With the ban on hunting trophies set to become law...
How arrogant of this government to try to dictate to African nations how to manage their wildlife, writes FRANCIS VORHIES By Francis Vorhies For The Daily Mail Published: 23:20 BST, 16 August 2024 | Updated: 23:29 BST, 16 August 2024 e-mail View comments For farmers on the land around my Oxfordshire home, deer are a constant problem. They invade the fields and nibble the crops, or strip the bark from woodland trees. But it could be so much worse.
Imagine the devastation if herds of hippos took up residence on the banks of the Thames. Think of the mess a few thousand buffalo could cause — and the danger to the rural population. In southern Africa, where I work as wildlife conservationist for much of the year, that’s the reality.
People have to live and farm alongside these majestic but often dangerous animals. Managing wildlife presents a major challenge for African governments, and part of a successful strategy has to involve hunting. While not a hunter I can’t help but recognise the benefits that hunting can provide, bringing in money to impoverished communities and protecting local people from harm.
In southern Africa, people have to live and farm alongside majestic but often dangerous animals, writes FRANCE VORHIES The remains of an elephant in Chobe, Botswana. Successive governments have taken efforts to curtail hunting on the continent, but such interference is profoundly unwelcome Britain is a nation of animal-lovers. No doubt that explains the efforts of successive governments to curtail hunting on the continent.
But such interference is profoundly unwelcome. Labour has pledged to ban the import of all hunting trophies. Sir Keir Starmer ’s government aims to take a private member’s bill, introduced under the previous Conservative administration and extend it to cover not only endangered species but all animals.
This is an hugely arrogant bid to dictate to African nations how they should manage their wildlife. Quite simply, it looks like Labour hates all forms of hunting. In the UK, it even plans to make drag-hunting illegal.
This is where a pack of dogs merely follows a scent, not a fox. This is not an animal rights issue: it’s old-fashioned class warfare, since hunting is seen as the preserve of toffs. Yet to extend this high-handed virtue-signalling to other countries is going much further.
To many in Africa, it smacks of outright colonialism. Dr Shylock Muyengwa, a director at the conservation charity Resource Africa, says: ‘Colonialism is over — yet British politicians still forget to respect the will of African communities. Read More African nations should be allowed to decide about the proposed trophy hunt ban, the founder of Prince William's wildlife charity says ‘We should be viewed as partners in conservation, not as British subjects that are forced to adhere to policies that please the British public who don’t have to live alongside elephants, lions or other dangerous animals.
’ B otswana’s environment minister, Dumezweni Mthimkhulu, was even more emphatic last March when he threatened to ship 10,000 elephants to Britain, so they could roam in Hyde Park. ‘I want Britons to have a taste of living alongside elephants, which are overwhelming my country,’ he said. When elephant populations are not controlled, they ravage the landscape, wiping out the trees.
Without trees, bird and insect life can’t survive, and the entire ecology of a region is overturned. In areas where elephant hunting is not permitted, managing them is hard. They bulldoze into towns, ripping up gardens and smallholdings, leaving whole families with nothing to eat.
People can be seriously injured or killed while trying to chase elephants away. Unlikely as it may sound, a trophy hunting ban is truly bad for conservation. That’s not just my opinion: Kenya introduced a total ban on trophy hunting in 1977 — and since then it has lost 70 per cent of its wildlife.
While people came from overseas to hunt in Kenya, the landowners and local population had a reason to preserve and manage elephants and other big animals. Once the income dried up, the wildlife was no longer a valuable resource and became a dangerous nuisance. Poaching was soon rife, and the vast sums that it generated fuelled corruption.
Instead of thriving, elephant herds declined. In the absence of money coming in from hunting, local people turned to keeping not only cows but goats, sheep and camels, and the consequent loss of habitat meant wild animal numbers plummeted. Lions were illegally poisoned to protect the cattle ranches that sprawled over the land, and even into national parks.
Poachers wiped out the rhinos, taking their horns for traditional Chinese medicine, and leaving their carcasses to rot. What happened in Kenya is a painful lesson in why, without sustainable management, wild animals cannot be effectively protected. What Labour fails to grasp is that hunting actually encourages good governance.
In areas where elephant hunting is not permitted, managing them is hard. They bulldoze into towns and leave families with nothing to eat And Starmer’s proposed legislation would be actively damaging to an international agreement that is already in place. Since 1976, the UK has been signed up to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The treaty imposes stringent rules on the trade in endangered species to ensure it is sustainable and legal. Thanks to CITES, the UK government already provides detailed guidance to anyone who wants to import or export specimens of listed species — and this includes hunting trophies. Crucially, this system recognises the sovereignty of countries in making their own decisions about export and import permits.
Abandoning it through a unilateral import ban will diminish the UK’s position in CITES and in other multilateral agreements on the sustainable and legal trade in wild species. Rather than going it alone, Labour would do far better to stick to this tried-and-tested international framework. The Tory MP who first introduced the Hunting Trophies Bill, Henry Smith, stood down at last month’s General Election and his Crawley seat is now held by Labour.
Smith liked to say that tourists could shoot an animal hundreds of times with a camera — but only once with a gun. Like all anti-hunting soundbites, it’s a simplistic argument, because those who want to hunt animals provide an entirely different revenue stream from those who want to follow them around on safari and take photographs. Allowing the hunting of big game maximises the benefit to local communities and ensures conservation efforts are well funded.
Moreover, as the rocketing number of elephants in Botswana shows, wild animal populations must be controlled, and well-regulated hunting is an entirely humane way of doing it. These animals live far longer than the those we send to the slaughterhouse. Most lambs are killed at between ten weeks and a year old.
Beef cattle have a life expectancy of 18 months. However, responsible hunting does not involve killing such young animals. And, in a far cry from the cramped conditions of intensive farming, the animals are free to roam the savannah.
Given that it can raise money to help African communities and the advance the cause of conservation, isn’t it sensible to charge tourists for the privilege of shooting animals — and taking a trophy? Most hunting in Africa is done primarily for wild meat, a natural, organic source of protein. Antelope in particular make excellent healthy eating. It’s far better to nurture their herds and hunt them than to commandeer their habitats for industrialised livestock production.
Where there are antelope, of course, big cats thrive too. Lions, leopards and cheetahs don’t need a permit to go hunting. T he tourists who come to take photos also have a significant impact on the environment.
They expect luxury infrastructure. Guards protect elephant tusks in Nairobi National Park in Kenya. Unlikely as it may sound, a trophy hunting ban is truly bad for conservation Hunters, meanwhile, have a far smaller ‘footprint’: they go into the marginal lands, with no need for fancy lodges, safari camps or restaurants.
These two business models, though, can co-exist. It’s easy for British people who don’t have to cope with Africa’s conservation challenges to brush them aside. I can understand why the issue is an emotional one, as most Europeans have grown up watching wildlife documentaries on TV and regard Africa’s mega-fauna as almost sacred.
They can’t imagine why anyone would want to shoot an elephant, a lion or any other wild animal. But the hard reality is that we don’t need to sympathise with the hunters in order to accept the benefits that they bring. Dr Francis Vorhies is director of the African Wildlife Economy Institute at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and a research visitor at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford.
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