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To stop trophy hunting will have severe implications for the country’s conservancies, which depend on financial gain from this activity. This was said by Dr Greg Stuart-Hill, Natural Resource Advisor at the World Wildlife Fund in Namibia, during a trip to conservancies in the Kunene Region. He was responding to the growing international and local pressure to stop trophy hunting and the export of trophies.
Trophy hunting is the legal hunting of rare and endangered species that include rhino and elephant. A petition on the website www.avaaz.org currently has over 25 300 signatures from people who are calling for a ban on endangered animal trophy imports from Namibia. The petition states that Namibian wildlife is at risk of going extinct because the animal populations are very low and vulnerable.
Stuart-Hill said that trophy hunting in Namibia last year generated N$20 million just for conservancies. According to him this translated into N$6 million worth of meat from trophy hunting while another N$4 million worth of meat was derived from wildlife killed by conservancy members. Stuart-Hill said this amounted to two million meals for people in conservancies. “This is the benefit that is going directly to the poorest people,” he said.
He added that there are currently about 530 game guards employed at conservancies and all of them are being paid through trophy hunting. “If we stop trophy hunting 530 people will be jobless. That is just the game guards, and then there are still the other staff employed through conservancies,” Stuart-Hill said. Maxi Louis, the Director of the Namibia Association of Community-Based Natural Resource Management Support Organisations (NACSO), said it should be kept in mind that there is a ripple effect when people lose their jobs. “It is not just their jobs, they are feeding 10 other people.
You are taking that family into poverty.” What do conservancies say? Asser Ndjitezeua, the chairman of the ?Khoadi //Hôas Conservancy in the Kunene Region, said it would have a detrimental impact on the conservancy if trophy hunting is stopped. According to him, it would especially affect the running costs of the conservancy. Ndjitezeua said if trophy hunting is stopped it would firstly affect the game guards employed in the conservancy.
“You must be able to pay salaries and service cars.” Ndjitezeua said trophy hunting is a healthy exercise as long as the animals are not hunted into extinction. He said if there were no conservancies, the communities would not feel ownership of their resources. “Illegal hunting will become the order of the day and there will be chaos. There will be a lot of illegal activities.” Ndjitezeua said there are about 100 people employed directly or indirectly by the conservancy. “This means that thousands are being fed by the conservancy.
If the conservancy ceased to exist they will starve and will start to steal and unemployment will become the order of the day. They cannot do away with conservancies.” He further said that communities have been denied the benefit of their resources for a very long time. “These benefits that the communities are deriving through the conservancies do not just come on a silver platter.
People are working hard for the benefits. It is not just being dished out to them.” Hilga Lisa /Gawises, the manager of the conservancy, added that they have had a trophy-hunting agreement with the same professional hunter for more than 10 years. She said the hunter provides training to the community’s game guards and they have a very good relationship with him.
She said if trophy hunting was banned it would not be good for the conservancy. “We can stop community hunting, but we cannot stop trophy hunting. We have to do the hunting to feed the community and everyone in the area can benefit. The meat and money are very important.
We give that meat to the soup kitchen and the school and we cannot just stop the hunting.” Meat and money Stuart-Hill said there are four ways to utilise wildlife in conservancies: shooting for own use, shooting and selling the meat, catching and selling wildlife to other game farmers, and trophy hunting.
He said game capturing damages the population because it removes the female from the population and therefore the only benefit to the community is the fact that they receive money for the animal.
With regard to shoot and sell the community also receives money but it also causes a lot of disturbance to the wildlife population while hunting for own use also damages the wildlife population, because community members often shoot females and young animals. The advantage to this method is that poor people receive food. Trophy hunting, on the other hand, generally focuses on post-reproductive males, as these make the biggest trophies.
Only a very small percentage of the population is hunted (0.5 to 2%), with no impact on the overall health of the species. This is true for antelope, and for rhino and elephant. Trophy hunting requires minimal infrastructure and has a minor ecological footprint, but it generates significant income - for local communities, for hunting operators, for conservation activities, and for the national economy. “The skin and horns are of no use to the communities and are sold at a huge price while the waste product, the meat, is provided to the community,” said Stuart-Hill. “There is huge international pressure against hunting.
A few misdemeanours and trade sanctions are being imposed on a nation.” Stuart-Hill stressed that people need to understand that conservancies are not a national park. “This is communal land. This is people’s farmland we are talking about.” ?Khoadi //Hôas Conservancy
Source: Namibian Sun
Trophy hunting is the legal hunting of rare and endangered species that include rhino and elephant. A petition on the website www.avaaz.org currently has over 25 300 signatures from people who are calling for a ban on endangered animal trophy imports from Namibia. The petition states that Namibian wildlife is at risk of going extinct because the animal populations are very low and vulnerable.
Stuart-Hill said that trophy hunting in Namibia last year generated N$20 million just for conservancies. According to him this translated into N$6 million worth of meat from trophy hunting while another N$4 million worth of meat was derived from wildlife killed by conservancy members. Stuart-Hill said this amounted to two million meals for people in conservancies. “This is the benefit that is going directly to the poorest people,” he said.
He added that there are currently about 530 game guards employed at conservancies and all of them are being paid through trophy hunting. “If we stop trophy hunting 530 people will be jobless. That is just the game guards, and then there are still the other staff employed through conservancies,” Stuart-Hill said. Maxi Louis, the Director of the Namibia Association of Community-Based Natural Resource Management Support Organisations (NACSO), said it should be kept in mind that there is a ripple effect when people lose their jobs. “It is not just their jobs, they are feeding 10 other people.
You are taking that family into poverty.” What do conservancies say? Asser Ndjitezeua, the chairman of the ?Khoadi //Hôas Conservancy in the Kunene Region, said it would have a detrimental impact on the conservancy if trophy hunting is stopped. According to him, it would especially affect the running costs of the conservancy. Ndjitezeua said if trophy hunting is stopped it would firstly affect the game guards employed in the conservancy.
“You must be able to pay salaries and service cars.” Ndjitezeua said trophy hunting is a healthy exercise as long as the animals are not hunted into extinction. He said if there were no conservancies, the communities would not feel ownership of their resources. “Illegal hunting will become the order of the day and there will be chaos. There will be a lot of illegal activities.” Ndjitezeua said there are about 100 people employed directly or indirectly by the conservancy. “This means that thousands are being fed by the conservancy.
If the conservancy ceased to exist they will starve and will start to steal and unemployment will become the order of the day. They cannot do away with conservancies.” He further said that communities have been denied the benefit of their resources for a very long time. “These benefits that the communities are deriving through the conservancies do not just come on a silver platter.
People are working hard for the benefits. It is not just being dished out to them.” Hilga Lisa /Gawises, the manager of the conservancy, added that they have had a trophy-hunting agreement with the same professional hunter for more than 10 years. She said the hunter provides training to the community’s game guards and they have a very good relationship with him.
She said if trophy hunting was banned it would not be good for the conservancy. “We can stop community hunting, but we cannot stop trophy hunting. We have to do the hunting to feed the community and everyone in the area can benefit. The meat and money are very important.
We give that meat to the soup kitchen and the school and we cannot just stop the hunting.” Meat and money Stuart-Hill said there are four ways to utilise wildlife in conservancies: shooting for own use, shooting and selling the meat, catching and selling wildlife to other game farmers, and trophy hunting.
He said game capturing damages the population because it removes the female from the population and therefore the only benefit to the community is the fact that they receive money for the animal.
With regard to shoot and sell the community also receives money but it also causes a lot of disturbance to the wildlife population while hunting for own use also damages the wildlife population, because community members often shoot females and young animals. The advantage to this method is that poor people receive food. Trophy hunting, on the other hand, generally focuses on post-reproductive males, as these make the biggest trophies.
Only a very small percentage of the population is hunted (0.5 to 2%), with no impact on the overall health of the species. This is true for antelope, and for rhino and elephant. Trophy hunting requires minimal infrastructure and has a minor ecological footprint, but it generates significant income - for local communities, for hunting operators, for conservation activities, and for the national economy. “The skin and horns are of no use to the communities and are sold at a huge price while the waste product, the meat, is provided to the community,” said Stuart-Hill. “There is huge international pressure against hunting.
A few misdemeanours and trade sanctions are being imposed on a nation.” Stuart-Hill stressed that people need to understand that conservancies are not a national park. “This is communal land. This is people’s farmland we are talking about.” ?Khoadi //Hôas Conservancy
Source: Namibian Sun
