Opinion: Rural communities are the custodians of African wildlife and deserve to have their voices heard in the trophy hunting debate.
Category Archives: Opinion Editorial
Victoria Falls drying up? Fake news versus fact
Victoria Falls is not running dry, despite what some international news media keep telling us. Here are the facts.
Communities delivering conservation impact & wildlife recoveries
Opinion: Communities are delivering significant conservation results equivalent to those of government parks and reserves.
Conservation needs diversified approaches – opinion
Scientists suggest alternative land-use models to trophy hunting – models that are more inclusive of local people.
Leopard hunting: CITES quotas not sustainable, say researchers
CITES trophy hunting quotas for leopards are arbitrary and not sustainable, says research. Read here to find what the 3 researchers recommend.
Smoked baby chimpanzee on hotel menu, says NGO
Smoked baby chimpanzee on the menu at prominent DRC hotel, says NGO.
Opinion: Zimbabwe’s shameful export of baby elephants under the guise of ‘sustainable use’
Opinion: Export of baby Zimbabwe elephants to China in defiance of CITES is shameful, and makes a mockery of ‘sustainable use’.
Katavi National Park takes radical action on hippos
Opinion by biologist: Controversial dam being built in Tanzania’s remote Katavi National Park to save hippos may have negative environmental consequences.
Opinion: Trophy hunting is not all black and white, says conservation biologist
Trophy hunting: Conservation biologist explains the complexity of the situation in a remote area of Tanzania, calls for reason and practical solutions that work on the ground.
Opinion: How hunting black rhino contributes to conservation in Namibia
Black rhino hunts benefit conservation of our rhinos – opinion post by conservationist, on behalf of 64 Namibian conservation organisations.
Crunch time as Zambia’s Lower Zambezi NP comes under mining threat
Will Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia be mined? The courts will decide soon whether to allow the proposed controversial open-cast copper mine inside the park. The decision on whether it will go ahead will be handed down on 14 October by the High Court of Zambia in Lusaka.
Opinion: Approval of citrus farm on Greater Kruger border puts the region’s Protected Area Expansion Project at risk
Citrus farm approved on the border of Greater Kruger. Concerned protected area managers believe that this will threaten the entire region.
Minister: How many wild rhinos do we have left?
How many rhinos do we have left in our National Parks? An open letter to South African Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy.
OPINION: Rhino horn trade – designing a sales mechanism should international trade become legal
Rhino horn trade: If the international sale of rhino horn was legalised could it be more successful than the previous legal sales of elephant tusks?
Elephants and ivory – CITES CoP18 and what the opposing countries want
Battle lines are drawn at the CITES CoP18 conference which starts this weekend, and elephants and ivory are the controversial issues at play. Here is an opinion post from three organisations about each of the proposals on the table.
Scientists write letter to Botswana president about elephants
Prominent elephant scientists write to Botswana’s President Masisi about strategy to manage elephants and reduce conflict with humans.
Poor fencing has devastating effects on roaming elephants
Elephants are being shot because poor fencing results in elephants roaming into communal lands outside of Songimvelo Nature Reserve in Mpumalanga, South Africa.
Opinion: The untold story behind hunting in Botswana
Hunting in Botswana: Human-wildlife conflict scientist takes a deeper look at whether the historic hunting ban was good or bad for elephants and people.
Yes or no – boycott tourism lodges in Greater Kruger because of neighbouring trophy hunting operations?
Does it make sense to boycott tourism lodges in the Greater Kruger because of trophy hunting on neighbouring properties? Our CEO answers the question.
Life with elephants
Botswana elephant debate: We speak to the MOST important people in this equation – those living with elephants
Opinion: Selinda Reserve in Botswana was not hunted out, say former owners in reply to Dereck Joubert
Previous leaseholders of NG16, also known as Selinda Reserve, respond to Dereck Joubert’s article on the state of the Selinda concession.
Opinion: Europe first plundered elephants for ivory – should Western countries preach to China?
The Elephant Protection Initiative takes a long view and considers the changing role of China in the illegal ivory trade.
Opinion: Trophy hunting in the Greater Kruger versus broader conservation priorities
Trophy hunting in the Greater Kruger – biodiversity conservationist provides perspective, and suggests that well-funded groups opposed to hunting have a disproportionate voice in social media, compared to local communities that are affected by living amongst or near wildlife, and carry the costs.
Opinion: Loss of wilderness is Africa’s primary cause of wildlife population reductions
Lodge owner says that the loss of wilderness areas is the main reason behind reductions in populations of lions, elephants and other species.
Wildlife vet: the Botswana elephant debate is actually about a bigger conservation issue
Botswana elephant debate: Wildlife vet says that this is NOT about too many elephants in Botswana, it’s about too many elephants in areas where humans, livestock and elephants overlap.
Opinion: Put down the petitions – help create alternatives for Botswana beyond elephant hunting
Botswana elephant debate: Tourism marketing manager urges the tourism industry to create alternatives beyond elephant hunting.
Opinion by human-wildlife conflict specialist: Botswana has found her voice about elephants – but will we listen?
Human-wildlife conflict specialist comments on the recent recommendations regarding the hunting ban and human-elephant conflict in Botswana.
Opinion: Dr. Mike Chase on elephant poaching in Botswana
Dr Mike Chase, from Elephants Without Borders, provides a statement on the elephant poaching in Botswana.
Opinion: Dereck Joubert reacts to Botswana hunting and culling recommendation
Respected filmmaker and conservation spokesperson Dereck Joubert has reacted to the Botswana government committee proposal to resume trophy hunting, and commence with elephant culling. Plans also include erecting fences to prevent certain wildlife migrations, and improve on human-wildlife conflict mitigation methods.
Opinion: Activist exposes South Africa’s lion park scams
Lion activist says let’s call a scam for what it is.
Updated rhino poaching stats – what is not being disclosed – comment from award-winning filmmakers
Award-winning filmmakers Susan Scott and Bonné de Bod comment on the latest rhino poaching statistics released by the Department of Environmental Affairs.
Opinion: Pro hunter responds to our CEO regarding hunting in Greater Kruger
Professional hunter Paul Stone has responded to Simon Espley’s opinion editorial questioning whether the trophy hunting industry will ruin Kruger National Park’s expansion plans.
Opinion: Our CEO asks whether the trophy hunting industry could ruin Kruger’s big expansion plan
Our CEO asks whether the trophy hunting industry will bring the Greater Kruger to its knees.
Dereck Joubert sets the record straight about trophy hunting impact on lions and refutes claims of so-called benefits
An opinion post by Dereck Joubert as he sets the record straight about trophy hunting impact on lions and refutes claims of so-called benefits.
Opinion: Ecologist responds to Guardian newspaper article against trophy hunting
Campaign against trophy hunting – a western urban cultural imposition on rights of rural African communities: arrogant cultural superiority or ignorance?
Opinion: Why trophy hunting is counter-productive as a ‘conservation tool’
Trophy hunters target the largest or rarest animals they can find – or those with the biggest horns, tusks or manes. Yet both science and common sense tells us that that goes against nature’s law of survival of the fittest.
Opinion: Farcical quotes from the lion farming colloquium in South Africa
An opinion post on the colloquium on lion farming in South Africa.
Botswana elephant poaching debate: Wildlife vet speaks his mind
Botswana elephant poaching debate: Wildlife vet speaks his mind.
Scientists question BBC reporting over elephant poaching crisis in Botswana
A group of prominent scientists have questioned the reporting by the BBC of the elephant poaching crisis in Botswana.
Elephants: Listen to the people of the Okavango – opinion
The elephant – an iconic species that is beloved around the world is not such a gentle giant to the people who actually live with Earth’s largest mammal. This is the story of over 16,000 people from 15 settlements in the eastern Okavango Delta panhandle who are trapped between a river and over 18,000 elephants.
Leopard hunting quota was issued despite official report showing significant population declines
The official report into leopard populations reveals significant population reductions, and yet the SA government has announced a resumption in trophy hunting. Does this make sense? A respected biologist suggests not.
Biologist questions science behind leopard trophy hunting quota
After only two years of no leopard hunting, we now have apparently accumulated enough population data to reinstate a hunting quota and lift the zero quota. I find this very hard to believe for such a cryptic species.
Video: South African rhino doing circus tricks in Russia – what’s next for our wildlife industry?
A two-ton white rhino, sold from a South African farm, is being forced to perform tricks at Russian circuses.
The Extinction Business: Lion bone trade threatens world’s big cats
The Extinction Business: South Africa’s ‘Lion’ Bone Trade is an investigative report by EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading that reveals startling and alarming factors that have a significant negative impact on worldwide big cat conservation.
Skye the lion – the beginning of the end for trophy hunting in the Greater Kruger?
The highly controversial shooting of a male lion by a trophy hunter in the Umbabat section of the Greater Kruger could conceivably mark the beginning of the end for trophy hunting in this part of Africa.
Opinion: The (high) road to a Greater Kruger National Park
An alternative, constructive perspective to the Greater Kruger Protected Area is offered, in contrast to the more acrimonious narratives that are doing the rounds in response to the hunting of a lion in the area.
Kruger lion hunted – what we know
A large male lion was trophy hunted on Thursday morning last week in the Greater Kruger National Park.
Zambia’s hippo cull: Valid concerns and questions from those affected
A showdown is looming between tourism operators in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park and trophy hunters, in the wake of the Zambian government’s decision to cull up to 2,000 hippos over a 5-year period in Luangwa Valley, across the river from the tourism lodges – and to award the culling contract to a South African trophy hunting outfit Umlilo Safaris (so much for the empowerment of local people and generation of revenue that stays in Zambia).
Opinion: Africa is not Disneyland
Some imagery that comes to our screens can be tough to stomach, and every now and then Africa really tests one’s emotional make-up.
Opinion: Like the fossil fuel industry, trophy hunting is unsustainable
Trophy hunting is like the fossil fuel industry. They’re both messy, unsustainable, in need of an alternative approach and, ultimately, fail to deliver on their promises.
Wild grey parrot trapping methods are ruinous, says new research
A research paper has investigated how different capture methods and other aspects of the grey parrot trade, other than just the actual volume of birds taken from the wild, can affect sustainability of harvest.
Opinion: Timbavati increases conservation levy to fund anti-poaching and other costs
An opinion piece that touches on finding ways to increase financial contribution to the conservation effort in the Greater Kruger.
Mr President: Selling wild-caught baby elephants to China is just plain evil
An open letter to the president of Zimbabwe regarding the recent exportation of wild-caught baby elephants from Zimbabwe to China.
Opinion: Hunting’s threat to conservation
An opinion piece in response to Peter Flack’s recent article that offered a hunter’s perceived threats to conservation in South Africa.
Opinion: Elephants damage only 1% of Hwange’s vegetation
One of the main motivations for killing elephants in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe is the argument that they destroy the plants and this is accepted by many as a problem. Let’s discuss whether this argument is not just an excuse for proponents of culling to get more ivory for the ivory trade, or to justify higher quotas for nearby hunting areas.
Opinion: Hunting is sustainable (ab)use
None of the existing role players in conservation understand what is required to save Africa’s vanishing wilderness. The issue is just too broad and deep – and politically charged.
Opinion: The voice missing from the elephant trophy debate? Africans
People are likely to live with wildlife only when they have some realistic incentives to bear the costs of doing so. If wildlife doesn’t in one way or another form part of the livelihoods of people, it will inevitably make way for activities that do. For elephants, these incentives mean tourism and, yes, even trophy hunting.
Land issues: The story of beauty and violence
Land, an emotive subject, a limited resource that builds nations or breaks them. Use it well and you thrive, use it unwisely and you will sink to the bottomless pit of chaos and poverty.
Opinion: The trouble with trophy hunting
Frank Pope, CEO of Save the Elephants, shares his insight into the latest news around the import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe to America.
Opinion: Too many lions in Kunene
Whether tourism operators and armchair lion-lovers like it or not, there are now too many lions in some parts of the Kunene region. Trying to save the lions that are killing livestock, or harassing the farmers who kill them, including impounding their firearms, will not serve the interests of conservation in the region.
Kruger should cull 88% of its elephants, says hunter Ron Thomson
Celebrated hunter Ron Thomson believes that 88% of Kruger National Park’s elephants should be culled.
Rhino horn: Recipes for disaster
In the middle of the sixth mass extinction, when 50% of the living species are at risk of extinction due to the ever growing, destructive human hands, the six rhinoceros species are at the tip of the pyramid, among the most endangered species on Earth.
Kruger: Is this the technological future?
Presently, we are able to instantly globally share everything we see and hear in Kruger and just about every other destination on earth. Animal sightings and locations are given in real time and we are able to send photos and videos across a host of social media platforms.
Opinion: Are Maasai cattle to blame for overgrazing in Tanzania?
Living with the Maasai has taught me that conservation is not only about animals but is just as much about us humans; that to preserve any one place we have to be mindful of the local communities that live within it and try to understand the way they view the world to be able to work alongside them to protect mother nature.
Kruger: Impact of social media and mobile phones – good or bad?
Technology and social media have shaped the Kruger experience into something radically different from what it was ten years ago.
The rhino in the room: South Africa’s domestic trade in rhino horn
On the surface, the upcoming legal auction of rhino horn set to begin on August 21 might appear to be a harmless propaganda exercise, but it may in fact signal a deepening of the rhino crisis.
The BIG LIE about lion trophy hunting
The trophy hunting of Africa’s wild, free-roaming lions is not sustainable and has to stop – opinion piece by Simon Espley
Why Namibia’s desert lions are being killed
Namibia’s desert-adapted lions in the Tomakas region of Namibia are being killed off in a sad whirlpool of human politics, with the recent killing of the last of the famous ‘5 Musketeers’ being one such example.
Opinion: Rhino horn trade = extinction in the wild
It is now legal in South Africa to trade domestically in rhino horn, after this country’s Constitutional Court recently overturned an eight-year ban on domestic trade, based on a technicality.
Letter: flaws in plan to sell rhino horn
Examining the concept of a central selling organisation in the legalisation of the trade in rhino horn – a flawed business model
Rhino horn?
Removing the rhino’s horn to prevent poaching is a controversial and emotional matter – as is the related debate about trading in rhino horn
Why you should vote to stop trade in African grey parrots
Sign this petition and help to save thousands of wild African grey parrots!
Trophy hunting – a compromise?
Trophy hunting – the debates rage on. This analysis of the arguments put forward to justify trophy hunting makes for interesting reading
How China’s taste for wildlife feeds a killing frenzy
Africa’s extraordinary and charismatic wildlife is clearly under siege from the wrecking ball that is China.
Saving a little elephant
An elephant calf is saved after he became trapped in a dam at Phalaborwa Copper, Limpopo – thanks to the heroic team of Elephants Alive
Asia’s Golden Triangle – a conduit of death for Africa’s animals
The Asian end of the grisly wildlife trade business and a place that has become China’s illegal wildlife supermarket.
Rhino poaching is a crisis of governance
According to a wildlife expert, wildlife poaching has become a serious threat to democracy in many countries where it takes place.
The risk of captive carnivores
The EWT calls for the public to question the role of captive carnivore facilities and the management of the animals in their care.
Fly SA Express at your peril
Open letter to SA Express CEO, Inati Ntshanga.
Elephant charities – the good, the bad & the gly
In September 2013, a high-profile announcement was made in New York about a bold Clinton Global Initiative, bringing together NGOs, governments and concerned citizens to stop the slaughter of Africa’s elephants. Making international headlines, the Initiative pledged $80 million over three years to counteract the elephant crisis with a three-pronged strategy to “stop the slaughter, …
Continue reading “Elephant charities – the good, the bad & the gly”
A response to the hunting debate
A response from well-known conservationist Gail Potgieter on the hunting debate.
The Thing About Hunting
The thing about hunting is that the topic is so polarising that it prevents meaningful discourse between people who probably have more in common than they care to admit. And, while the protagonists battle it out, the grim reapers continue to harvest Africa’s wildlife and other natural resources. We humans tend to silo information to …
Lion King or Commodity?
AN ANALYSIS OF
THE LION BREEDING INDUSTRY
IN SOUTH AFRICA
Ivory – the burning question
AMERICA’S ONGOING DEBATE OVER THE TRADE IN IVORY
How the engagement ring proves that we shouldn’t trade rhino horn
Is your engagement ring to you what rhino horn is to the Chinese? We investigate some marketing myths in light of the proposal to legalise the trade in rhino horn.
Is walking with lions good conservation? Probably not.
Is walking with lions good for conservation? NO, despite what slick marketing material and convincing volunteers and promoters may tell you
