Cecil’s Legacy It’s Not About You It Is About Africa

sandman0921

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Another great article to share with your non-hunting acquaintances.

http://huntinglife.com/cecils-legacy-its-not-about-you-it-is-about-africa/


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Cecil’s Legacy: It’s Not About You, It is About Africa
by Catherine Semcer

Animal rights activists have turned the killing of a male lion outside of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park into an effective piece of propaganda in their crusade to end all hunting. Naming the lion “Cecil,” the activists have used the incident to focus public attention on trophy hunting in Africa while spreading misinformation on social media and in the press. This kind of information warfare is intended to create a political environment where substantive anti-hunting policy goals can be achieved.

To date, the activists are winning. In the days since the lions of Zimbabwe captured global attention, a group of Democrat Senators, led by Sen. Robert Menendez, who is facing trial on corruption charges, introduced legislation that would prohibit US citizens from importing legally acquired trophies of species merely being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act. If it were to become law, this legislation would throw a monkey wrench into longstanding, science based hunting programs across Africa that operate under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a treaty to which the US is a party. Under the bill, Congress would empower animal rights activists to implement their agenda on an international scale and in the absence of the science and rigorous debate that generally goes into deciding whether or not to list a species under the ESA. A press release issued by Senator Menendez stated that the goal of the legislation is to “disincentivize” American citizens from hunting in Africa, an objective that if realized, would have potentially disastrous social consequences.

To make matters worse, on August 3 Delta and United Airlines both announced that legally taken African hunting trophies would no longer be welcome on their flights. The companies freight embargoes came in response to a petition initiated by the Brooklyn based, left wing organization SUMOFUS, which claims to work to “hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable and just path for our global economy.” Meanwhile, just a month earlier, the 2 most recent Secretaries General of CITES wrote the United Nations Environment Program to warn that these activist incited embargoes

“…damage international cooperation on wildlife trade and thereby make effective conservation more difficult to accomplish.”

And that

“…the pressure being applied on airline executives is obscuring the reality that, by eliminating
the transportation of legally acquired wildlife specimens, livelihoods in the developing world
will be destroyed and targeted species could be negatively impacted.”

How can expert warnings like these be so readily ignored by politicians, airline executives, the press and the activists themselves? Moreover, with further limits on trophy hunting likely to have devastating economic and social impacts on rural African communities why are these impacts not being highlighted more in the current conversations on social media and in the press? Why is the focus strictly on African wildlife species that are not even in imminent threat of extinction?

The perhaps uncomfortable truth is that elite Westerners, as a group, expect African people to live lives of hardship and then die. Their doing so is part of “the plan” that the Joker so eloquently described to Harvey Dent in his hospital bed. It is evident in the priorities of activist petitions, in the imagery activists use to illustrate Africa and in their near complete antipathy to delivering wildlife conservation through sustainable use and development. In the eyes of animal rights extremists, Africans are either part of the problem or part of the scenery, at best there to provide a “cultural experience” on the next voyeuristic photo safari.

African wildlife on the other hand is supposed to live, unmolested, in order to provide for the activist class’ ongoing moral satisfaction and entertainment, like they do on NatGeo. That they might die at the hands of a hunter is not part of the plan embraced by an elite who cannot see past their own self righteousness. Even if that animal’s death might help fund anti-poaching units, provide jobs and food for local people and give Africans some sense of control over their own natural resources. No, because for the activists, Africans do not matter. Two thousand people can be killed in a single attack by Boko Haram and hardly anyone bats an eye. One lion is killed by a hunter and everyone loses their minds.

But African lives do matter, and that truth must become part of the conversation on trophy hunting. When Western activists, who have all of their basic needs met, call for an end to trophy hunting, it should be heard as a call for a job to be taken away from a rural African. A job as a driver, a skinner, a tracker, a cook, a job that gives his family not just a chance to get by, but also get ahead and maybe stay ahead of the multitude of hardships facing people on the continent. In South Africa, hunting has directly created a minimum of 6,000 jobs in areas of low employment and in the Eastern Cape Province increased the average wage 5.7 times. In Tanzania, hunting has created another 4,300 jobs in rural areas where work is hard to find. This pattern is repeated across the continent and would be undone if the activists have their way.

When a radical organization calls for an end to trophy hunting it should be heard as a call to deprive rural Africans of food. In Zambia, for example, peer reviewed research has shown thattrophy hunting operations provide rural residents with 129,771 kg of fresh, organic game meat each year, enough to feed 519,084 people. As reported by the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Newborn and Child Mortality in Africa, these kinds of solutions to malnutrition improve children’s ability to be educated, which in turn improve Africa’s ability to be competitive and innovative in the global economy. If trophy hunting is banned, as the radicals want, African children face a harder future than they do already.

When a call is issued to end trophy hunting it should be heard as a call to convert wildlife habitat to farmland and push healthy populations of African wildlife closer to extinction. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, habitat loss is one of the primary threats to the survival of the African lion. Trophy hunting is not even on the list. In Kenya, where trophy hunting has been banned since 1977, the lion population has decreased by 87% over the past 15 years as lands are converted to crops and pasture which are more economically competitive uses than the wildlife habitat from which people are prohibited from making a living. Should the petitions and the email appeals to ban trophy hunting gain more political currency, this conservation disaster will be repeated across Africa.

Finally, calls to end trophy hunting should be heard as a call to increase poaching of species like elephants and rhinoceros whose tusks and horns have value on an international black market. From Cameroon to Mozambique, trophy hunting outfitters and their clients are financially supporting anti-poaching units who are succeeding in conserving the continent’s wildlife where activists are failing. For example, in Mozambique’s Coutada 11, which is managed primarily for hunting, Zambeze Delta Safaris’ anti-poaching unit has established the area as the only place to see a net increase in elephant numbers during last year’s national elephant census. Meanwhile, in places like Kenya’s Tsavo West National Park, where there is no hunting and little economic incentive to conserve wildlife, poachers continue to decimate elephant herds.

When confronted with these facts animal rights activists inevitably talk about intrinsic worth and misuse ideas like ecological value. It should be recognized that these are the values of people who have a steady income, a quiet neighborhood and a car to put bumper stickers on. It should be recognized that theirs is a value system of the privileged. Like the privileged before them who colonized Africa, today’s animal rights activists are seeking to deny Africans the ability to benefit from their natural resources and the bans on shipping and importation they are inciting have the same impact as stealing those resources outright. Simply stated, ending trophy hunting is not social justice, it is theft.

It is a good thing that wildlife continues to inspire so much emotion in people. That means it still matters and that means there is still a chance to conserve it. Trophy hunting however is ultimately not about “you,” or your feelings. It is about Africans doing the best they can, with what they have, to build a better life for the next generation. Twenty three African nations have decided that trophy hunting is one of the best options they have to create economic opportunity for their people while at the same time conserving wildlife, and they are generally succeeding at doing both. It is not for people in New York, San Francisco or Washington, DC to decide they should do otherwise.




Safeguarding Africa’s wildlife requires meeting the material needs of Africa’s people. At Humanitarian Operations Protecting Elephants (H.O.P.E.) we integrate sustainable use and economic development into the front end of our anti-poaching work; partly because it is a tactic with a successful track record, but also because we believe it is the right thing to do. To learn more and find out how you can support H.O.P.E.’s efforts please visit www.hopeantipoaching.org.

Catherine Semcer is a hunter and Chief Operating Officer of Humanitarian Operations Protecting Elephants (H.O.P.E.) a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides training, advisory, assistance and procurement services to African anti-poaching units. Utilizing a core team of service providers drawn from veterans of U.S. special operations forces, H.O.P.E. also leverages decades of professional experience in humanitarian efforts, wildlife conservation, international relations and communications to provide a turn key solution to Africa’s poaching crisis.
 
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how do I pick this up so l can email it to a hundred misinformed fools ...............
 
how do I pick this up so l can email it to a hundred misinformed fools ...............
Right click on the link, click save link as, then save it in a folder, where ever you save documents on your computer. Then when you are ready to send an email, just attach the link or copy and paste the link. Or you can open it up on a word document and save the entire document. Then you can still attach the entire document to your emails if you choose.
 
thanks mate , got it done ........
 
go read the comments below the article.................depressing as usual.....................

what would you expect ,spikey
cant wait till all my friends at the department of enviorenment ,start checking their emails in abut 46 minutes .......
 
Mike,

I agree it is depressing, but these are not the people we need to be trying to reach. The rational majority is who hunters need to target, not the crazy fringe who have no hope of being converted.

Based on the vitriolic responses however, this article struck a cord for sure......


If you click on the links of the responders, the vast majority of their Facebook pages are telling..........:A Whacky:. And to be honest, one trend I'm noticing is that if you click on any of these Facebook pages of the Anti's, a large portion of them appear to be false, or at the very least pseudonyms, etc. to protect their identity....not all, but certainly a lot. I really think a lot of the more vocal organizations have paid volunteers, etc. to troll all of the hunting forums, major media websites, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and their only job is to stir up trouble and be as hateful and controversial as possible in order to change the direction of the conversation and distract.

And to be honest, that's not a bad idea for hunting organizations to do the same thing. I've seen a lot of threads lately on here, as well as AR, that talk about the inactivity and inaction of SCI, DSC, etc. and the need for a quick reaction force, proactive messaging, etc to counteract these crises like the Cecil debacle. I know, or at least highly suspect, that organizations like PETA, HSUS, etc. have members whose sole function is to quickly spread the anti-hunting message anywhere and anytime they can in the vast space of the internet. I think that's a great idea for SCI, DSC, etc. to do as well. To me, it's similar to these companies that I hear about on the radio that advertise their services to counteract bad reviews on the internet, review sites, etc.. It may sound crazy, but unfortunately in the era of Facebook, internet media, etc., it's the world we live in, and the sooner we catch up to the modern world, the more effective our message will be to those that matter....
 
this is great, the more the antis squeal the more they know this hits home with truth.i hope the vast public reads these types of truths and responds in our favor.
 
Great read for sure. I copied the link and sent it to mederterrain shipping company and to delta airlines.. Can't hurt. But as I've said so many times we need a high powered PR firm to take the battle to the media on all fronts. DSC and SCI are way behind the times. Action needs to be taken NOW.
 
I just clicked on the link and shared it on facebook. It can't hurt to try to spread the truth.
 
I moved it along as well.
Great read for sure. I copied the link and sent it to mederterrain shipping company and to delta airlines.. Can't hurt. But as I've said so many times we need a high powered PR firm to take the battle to the media on all fronts. DSC and SCI are way behind the times. Action needs to be taken NOW.
And how exactly is this to be undertaken? SCI and DSC have more money than you or me or anybody else does. Go thru the yellow pages and look up high powered PR firm that is pro hunting?o_O
 
PR firms are a lot like any other advertising or likewise groups , they nearly 100% of the time ,agree with who ever is footing the bill

tell them what you want , how aggressively you want to campaign .
sign the cheque .
and let them go .......
 
Well I get that alright. Its just the motions to go thru to get something started. Like lots of money. Who is going to do it any better than is already being done?
 
this is only from what ive seen ....
but theres doesn't seem that a whole lot is being done ,ses.
I cant speak for what going on over in your neck of the woods .
and I cant seem to get onto the facebook thing (for the last 2 months )
but over here in Australia , it seems to me only a couple of dedicated , people with the know how and drive , seem to be the only ones doing anything at all.
im sure (and hoping) the hunting orgs are doing something ,behind the closed doors .
but im not hearing or seeing anything
if all your org.
and all our orgs.
put money into a campaign , at least we all would see something , something at all is better than nothing .......
 
Well quite frankly I don't know whats being done over here other than what I read about here. I don't belong to SCI or DSC. My only point is, is that saying something needs to be done and poking holes in the air with our fingers isn't going to change anything.
 
true words ses.
ive asked the hunting orgs.both riffle and bowhunting, here in Australia , and only get automated rplies from everyone , except 2 individuals
one from the government
and the other bloke , who is the president of a deer stalkers club , which is affillated with our main org.
these 2 are pretty much holding all us hunters up ,from what im seeing .
I keep sending emails , but other than that , im open to suggestions.........
one of the other hunting orgs, president , emailed me and asked me to stop , until I hear from him,once he returns from your country ......
I respect this bloke , but politely told ,that im pretty sure im not going to stop
 

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