land Value: How much society is willing to pay to acquire land for wildlife refuges and sanctuaries. See Gross Land Value above. Option Demand: Willingness to pay to be able to exercise an option in the future (e.g., to be able to go to a wilderness; to some day see a lion or its tracks in the wild). Opportunity Cost: Money foregone to retain an opportunity to see or own wildlife (e.g., to have squirrels you must forego cutting trees and selling hardwood lumber). The worth must be at least the amount foregone to the rational person. Secondary Opportunity Costs: Costs of vandalism, open gates, destroyed fences and roads, wildfires set by hunters are all negative monetary values. Energy: Fossil fuel equivalents of the energy required to produce an existing population in an area in a year. Assigned Proxy Values: Shadow prices, these are agreed expressions of the relative goodness or importance of a healthy adult individual of a species. Court assigned value of an animal taken illegally, presumably for replacement. (See Replacement cost above.)

As we try to clarify the question, we are skeptical from prior efforts about the use to which the answer will be put. We believe that public wild floral and faunal populations are a public "good" akin to libraries, art museums, symphony orchestras, highways, and sewers. They seem nearly essential and the economics of these topics is vast, complex, and with debates similar to those about the worth or value of wildlife. We know there are many alternatives but from among them we suggest the five-part Rural System summative strategy.

1. World Value Premise - The law of most countries states that no species should become extinct. Costs are not mentioned. Many nations have "biodiversity" laws that, when analyzed, are for maintaining the present count of species (with minimum expressed regard for abundance), thus preventing any extinction. The Koyoto agreement calls for tending biodiversity. Again, no cost limits are suggested. The consequence is that rare species, any species on a list, is of a base and inestimably large value. Some are called priceless, but there is a general feeling that there are limits and though a few have been tested (millions of dollars spent on a few species), they have not yet been reached for many species.

   Services seems an inadequate word for the more than 69 processes, actions, and relationships named that occur in ecological systems. These include the many essential cycles and flows. They need to be noted. It seems unlikely that they can be separated, well quantified, or that such knowledge might over rule the mandate of no species becoming extinct. The collective list of services is impressive; few will risk foregoing any in the list.

   Hundreds of governments and organizations spend millions of dollar-equivalents annually on areas such as Nokolokoba World Park, largely for maintaining populations of rare and endangered species. These are valuable to governments and add value to adjacent lands.

   We start here. There must be an inventory. Whether called research or not, the historical and current occurrence of animals and their gross density estimates are needed. This national effort, with computer mapping and data base building in cooperation with surrounding countries requires funding (e.g., $2 million per year for 5 years). This effort results in knowledge of what biotic resources Senegal has. It protects it from losing resources. It insures the country against international ill-will and retributions over species loss if that should occur. It provides them with option demand (Item 22 in Table 1). As we shall show, the expensive inventory provides several routes to Consequent Profits (e.g., memberships, tours, life-list building, travel destination) and may not require more than partially-government-funded supervision, regulatory controls, and a knowledge-base retrieval and delivery system over time.
   

2. Consumption - The extent of wild faunal and floral resource consumption, far different than historical, is inversely related to the development of the rural society. Hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering plants and fruits is difficult, inefficient, dangerous, potentially destructive of the resource, and provides unsure, high-risk food and family economy. (See Products in Table 2.) Internationally, interest in and participation in hunting wanes. Security tightens and travel with hunting weapons and material is affected by terrorism threats. We believe that several areas having diverse fauna and suitable conditions can be managed well as game areas and hunting well regulated. A sophisticated modern pet caged-bird system that can be created is an example of meaningful wild bird consumption. We believe these systems should be private but government regulated and inspected.

   Table 2. Potential Values Wilderness Ecologic Esthetic Trophy Health (medicinals, etc.) Sport Recreation Economic Products (e.g., meat, hides) Entrepreneurial Future Options (e.g., Genetic and pharmasutical) and Threats Negative (pest, disease, predation)

   A singular managerial service is needed. The areas need not be limited to hunting, but can be developed for year-around wild faunal resource uses (discussed below). Harvesting wild vegetation as well as wild animals, unless it is species-specific and extremely well researched and tightly controlled, can result in erratic gains and losses (some unrecoverable, thus species loss). Plants from which too high a proportion is taken, lose their vigor and may not recover, thus occupying space and producing little vegetation or animal forage. We hold that such harvesting should be discouraged but that a minimal task is needed to hire specialists and experts to retain the lore and existing local knowledge about the biota, its harvest and treatment methods. Bushmeat is well known and harvesting some may be continued. Studies show that wild animals can be caged and raised under domestic conditions. We believe the emphasis is needed: consumable resources need intensive computer-aided decision making and controls within a comprehensive production system. Economies can be gained from operating a single system of well-designed facilities, with protection, with veterinarian service, and with optimization, and local marketing. There are vast difficulties with the so-called dis-economies of scale in such current operations. Wild fauna will be well-served by discouraging the difficult task of raising or hunting bushmeats and encouraging regional cost-effective systems of domestic mammals and poultry.

   These actions imply management, and management has a high cost. Without such management, wild floral and faunal systems fluctuate excessively due to use rates as well as climatic conditions. If it cannot be afforded, the resource (or the way it is currently used) is not sufficiently profitable. There may yet be profitability through the Rural System concept.
   

3. Life Context - Plants and animals are all around. They should not be called "non-game" to be important. They are the variety, interests, the spice of life. They are like the paintings in the art galleries, the furnishing in the well-tended home. Esthetic values are easily listed, but financial dimensions of such things seem difficult. We do not assign a monetary value to an animal or a population. We believe there is a market to be created in the opportunity to experience a wild animal or a plant. Portions of the animal or plant population itself need not be consumed. Each can be used many times without being diminished. The emphasis is clearly on the population and benefits are associated with it, rarely the individual animal. Like the extremely high value of an art object in a gallery, we do not spend time to value it, but to value the sum of the visits to the gallery and to the financial gains made by the gallery due to the presence of the art pieces. Flora and fauna are just "part of the place." To the extent that they are special, very abundant, have unusual behavior, are perceived in different ways, they have value because of where and when they exist. That human life context can be exploited by a private enterprise.
   
4. Vertebrate Pests - Wild animals as well as plants can be pests, carry or produce disease symptoms, and cause property loss and even human death (e.g., predation or snake venom). The same animal that may be beneficial and provide ecological services may also be harmful to other people at other times. They may be the source of risks and losses as well as gains, services, and opportunities. (We include similar plant topics such as those of poisonous plants affecting livestock.) Modern cost effective systems of vertebrate damage management are needed. Controls on entry of exotic and potentially invasive species is a cost that governments must bear. It seems likely that one or more private, for-profit pest damage management enterprises may be usefully encouraged and started by government assistance. Note the emphasis on damage management which rarely includes killing or removing animals.

   As wild animal population abundance increases, benefits to most groups of people change. There may be great benefits when species are very rare (e.g., bird watching and rare birds); little interest in common species; great enthusiasm for sky-darkening flocks; and real losses when populations are "too abundant." The same benefits (a) can result from several different levels of abundance.

   As we search for understanding of wild floral and faunal values and how to express gains and losses in the same terms...or any terms. We see the list (Table 2 above) of values but also sense that each differs in time, space, and changing values of local human populations and those of guests of Senegal. Rarely noted is the non-linear nature of wildlife values related to the abundance of individual populations. Equal potential values are experienced at three levels of abundance. It seem, counterintuitively, that greater value can be experienced from managed rare species than from abundant species. Clearly "more wildlife" is not always the objective.
   

5. Consequent Profits - There is much discussion of "externalities" in the literature of environmental economics. These are usually the undesirable consequences of production, i.e., pollution. "Impacts" on wildlife is the usual topic when secondary consequences of highways, dams, or industrial development are imagined. Consequent profit may be a closely related concept. It moves past wild flora and fauna consumption; accepts it as a valued part of the environment, not only for its services but also for its existance values, just "being" at least as interesting as other features of the landscape. It is the concept of value-added applied to the non-descript "land platform." (Value added, applied to wood, for example, suggests sawing wood into furniture parts on site, then distributing the much more valuable product of the land (rather than just selling logs or lumber).This approach to profit is fully aware of the risks and costs of vertebrate damage, and that these losses must be included in national profit analyses. The union of these concepts begs for a solution and that we call the Rural System strategy.
6. The Rural System Strategy - We have a design for Rural System as it might operate in the US. It is a new business, a conglomerate. It needs small revisons for Senegal conditions. Nevertheless it is appropriate by design, for once started, we believe it has potential for worldwide application and development. It is an enterprise that is self-consciously directed at improving the quality of life in Senegal. Perhaps offended, "What's wrong with our quality of life?," for others it simply recognizes that many people in the country (as exists worldwide) do not live under the best conditions, that water, food, and health can be improved, and that soil is lost, wildlife species are endangered, pests abound, some water is polluted, vandalism and poaching are common, and improved crop and livestock production may be possible. When people live at environmental margins, their health and prosperity suffers occasionally. When at the margin, wild flora and fauna suffer; potentials are never achieved.

   Prior work was and still is done on state and federal lands. "Extension" and cooperative "outreach" programs have provided free advice. Agencies and their programs are unstable, citizen distress in services received is high, and a small public staff cannot make needed improvements on so many widespread private lands. Public attitude is against increased agencies and their high costs. Ecotourism-type activities, especially those related to wild fauna need careful management to avoid their perils. Towns and cities have conflicts with but depend upon rural neighbors. There is low incentive for agencies to increase efficiencies or accountability. "Environmental impacts" are expressed daily. Theft and arson is common. Thousands of acres need services. Society rapidly moves to the cities, increasing a nest of rural problems as well as urban ones. There is a timely opportunity to continue functions begun by some agencies, meet citizen needs for services, create new markets, respond to new needs (e.g., security for and demands of eco-tourists and residences at the urban fringe), and to capitalize on vast government research expenditures in natural resource management results, now on the shelves . We work for the youth, and elderly. We bring the advances of science and technology to the people of the country. From one perspective, we reduce the risks, that's all! But of course that's not all.

   The System We're creating a rural system that has the parts shown above. We'll not emphasize it here, only note that it is general, that many things in life look like it, and that when anything that is vital and lasting, then it has the parts shown here. At least it has been proven effective, a good way to analyze things and to design them. When things are seen as subsystems, they fit together quite well. Efficiencies are gained when single systems serve many purposes without re-invention. When we discuss rural systems, we take on a very large, diverse range of topics.

   Cutting forage from a tree for goats suggests the difficulties and marginal existence of a man (in the tree) and his relationship to the land.

   Unless we have a way to fit topics together, treating each as a subsystem, then we may fail. We see a way to design a healthy, successful system that addresses the total needs of the people of the rural areas of Senegal and surrounding areas. That seems essential if the wild floral and faunal resource is to be managed for its existence ... and for self-serving profitability.

   Urban areas are involved and related, but they are very complex and there are many financial and other resources and specialists already involved with those topics. (We shall address urban wild fauna in a later paper upon request.)

   As we see Rural System we begin to edit and clarify a set of objectives for it and it reduces to:

   To sustain a profit from rural land fluctuating within stated bounds for the people of Senegal and the staff of its Rural System enterprise at a rate of at least 1.5% after 6 years indefinitely for at least 150 years.

   Describing why and how how to do that is what this note is about. It may not be possible, but, if not, then system's feedback (by design) will work to modify slightly the objective (shown by the arrow from feedback to the objectives in the above diagram), and the system will then be operational.

   Expected profits emerge from both production as well as costs and risks. We work as hard to reduce losses, costs, and risks as we do to stimulate ideas for and increase production and efficiencies over the long natural-resource periods.

   Profits

   "Making profits" is a distinctively different phrase than is usually found in conservation and environmental science texts. Rural System, the operating enterprise with its many subsystems or groups, brings an almost radical idea into the wildlife, restoration, and preservation community. (We address it here and it will be treated again briefly below, because it can influence how readers react to the remainder of the text.)
   

   We understand and acknowledge "love of the land," ethical dimensions of forest communities, the need for personal responsibility for the land and its future, some of the theological dimensions of land stewardship, and a desire for healing the land. We know about the literature of non-market values, non-consumptive resources, and appeals to the esthetic, existence, and intrinsic values of Nature. We know of several theological views of Nature and the environment. But we also have begged for money for education and research for years and have been unable to stabilize related natural resource programs. We know that conservation education or environmental education, even economic education before 1930, have worked very poorly. The rhetoric of outdoor life, restoration, and nature protection has moved a few people to act to make significant changes in land and resource management, but, even though notable, they have been few and they have affected small areas.

   We know very well how steadily bills flow into people's house. We do not think that many people can count on charity, foreign development funds, or politically-derived sources ... for long, for continued high quality, productive land use and management. Taxing land creates enormously harmful secondary consequences to farming, people, and settlement patterns. We have to get money to pay for the affairs of the region in the "old fashioned way" by work, ... but the actual work can be and has to be different, because now things are very different. Rural System is about making money by decent work, about creating a system that allows money to be made, and assuring that it continues to flow. The two main reasons ... for the good of the people and the good of the land.

   Direct financial gains from the proposed corporation will, by design, benefit staff members, local governments, students and schools, and the land. Successful employees are likely to benefit handsomely. Secondary governmental gains are from employment, a tax base, safety and security, improved health, and a spreading private-profit concept of improved and sustained natural resource management.

   American Football

   Leaders of rural and forestry projects have concentrated on soil, livestock, and trees. Rural System takes a different view. We think that here is a lesson for the country that can be learned from the American football enterprise as seen on TV. That enterprise is very large and diverse and includes tour buses, advertising, cheerleaders, stadiums, uniforms, publications, TV, ... and the football itself. The ball itself is essential, but almost irrelevant to the modern, profitable total enterprise. Similarly, a regional, environmentally-related, total enterprise can be created. The physical resources, the wild animals, like the football, are essential ... but almost irrelevant.

   By analogy with American football, somewhat with Senegal's "football," when it comes to the regional problems, we have had our eye on the ball too long. We have talked about trees, about charcoal, seed sources, and pests and complained about environmental regulations. We've been "brought up" to ask for government help. We are gripped by the limitations of any single "cottage industry." We have not pondered the potentials of an integrated regional enterprise. We have been independent landowners! But now we are threatened, and some individuals, even whole regions, are begging for help. We can be independent ... and dead. We need some group work. We can ask for major government help, but that has been inadequate, quickly terminated, and there has been little change after 50 years of spending.

   A Factory

   We think we need to see land (described in the box above) as a platform, perhaps a factory. It has no pre-defined roles, no boss telling what is to be planted or produced. What if creative people were allowed to think about what could be produced on each tract, each platform ... that will make the most money over the long run. We can learn from the elders for they know things that will fail, but we may come up with new ideas, new approaches, new uses, especially when put together in new ways. There are few laws that say exactly what will be the uses of a tract of land or water. Perhaps forests, perhaps millet, perhaps an office, perhaps an amphitheater, perhaps a solar collector. We can put new knowledge with computer maps and select best areas for producing things, where costs will be least, where insect and disease losses will be reduced. Rural System holds that every 10 x 10 meter spot on Earth is unique and thus computer applications can be used (and need to be) to see that each spot is used extremely well. Average or approximately-the-best uses will not suffice. "On average" is our current situation and it is not satisfactory. We now have GPS and GIS and we need to use those investments in technology already made. A gold mine of knowledge and technology exists; Rural System staff knows how to mine those rich "seams of ore." The financial gains will be in the gained efficiencies, the reduced losses and crop failures, the optimum grazing levels.

   One result of this idea is evident. For there to be a long-lasting, productive, profitable factory or land platform, it must be managed and maintained very, very well.

   Pooled Funds

   Rural System is a conglomerate of small enterprises. Most will not work or be profitable for long when conducted alone (Figure A). No longer solitary or paired, they work together with synergism (Figure B) then perhaps expanding to very large integrated systems. They will work when operated as a single system. Economies are experienced through planned synergism, stability through diversity, and through a common administrative resource (accounting, marketing, computers, logistics, legal, etc.). All financial gains and losses are pooled. We all have incentives to help each other; we are protected in bad years; we gain from successes elsewhere. We benefit from reduced costs. We pay salaries based on success. Citizens have an employee-owned company. We work for our company. The better the company, the more our worth; the greater the salaries to each employee. Throughout, we work to develop financial incentives. Underneath is the great incentive ... that resources will be better managed than at present when guided and informed through using computer-aided decision making and financial incentives. We have describe it in a draft Business Plan. We've reduced the idea to one page as follows:

   Rural System is a philanthropic for-profit corporation, a conglomerate of small natural resource related enterprises (70 have now been suggested). Some of the enterprises, subsystems, are new, some very old. It is a system doing modern, sophisticated, computer-aided management of the lands and waters of an eastern US region in order to sustain long-term profits and quality of life for citizens. Concentrating on outdoor recreation, specialized tourism and rural development, including forest, range, and wildlife management, it works on restoring, enhancing, and gaining lasting crop and livestock profit production from the rural resource base. The umbrella entity is also a conservation and education organization. It may use national and state lands and waters but, most importantly, it provides opportunities for the owners of private lands and waters (often for absentee owners) as well as managers of public lands under contract to experience profits related to superior land management. While managing the assets of such lands, Rural System provides related services and products from a unified business unit. Half of these units work from the managed lands called Pivotal Tracts that are under contract. A central unit provides coordinating and incubator-like services and allows the corporation to harvest public research investments, to achieve economies of scale and division of labor, to gain synergism, and to stabilize employment. The enterprise leads the region in computer-aided, year-around, private land management. It shares funds with citizens and originators. It links citizens as well as visitors to the land and its long-term potentials for profits. It provides an alternative regional identity, one of a place for modern rural resource development and management. It links buyers and users with producers of certified products and certified tourism and wildland resource opportunities from well-managed rural land and water resources. Successes are achieved via diligent work with personal incentives, diverse enterprises and products, and computer optimization of a total system. It overcomes the old failures of natural resource management, i.e., diseconomies of small-scale operations, mixed objectives, lack of diversity, seasonal work, catastrophic events, lack of annual income, and failure to add value to products and efforts. It capitalizes on innovative uses of the Internet, global positioning satellites, and computer mapping throughout Senegal. The vision for the enterprise is that its success in improving the social, economic, and environmental health of the region can allow the enterprise to become more effective and expand. Thus, similar influences can be transferred, years later, throughout areas near Senegal, then internationally. The work will be recognized as the product of a special paradigm in rural resource and wildland management. As such, Rural System will become a profitable conglomerate operating well past this century, given its 150-year planning horizon sliding forward annually.

   The value of wildlife is at least that equivalent to the extra profits produced from lands by Rural System, a corporation originating from and dependent on intensivly managed flora and fauna and the communities upon which they depend.

The Enterprises

We suggest that ecotourism is a much over-worked word and has many meanings. We believe there is economic opportunity for local people as well as visitors. Experience is now available that tourists may bring more problems than solutions. We suggest developing a new concept, "ranging". It justifies beautifying, inproving, and continuing involvement with flora and fauna and their environment as the grounds for that potentially profitable activity.

Ranging Engaging in one or more of a diverse set of extended, dispersed outdoor or rural activities for health, recreation, study, appreciation, and adventure. It may also mean the enterprises that are related and that promote, support, and supply these activities and the areas and resources used. It includes (but is not limited to) hiking, tramping, trecking, camping, rock and tree climbing, biking, horseback trail riding, hunting, fishing, canoeing, kyacking, boating, touring, sightseeing, studying nature, and active wildlife watching. A word like ranging can help provide structure to the confusing array of inconsistent writing and work in the expansive areas such as outdoor recreation, adventure tourism, nature tourism, and ecotourism. Ecotourism is for visitors to an area; ranging is for residents as well as visitors.

Given the vastness of Senegal and the long ground travel time between villages and sites of interest, it will require developing intermediate stops, education, art displays, activities, and secure service facilities.

Given that there are over 70 proposed enterprises (for US conditions) within Rural System being designed and that there are office-based and largely outdoor-based groups, we have selected a few of special relevance in Senegal. These can be developed as an important entity of the total system. (Some of the following notes have links to the design documents.)

1. Throughout, we propose developing specialty memberships (with fees, conferences, tours, vents, marketing) for people having special, fairly narrow interests. The Internet will be the primary communication.
2. Inns - There have to be places for people to stay comfortably. The second author remembers well a hotel manager in a park saying "Do not send us any Americans!" (Their needs are too difficult to meet, expectations too high.) We can advertise and market rough-living and we can stress that there are camps and back-country conditions. (However, people responding to these conditions are not the high paying customers, creating some break-even analysis needs.) We need to work on hotel/motel capacity, seasonal needs, seasonal groups (e.g., bird watchers), how to "fill the beds" and the potentials with temporary camps; and coordinating short trips from town central facilities. Can we build villages or tent camps for visitors or buy or rent existing ones? A group serving lunches for visitors might be explored.
   
3. Camps - Hiking and camping can be favored with trails created. A contest may be useful for promoting activity for paying people who have walked all xxx miles of the Rural System Trails and visited all of the zzz number of camp spots. These can be combined with GPSense tactics. Camps will need caretakers, instructors, guides, food service staff, etc. Specialized camps will work for some - a nature study emphasis, a French-Language camp, a writers' camp. "People at the Edge" was written by the second author about activities for and management of people at the edge of parks and such areas in India. It is very relevant to Senegal.
4. Memorials - No matter what the major religeous beliefs, in a pleasing special area (somewhat similar to a grave yard) memorials may be placed. An addition will be to honor the dead or a living retiring person or someone who is leaving Senegal by presenting money to write a book for him/her on a rural, nature, or natural-resource topic. Money may be collected to get a TV tape made of an elder(s), a way to collect folk wisdom.
5. Pivots - These are all of the citizens who are interested and join Rural System. They pay membership fees and when the system is profitable, have dues reduced and later make a little money (dividends) in proportion to the profits. Members get links to useful web sites (on which there is advertising, also bringing in funds).
6. Nature Folks - special groups form around mammals, birds, notable owls, deer, elephants, insects, plants, and geology. Each has its own organization and all are affiliated to the central Nature Folks. International memberships are expected. At $20 each, 1000 members allows a little profit from a low cost operation but also one that can communicate well, advertise aspects of Rural System, and continue an education and marketing activity. This membership opens doors to conferences, booklets, translations, sale of photo supplies, and guide services. Each will probably have a contest on-going to see all of the mammals of Senegal, all of the birds, etc. Photo contests bring in money, allow advertising, and the press use results that further advertise for us.
7. Tours Group - working out of Dakar and towns, small trips seem best. These need to be well planned and very carefully developed. "Bad trip" reports can be very damaging for many years. Developing exchange trips is one strategy, i.e., getting people that visit to go to other trips/tours with the Group. The ranging topic mentioned above is relevant. Potential tours:
   • Historical - slavery from the villages to Dakar
   • Broadly, " Slavery through History to Freedoms"
   • The developing country
   • The Ecological Zones and their key species
   • Lithology and Hydrology - sand, soils, and what's underneath
   • Everyday life
   • The Fishery (including fish drying)
   • Understanding Modern Islam - temples and their role
   • Swimming with the Manatees
   • Freshwater Fishing
   • Nesting Grounds of Shore Birds
   • The Fish Life of Senegal - aquaria of native fish at major streamside sites
   • The Conspicuous birds
   • Desert Ecology
   • Lunar Forces and the Night World
8. Earth Quilt - With potentials to support the Tours Group, Quilt is an international organization of disadvantaged individuals and communities sharing ideas for empowerment, justice, and improved quality of life.
9. Fog Drip - When fog blows across trees, it collects and water drips from leaves. This is "fog drip" and it has been poorly studied. It can add much to the hydrology of an area but it is rarely measured. It is also the name of a company collecting local music, recording it, and selling records of it. Several recording studios may result in capturing original works from local people. Note, This is an example of not working with soil, trees, etc. It is, however, working with part of the rural resource; money is to be made legally wherever possible, and it all goes to the common good. Music can be played and sold to tourists etc. It can become background music for events and Inns. Contests can be held and best songs guaranteed a place on a record, etc. Similarly poems may be collected and sold.
   
10. Products - We are working on a plastic product useful in monitoring the rate of decomposition within soils. Resource related, it is not produced in the wild. It is an idea, high technology, and an analytical tool. Similar products for profit, some only useful in Senegal, may be developed. Currently, products include a hiking staff, a hard biscuit for hikers, a bandanna, items of clothing, bird houses, specialty bird foods, pet bird cages, signs. These are no more than ideas that can be sold for money. People in other groups can help use them, display them, and help sell and distribute them...and produce new ideas for new products. Work with and enhancing existing enterprises is planned.
11. Sculptors - Carving is already well done in Senegal. Sculptors is a club for wood and stone carvers. Professional may join; contests are held; values of experts and winners increase. This can be a value-adding activity for craftspeople, help sell to tourists, and help move away from traditional carving into beautiful modern Senegalese art forms for sale in Rural System outlets over the world.
12. GPSence - This can be developed as a special form for Senegal conditions and dangers. People use GPS to find marked sites. It can range from personal pride to contests among members to see who can find all of the sites, white about the adventures between sites, report on nature observations at sites and on the route, etc. It can be used with autos or by hiking. Horse travel may be considered in some periods.
13. Belles and Whistles - A car/vehicle repair group for women, this responds to changing roles of women in society. As more women get and drive cars, they need instruction and elementary skills. They pay for membership and training.
14. Security This is a private police force, sells security equipment, and works to reduce vandalism and poaching.

    Outdoor-Based Groups

15. The Trevey - We can offer to communities a dynamic planning system. It has been begun and the pattern set. Software is being developed. It will be a very expensive system with great investment with real payoffs. Plans, those dusty unused things, can become with the new system more like newspapers, good today, but discarded tomorrow as things change. This can have high educational value and help towns qualify for development funds since they will have a demonstrated good plan. GIS is included.
16. Deer - Seeing all of the deer of Senegal may become an international challenge. Tours can be arranged to help. Photo contests offered, etc. Seeing them all may be similar to bird life lists. We can promote it into an international game with identification cards, life histories, exam contests for big money, TV shows, etc. Disturbed by information on introductions of animals from other countries (that will escape or be released in areas where food is limited and over-utilized), We trust that we can work exclusively for native species.
    
17. The Fishery - A fully developed fishery seems to have great potential and we have to find the species,
    

    work the boats and guides, and market the superior catches that are experienced. This is sales work to make Senegal one of the great places to go fishing (fly fishing off the broad sandy beaches;

    snorkeling for tropical native fish; scuba diving with Manatees; boating with the fishermen in their massive boats.)
    
    

18. The Lions of Senegal Group - We have to explain them (as suggested for a small wild cat, the bobcat) , or try to protect them. Have all been taken from Senegal? Their reductions are hypothesized to be related to the excessive herds of buffalo and their great harmful effects on the vegetation, watershed, and water for hippos and other animals. The pattern for the bobcat and bear groups may work. International resources can likely be gained for modeling and studies of the ecological effects of the loss of the great lion. Temporary research and development programs such as this need to build structure for lasting studies and profitable development for tours, publications, photographs, laboratories, and other system-related profits.
    
    
19. Official Avi - This may be a winner with the first international bird watching course in the world being created in Senegal. This is developed and played like a game of golf.
    
20. The Wildland Crew - Possible - a working adventure - really getting away from business stresses and getting diversity while working with a male or female group.
21. The Wildland Walkers - Discussed as hikers. Money comes from guides, equipment, meals, lodging, photography, trail maintenance.
22. The River Runners - Possible; we're unsure of the potentials. These can be recreational and bird watching and fishery related but this group is interested in the maps, precipitation, patterns, riparian areas, wetlands, flood plains, etc. Maybe they can be combined.
23. Novosports - Possible. We can introduce Great World Ball from Senegal. The colorful ball covered with goat hides may make it photographically a winner for national TV and CNN.
24. Wilderness Group - participants in ranging, tours, etc. can make this group financially realistic locally as well as internationally. Consider adopting Nikolokoba and write a book about it like no one has ever seen with computer maps, animal and plant pictures and excellent science. Have chapters funded by and made memorials to president, cabinet members, honorees, etc. (see above in memorials). We can probably get support for such expeditions and extended work. Employ the people nearby to help out. Develop computer models - find out the removal rates needed to bring this system back into balance without the lions.
25. Pasture and Range Group - A world class expert needs to be hired for 6 months to direct this work, maybe 6 years! We have to get the livestock in balance with the vegetation, fencing, rest rotation, new practices, etc. We have to plow millet back into the soil with cooperatively managed equipment. We have to find alternatives to burros. We need to contour fields and get wind-blown soil catchments and get covers for watering areas. Needs are great: wind fences, human and animal waste recycling, composting, solar energy to reduce wood use for energy, etc. GIS can separate the precipitation zones, soil zones, topographic zones, etc. Much GIS work is needed but but it is fundamental to most other enterprises. We can show real local payoffs in demonstration plots. These plots can be combined, perhaps, with A Goat System.
26. Bushmeat - See Rabbits and consider a system of intensively managed local semi-domestic mammals or specialty pheasants.
27. Pet Birds - Un-managed, the pet bird trade is causing mortality and a bad reputation for the country. We can set up aviaries, raise birds, have them exported under superior conditions with low mortality, and at the same time reduce the robbery of nests by youth. A new variety of cages and woven birdhouses can be created and publications on the birds, their care, and the conservation movement that has been started can create a leadership climate -- with abundant employment for youth and others.
28. Gardens Group - Combine this with The Fence Group

In the Premise we said that "A functional monetary index can be estimated for land as a productive platform with value added by products, services, and opportunities of well managed wild floral and faunal resources within a rural system." That index can now be seen (and now reasonably computed with computer systems) as the sum of the estimated expected net present-discounted gains over 150 years that are available on a unique land platform (each 10 x 10-meter alpha unit). These gains are enabled or enhanced ("value-added") by the presence of wild plant and animals resources. While the gains may be from consumable products (meat, hides, feathers, grasses, herbals), many of the gains are made in terms that economists have tried to simplify for valuation. We propose a summation or summative value, net expected gains from the wild biotic resources on a platform (or set) over time inclusive of extra or added
direct net sale value
land value increase
payments to hunt
payments to fish
payments to do floral and faunal life-list building (birdwatching, etc.)
reduced financial losses to animals
reduced secondary opportunity costs
income to nature- related organizations
porportion of the product of visitors' scenic satisfaction index and financial gains of tourism to Senegal
... and other related gains from the interaction of on-site and related enterprises (listed above) and their services and opportunities.

Research

While a major concept of the Rural System strategy is to use past research results, to integrate them, (especially into models with spatially explicit data by using GPS and GIS technology), we have developed a major research proposal to address a functional ecosystem. The project is large but cuts to the core of practical ecosystem knowledge applications in rural systems. We recommend its consideration.

At least half of the number of enterprises being considered for development in Virginia, USA, seem relevant within Senegal. We can discuss potentials, make changes, and stimulate new thoughts. We can build a resource-based company for a country We do not have to harvest, kill, or consume much. We can work with the lands of willing participants and with secure government lands. We can provide valuable employment and tax base, as well as services that are likely to last for many years, at least the planning and economic discounting period for 150 years ... then sliding forward a year, each year.

We cannot prove the Rural System strategy it will work. A poor manager can assure that it will fail. Several bad-weather years in the early years of development or an arsonist can have the same effect. The system can succeed with care, attention to details, hard work, effective competition, intensive use of knowledge bases and by using experts. Some will work for the good of the country and its people. We have to concentrate on putting into operation lasting systems, all subject to monitoring and corrective feedback. We have to keep looking at the future so that we do not design systems responsive to yesterday's conditions. We can design and produce a profitable system that builds the environment and quality of life for the people of Senegal.

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