“There’s a lot of controversy around the issue of hunting as there is around gambling, and I like these stories where there is a moral dimension, stories that force you to think about your prejudices about a subject and explore the extent to which they are justified.”
Always read between the lines, even if the headline is a grabber. Trophy hunting has been put on hold — temporarily — in the southern African country of Zambia, prompting some excitable and over-excited conservation NGOs to hail the end of trophy hunting completely.
Only . . . that’s not entirely true.
Local communities in Zambia have called for the immediate suspension of trophy hunting in all designated hunting blocks. That part is true.
A suspension is not a ban, though — and the reason for the suspension actually highlights a larger issue that speaks to one of the big-picture arguments used to justify trophy hunting in the first place.
The hunting lobby is forever lecturing environmentalists, preservationists and nature lovers that the money generated by trophy hunting goes to support local communities, giving them a vested interested in conservation and maintaining wilderness areas. Trophy hunting generates jobs, the argument goes, in the form of hunting guides, trackers and camp workers, not to mention the money generated for government coffers by hunting licences.
If local communities gain financially from the harvesting of the wildlife in their area — a polite way of describing killing big-game animals for sport — they have a bigger stake in protecting that wildlife, the argument goes.
If local communities have nothing to gain from animals like elephants that would just as soon raid their crops, drink the rivers and streams dry and flatten their trees, local communities are more inclined to treat wild animals as unwanted pests and kill them off. “If it pays, it stays,” the argument goes.
What’s happened in Zambia is a little messier though.
“Follow the money” is another time-worn saying, and in this case — surprise! — no one seems to know where the money has gone, least of all the local communities that were supposed to benefit from it.
A local NGO, the Zambia National Community Resources Board Association (ZNCRBA) has demanded the immediate suspension of trophy hunting — all trophy hunting — until the government releases all funds owed to local communities under the agreement.
Incredibly — or not so incredibly, depending on your level of cynicism — according to a statement issued to the international media by a number of individual community
resource boards in Zambia, they haven’t received any concession fees since 2016, and no hunting revenue since 2018.
They haven’t been paid, in other words. Whether the money has disappeared — be less cynical! — or whether it’s simply being held in escrow while minor bookkeeping details are being sorted out, will presumably come out eventually. Or not, as the case may be.
Trophy hunting has not been banned, in other words. The local communities simply want to be paid. Which is only fair, since — remember how often the trophy hunting lobby lectures us weak-kneed snowflakes and sob-sister bunny huggers about proper conservation practices — paying local communities is one of the financial pillars underpinning the whole argument in favour of shooting rhinos and elephants for the trophy wall.
Who knew that money would go missing? Why, you could knock me over with a feather. Please forgive me while I take a moment to clutch my pearls.
This isn’t just a one-off controversy over some missing dollars and cents in a somewhat obscure African country hardly anyone outside the immediate area has heard of, even those in developed countries who donate to wildlife conservation and environmental organizations. The supposed incentive to local communities has to be transparent and tangible if it’s to convince anyone that hunting provides benefits.
The Zambia Professional Hunters Association, on its website, argues that, and I quote, “With dwindling resources and loss of habitat for wildlife, we believe that hunting is one of the main pillars of conservation and the management and utilization of wildlife is one of the most important tools in conserving wildlife for our children and future generation.”
Which is true — to a point — though there’s an argument to be made, and I’ve made it often, that wildlife tourism generates far more revenue than hunting. That’s because, hard as it may be to believe, an elephant that’s alive today can be presented before another group of sightseeing tourists and nature lovers tomorrow, and the day after. That living elephant is worth more than an elephant that is killed today, once, never to be seen again.
Where did the money go, anyway? Pay the man! Or, in this case, pay the community.
©Vinayak Harshvardhan-Pixabay