Estimating Illegal Resource Use at a Ugandan Park with the Randomized Response Technique

Abstract

Illegal resource use is a major threat to conservation in protected areas throughout the world, yet accurately estimating the number of poachers has been difficult. People violating the law seldom identify themselves for fear of retribution; thus quantifying illegal resource use is constrained by methodological problems. We evaluate the effectiveness of the randomized response technique (RRT) with a population that is partially illiterate to assess the extent of illegal resource use at Kibale National Park, Uganda. RRT is unique in allowing respondents to disclose sensitive information because the interviewer can not ascertain an individual's true response to the incriminating question. We found estimates of six types of illegal resource use when measured by RRT were significantly higher than when measured by direct questioning. This method offers a potentially powerful tool for understanding conservation threats in the developing world.

Keywords:

• illegal resource use
• park
• poaching
• randomized response technique
• resource management
• survey
• Uganda

We thank two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on this manuscript. We thank the Ugandan Council of Science and Technology and Uganda Wildlife Authority for granting permission to carry out this study. J. Solomon thanks the U.S. Fulbright program for funding, Birungi Sixtus, Kakooza Micheal, Karungi Edith, and Mukwenda John for field assistance, and the communities around Kibale National Park for their hospitality.

Notes

1. Names of communities have been changed because illicit behavior was disclosed and the majority of household heads in each community participated in the survey.

2. The phrase “without permission” was included because in certain circumstances respondents may have received permission from local authorities to extract resources or they may have paid a bribe to local rangers to extract resources, possibly believing that this then made the extraction legally permissible. The purpose of the study is to examine the effectiveness of RRT in estimating illegal resource extraction and therefore it was our intent to clarify that we were not referring to cases where it was legal or respondents believed it legal to extract resources.