Trophy Hunting

[Richprins]

Richpins: do you have evidence to back up those claims? It would be interesting to compare how each side coordinates attacks. So far I have only found this level of deceit on the pro-trophy hunting side.

I will say it is unnerving to see Safari Club International and Dallas Safari Club align themselves with climate change denial groups and the oil and gas industry in the United States. A lot of the covert operations they are doing are straight from the climate change denial book which does not seem to be a coincidence.

Aha, good questions, Kuku!

"Evidence" is a subjective thing and I'll expand a bit later. What has become evident is that lobbying on the anti-hunting side is a multi-million dollar industry regarding grants from USA and European foundations. To explain, it may be unnerving that some international conservation NGO's heavily funded by foundations, and of course public donations, lash out at things like hunting while their initial mandate came from other conservation issues that may now not be "hot-button" anymore.

Sorry to say, but anything that has happened in America since 2016 has become a political battlefield, you guys are really polarised down to the smallest detail!

More later!

[Klipspringer]

When it comes to trophy hunting, I think, we must consider the context. Most (if not all) studies on the impact of trophy hunting on conservation, communities, economic uplift etc use the scarcely available data collected in a specific context and then generalize to trophy hunting at large.

Trophy hunting in South Africa is IMO, very different to trophy hunting in other parts of Africa.

In South Africa, wildlife-based land uses (such as hunting and ecotourism) have emerged as a financially viable alternative to farming, particularly in more marginal areas, due largely to legislation that enables private landholders to own and benefit commercially from wildlife and as a result of economic drivers such as reduction in agricultural subsidies and opening of the tourism market. Wildlife-based land use in South Africa is driven by economic factors and the landowners are wildlife ranchers, generating income from ecotourism, trophy hunting, “biltong” hunting, game meat production, and game sales. Trophy hunting is a major contributor to the wildlife ranching economy. Of the revenue generated by trophy hunting, the biggest proportion (about half of the money) is estimated to go to the private landowner through species fees. Other revenue is generated from paying guides and trackers, permits (thus supporting broader conservation activities outside the hunting fam) or private operators (such as professional hunters, transport agencies or intermediaries) etc. If the landowner is a private farmer, very little (or maybe none in some cases) of the revenue goes to poor communities or generates jobs for marginalized people.

The majority of trophy hunting in South Africa is practiced on privately owned land. This privately owned land includes private nature reserves, which are legally gazetted under the Protected Areas Act; biodiversity agreements, which have legal status by virtue of a legally binding contract; and informally protected conservation areas, which are not legally recognized and may or may not receive some form of protection by the landholders being managed partly for biodiversity conservation (this is what is said but hardly ever monitored or studied). The majority of trophy hunting occurs on informally protected private land. (This may change with the efforts to start a wildlife ranching within the communities).
The contribution of these informally-PAs to conservation is not known and not studied at larger scale. There is no research to show how many of these farms do adhere to practices that align with good environmental management, or to what extent for example overstocking large mammals and introducing of extralimital species do occur. It is simply not known what the contribution of wildlife ranching operations to conservation is.
Some might be effective at protecting natural land cover, and conserve threatened biodiversity that is underrepresented in state PAs, who knows???

Private land that has been formally gazetted (and better studied) has been shown to play a role in improving habitat connectivity, conserving under-protected and threatened habitats. Some gazetted private PAs do also some trophy hunting but they have a proper environmental management and most likely a much better conservation value than the wildlife ranches.

Other African countries have trophy hunting in community conservancies or on hunting concessions and this is a context very different from SA and one should not assume that the impact of trophy hunting on conservation and poor communities is comparable. But the writers of the media articles don't care and keep campaigning for or against trophy hunting making only silly assumptions most of the time.

[Richprins]

Interesting, Klippies!

Trophy hunting is very much part of community development, as you say. In fact elephant hunts were allowed by SANParks in the Pafuri/Makuleke concession, not sure if it still goes on?


https://conservation-development.net/Pr ... ollins.pdf

[Lisbeth]

What kind of development do the communities support with the money that they earn from trophy hunting? I.e if the whole community takes advantage of the hunting and not only few selected members

[Klipspringer]

What kind of development do the communities support with the money that they earn from trophy hunting? I.e if the whole community takes advantage of the hunting and not only few selected members

That depends on what I call the "context".

In South Africa, there are so far only very few trophy hunting operations on land with communal tenure. Commercial wildlife ranching within communal tenure systems is generally not practised much (will increase), and the Mier Management Committee is an exception. The Mier Management Committee uses 50 000 ha of Kalahari sandveld for hunting purposes; the farm was stocked with game donated by SANParks. The income generated goes back to the community for infrastructure development (schools, clinics, etc.) as well as for bursaries to attend tertiary institutions.

A different context is Namibia's Community‐Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program that began in the mid‐1990s, when progressive legislation for the devolution of conditional rights to natural resources allowed communities to register areas of customary landholding as “communal conservancies.” Registering these conservancies allows local communities to manage and benefit from wildlife and other natural resources on their traditional lands. Prior to the legislation, natural resources were the sole property of the state.
There is a recent scientific study on these conservancies: https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ... cobi.12643
For both hunting and tourism, conservancies negotiate agreements with private operators. The agreements between conservancies and operators specify the portion of income the conservancy receives (typically 8–12% of total lodge revenue and from 30–75% of trophy price, depending on the species) and jobs to be offered to community members with the operation (from 20–50 for tourism lodges, depending on factors such as size and location, and 8–10 for hunting camps).
Income (i.e., fees from lodge and hunting concessions) is used by conservancies to cover operational and management costs and is also distributed as cash and funds for development projects within the community. Individual conservancy members who are salaried employees at tourism lodges or hunting camps clearly benefit financially from conservation. Conservancy members also benefit individually from the consumption of wild meat that is distributed throughout the community from hunted animals.
Conservancies use income from trophy hunting and tourism for the salaries of conservancy employees and for other conservancy operating costs, but also for compensation for wildlife conflict, payments to traditional authority structures, direct cash dividends, community‐level projects, and infrastructure development. Some conservancies generate 70% of their income from hunting, others none.

A complexe matter and as I see it, it is different everywhere. I suspect that the hunting on conservancies and communal tenure land generates funds for the communities and this is then distributed in a fair or unfair way depending on the community structures. But I doubt that hunting on private land (APNR or wildlife ranches) and provincial reserves in SA provides much of benefit for adjacent communities.

Said that, the Timbavati game reserve said in 2018, fevenue earned from two buffalo bulls hunted, would be donated to the local neighbouring communities.
Here an interested document on Timbavati funding: https://timbavati.co.za/sustainability- ... e-reserve/
same in 2020: https://www.conservationfrontlines.org/ ... e-reserve/

[Klipspringer]

Here is an article with data:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1275-6

Table 1 is interesting:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559- ... 6/tables/1

Funding sources for conservation
Photographic tourism:
• ~50% (US$30 million) of Kenya Wildlife Service’s annual budget from tourism, supporting management in 39 national parks and reserves
• ~80% of Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority’s budget derived from tourism (including trophy hunting) (ZimParks, personal communication)
• ~80% of Kenya community and private conservancies’ operating budget from tourism, covering >60,000km2, supporting >3,000 rangers and >700,000 households70 (D.K., personal communication)
• ~50% of Uganda Wildlife Authority’s budget from gorilla-based tourism
• ~80% (US$52 million) of South African National Parks’ annual budget from tourism, supporting 19 national parks

Trophy hunting
• Supports budgets of 82 conservancies in Namibia covering ~20% of the country (162,000 km2), encompassing ~189,000 community members (9% of Namibia’s population)73
• ~68% of Tanzanian PAs rely on income from trophy hunting, covering 250,000 km2
• ~38% of Zimbabwe’s state-owned PAs are designated as hunting areas, as are large areas of community and private land (ZimParks, personal communication)

International aid
~90% (~US$3 million) of Northern Rangelands Trust’s budget supporting 39 community conservancies across 42,000 km2 (ref. 76)
• ~25% (US$3.35 million) of Gorongosa National Park’s 2019 budget from bi- and multilateral cooperation partners

Philanthropy (Individuals, Corporations, Foundations, Zoos)
• 40% (US$120 million) of World Wildlife Fund’s global budget from individual donors
• ~35% (US$12 million) of African Wildlife Foundation’s 2019 budget from individual donors, ~30% (US$10 million) from public sector donors
• ~32%, 25% and 23% of Africa Parks’ 2018 budget of US$50 million donated by public institutions, individuals and foundations, respectively, supporting 15 parks across 105,000 km2 in 9 countries
• 58% (~US$8 million) of Gorongosa National Park’s 2019 budget from foundations, philanthropy and donations
• >US$11 million for Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in 2018–201981, donated by individuals, corporations, private foundations and public charities, supporting PA management, lease fees, community education and outreach, and veterinary assistance across Kenya

Domestic expenditure
• ~50% (US$30 million) of Kenya Wildlife Service’s budget from national government
• Only 3% of African Parks’ 2018 operational budgets from national governments

[Lisbeth]

It is difficult to calculate how much goes directly or indirectly to conservation, which is not the maintenance of parks or conservancies, i.e. studies, bursaries, scientists in the field, protection of endangered species, flora and fauna etc.

[Richprins]

One must also remember that hunting farms protect huge areas of bush in a natural state, benefiting all the species big and small.

[Klipspringer]

One must also remember that hunting farms protect huge areas of bush in a natural state, benefiting all the species big and small.

That is again an unsubstantiated claim, there is no data to support this. The ranches are former cattle farms and a cattle farm is not the same as bush in a natural state, how much of these former cattle farms have been rehabilitated to functional ecosystems?

This is actually my point: The thinking behind the pro hunting camp is the equation of numbers of wildlife to functional ecosystems that can protect biodiversity. Is having 500 head of rhino, lion, buffalo etc the same as having a healthy ecosystem? It is of course not!

What exactly does a small fenced hunting ranch in Limpopo contribute to long-term biodiversity conservation and maintenance of ecological and evolutionary processes?

[Lisbeth]

At least those areas have not been urbanized.