By Mike Arnold
“We want to hear from those in the West arguing to close our community-based trophy hunting industry what they will replace this renewable, sustainable endeavor with?”
Versions of the above question echoed across the five-day African Wildlife Consultative Forum (AWCF) held from October 3rd – 7th in Maputo, Mozambique. The questioners were government officials, Safari outfitters, community leaders and academics from across Africa. The annual, Safari Club International Foundation Forum brings together stakeholders participating in Sustainable Use (i.e., trophy hunting) from across the continent. Represented at this, the 20th anniversary meeting, were delegates from southern, central, eastern, and western countries, including South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Cameroon.
The representatives of multiple countries made it very clear that the anti-hunting viewpoints aimed at the Sustainable Use of their own resources were racist and imperialistic – given the predominance of white-led organizations from developed countries doing the attacking. Instead of supporting the Sustainable Use paradigm leading to community enrichment across rural areas, and the conservation of wildlands and wildlife, the anti-hunting league, including many members of CITES – the delegates at AWCF were quick to point out – had no relevant plan for conserving animals, and improving the quality of human lives. In other words, yet again, Westerners were attempting to overlay First-World solutions onto a Third-World Context, a certain recipe for disaster as seen from the decimation of entire riverine ecosystems from mosquito nets handed out by NGOs, sewn together by locals, and used as nets for fishing.
A fair proportion of the Forum revolved around plans to combat CITES during the upcoming CoP19 assembly in Panama City, Panama. Emphasis on coming together with a single voice to challenge CITES’ antihunting proposals was paramount among the AWCF delegates. In particular, the delegates made very clear that they interpreted CITES’ antihunting stance as reflecting an advocate against rural Africans. The betterment of rural Africans’ lives seems of no concern to CITES, even though their own Preamble states the following: ‘Recognizing that peoples and States are and should be the best protectors of their own wild fauna and flora.’
If CITES was truly committed to local protection of species and ecosystems, their proposals would not include the ‘elevation’ of the hippo – known to have increased and not decreased in numbers – from Appendix II to I, essentially ending trophy hunting of this member of the Dangerous Seven. Instead of including all the available data on hippo population numbers, as pointed out by Marco Pani of Conservation Force, scientists chose only data supporting the contention of dwindling population numbers. ‘Shameful’ is the word that springs to my mind, especially because I am a scientist believing in the sanctity of data.
Regardless of the tactics of those who hold much in common with PETA’s stance – “PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview” – the delegates to AWCF kept their concentration, and their course. They committed themselves to the betterment of their people, and the environment. They will do this as they help their rural populations increase their quality of living, not through NGO dollars from groups who would destroy their cultures, but through the funding from passionate outdoorsmen and -women, those who call themselves Trophy Hunters. As stated in the closing session, Trophy Hunters, and rural Africans, standing shoulder-to-shoulder can affect a change in the understanding of thoughtful non-hunters, and in the process speak sanity into a situation in desperate need of increased clarity. Allowing the alternative is not an option, resulting as it does in the destruction of rural Africans, their way of life, and the ecosystems within which they exist.
You can check out Mike’s new book, BRINGING BACK THE LIONS: International Hunters, Local Tribespeople, and the Miraculous Rescue of a Doomed Ecosystem in Mozambique by going to bringingbackthelions.com.