TROPHY HUNTING ROUNDTABLE

“On 12 May 2019, I attended a ‘trophy hunting roundtable’ in London chaired by the Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP, to debate both sides of the issue, with Gove’s introductory statements noting the importance of community livelihoods, human-wildlife conflicts, and the impact of hunting revenues for wider conservation activities.”

On 12 May 2019, I attended a ‘trophy hunting roundtable’ in London chaired by the Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP, to debate both sides of the issue, with Gove’s introductory statements noting the importance of community livelihoods, humanwildlife conflicts, and the impact of hunting revenues for wider conservation activities. With about 14 participants expressing their views in a single hour, my takeaway is that the scientists, who were in a majority at the meeting, were open-minded about hunting and accepted the arguments about hunting’s contribution to land-use economics, even if they did not particularly like hunting or hunters. By contrast, special interest groups were not really interested in listening to the issues, and cherry-picked negative information, often out of context, to justify their anti-hunting stance. I was the only African at the table and went with the endorsement of a number of community associations, not least those from Namibia and Zambia. Gove acknowledged my presence and the need to have more Africans at the table when discussing African wildlife.

With such limited time, I suggested that southern Africa’s approach had merit and .