2. African elephants are in trouble. Their numbers
have fallen from as many as ten million a hundred
years ago to as few as 400,000 today. Recent losses
are largely from poaching for the illegal ivory
trade (some 30,000 elephants a year), but also
because of the shrinking habitat for elephants,
as people open up land for farming
and development.
Killing more elephants to help save the species is
one counterintuitive strategy for preserving them.
Here’s the thinking: Invite hunters from rich
countries to pay generous fees to shoot specified
numbers of elephants, and use that money for
conservation and to help give local communities a
boost. Do that, the theory goes, and poor villagers
won’t need to poach elephants
to feed their families.
The International Union for Conservation
of Nature, an internationally recognized
organization that sets the conservation statuses
for species, supports this idea. “Well-managed
trophy hunting can provide both revenue and
incentives for people to conserve and restore
wild populations, maintain areas of land for
conservation, and protect wildlife from poaching,”
its guiding principles say.
But a closer look at trophy hunting in Africa shows
that the industry employs few people and that the
money from hunt fees that trickles down to needy
villagers is minimal. Government corruption can
be a factor. In Zimbabwe, for instance, individuals
associated with President Robert Mugabe have
seized lands in lucrative hunting areas. Trophy
hunting isn’t stopping poaching, especially in
countries that have a poor record of
protecting their wildlife.
Six countries—South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia,
Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania—have
many of the remaining savanna elephants. Along
with Cameroon and Gabon, these nations allow
sport hunting regardless of the level of decline
in their elephant populations. (Botswana, which
has more than 130,000 elephants by one recent
estimate, has banned trophy hunting.)
According to the latest figures, Tanzania’s
elephant population has fallen from nearly
110,000 in 2009 to just over 43,000 at the end
of 2014—a 60 percent drop. Mozambique’s
elephants declined from an estimated 20,000 to
10,300 during the same period. In Zimbabwe, a
recent survey shows massive losses in some parks.
In Tanzania and Mozambique, elephants are
now considered at risk of extinction, which
means that none of their products can be traded
commercially. But trophies aren’t considered
commercial products.
Trophy hunting in Zimbabwe made the news in
October when an unidentified German hunter
shot what may have been one of the continent’s
largest bull elephants. From 2003 to 2013, trophy
hunters exported more than 28 tons of
tusks from Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe and Namibia’s sport hunting programs
provide contrasting examples of the benefits of
this form of conservation.
Fees from trophy hunting of
elephants that are supposed
to help local communities—
and elephants—often don’t.
0 200 400 600 800 1000
South Africa
Mozambique
Tanzania
Zambia
Namibia
Zimbabwe
Here’s how many tusks that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of
Fauna and Flora (CITES) allows hunters to export from the big six countries in 2015:
3. Supporters of trophy hunting often cite
Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas
Management Programme for Indigenous
Resources), in which rural district councils allow
locals to sell safari operators access to their
wildlife. In turn, safari operators sell sport hunting
opportunities, mostly to foreigners.
“Since its inception, CAMPFIRE has been very
successful,” the foundation’s website states. It says
that households participating in CAMPFIRE
increased their incomes by an estimated
15 to 25 percent.
But the benefits from the program are not
equally shared within the communities, according
to a 1997 study analyzing CAMPFIRE, and
corruption has eaten away at revenue.
Rural councils in Zimbabwe are notoriously
underfunded and almost always have nothing
in their coffers to support the communities in
their districts. For example, revenue from sport
hunting in the Chiredzi Rural District (where the
hunter shot that big bull elephant) was negligible,
according to a 2014 end-of-year report.
In the report, the council’s chairman suggested it
would be better to switch from hunting to more
profitable non-consumer-based tourism, such as
sightseeing and photography.
While a portion of the hunting fees foreigners
pay (which can run into the tens of thousands of
dollars) is earmarked for community projects such
as CAMPFIRE, Emmanuel Fundira, Chairman
of Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe,
told CBS News in October that rural councils
get “nothing.” In most cases, he said, corrupt
government officials take the money.
CAMPFIRE CEO Phindile Ncube told CBS
News that his rural district, Hwange, made
more than $158,000 in hunting fees during the
past year. He claimed that the money is goes to
infrastructure and food programs for
local communities.
But when CBS interviewed local villagers, they
said they haven’t received a cent from the council.
Furthermore, hunting operations in wildlife-rich
areas are being seized by Zimbabwe’s land-hungry
political elite, according to a 2014 report from
Born Free, a wildlife conservation nonprofit, and
C4ADS, a nonprofit conflict and security analysis
firm. Safari and game reserves are one of the few
remaining lucrative industries in Zimbabwe, both
for legal and illegal hunting.
Rural councils
in Zimbabwe
are notoriously
underfunded and
almost always have
nothing in their
coffers to support the
communities in their
districts.
The takeover of these lands has coincided with
overhunting and poaching, according to the
report, as the political elites who have come to
manage them are driven more by profit than
conservation. Revenue is more likely to go into
personal and foreign bank accounts than into
conservation and community programs.
Major General Engelbert Rugeje, for instance,
who’s the chief of staff of Zimbabwe’s army, is
linked in the report to land seizures in Save Valley
Conservancy, home of 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s
rhinos. Poaching in the area has already begun,
the report says. Rugeje also alleged to have been
involved in the eviction of 350 villagers at Matutu
conservancy in Chiredzi.
Trophy hunting in Zimbabwe made the news in
October when an unidentified German hunter
shot what may have been one of the continent’s
largest bull elephants. From 2003 to 2013, trophy
hunters exported more than 28 tons of tusks
from Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe and Namibia’s sport hunting programs
provide contrasting examples of the benefits of
this form of conservation.
Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE
5
4. Namibia’s Conservancy
In Namibia, elephant numbers have been
increasing, and the nation’s conservancy approach
is applauded as a factor in this success.
Established by the Namibian government in 1996,
the program grants communities the power to
manage wildlife on communal land and to work
with private companies to develop their own
tourism markets.
The latest government statistics indicate that
the estimated contributions from trophy hunting
exceeded $70 million. The vast majority of this
income is returned to operators and spin-off
beneficiaries such as airlines, hotels, tourism
facilities, but there is a trickle-down effect.
In 2000, the total income to communal
conservancies from all forms of wildlife use,
including trophy hunting, amounted to
$165,000. Six years later, this had increased almost
tenfold to $1,330,000. Though small compared
to the overall income from trophy hunting, it does
provide one in seven Namibians with
$75 a month.
Conservancy lands given over to trophy hunting
have the added benefit of keeping the wild, wild.
If these areas were farmed, for instance, the
incentives for conservation would undoubtedly
wane, and habitat loss would reduce wildlife
numbers. The ecological footprint of trophy
hunting—even of a safari lodge catering for
groups of wildlife watching tourists—is far lighter
than that of commercial farming.
Conservancies offer hunt operators land largely
devoid of people—a draw for hunters who want
an African wilderness experience. Camps are
small, with few overheads other than
equipment and licenses.
The Namibian model has critics, however. As
reported in Africa Geographic, some government
officials have handed out elephant hunting
permits in an effort to get political support from
the communities, especially in the Kunene region,
which is renowned for its rare desert elephants.
Plus, the country’s export quota of 90 elephants
doesn’t include permits to hunt “problem
animals,” but Namibian law allows hunters to
easily obtain permits to shoot elephants judged to
be in conflict with people.
A closer look at
trophy hunting in
Africa shows that the
industry employs
few people and that
the money from hunt
fees that trickles
down to needy
villagers is minimal.
According to a CNN report in 2014, these permits
are sometimes granted even before a “problem”
animal has been identified. A hunter can then
shoot any elephant a community declares to be a
problem, whether it’s actually a problem or not.
CNN reported that several desert elephants have
been shot either for their meat or for the cash
from hunt fees.
In a letter posted online, Namibia’s Ministry of
Environment and Tourism strongly denied these
claims. Namibia, the ministry says, has more
elephants now than in the past hundred years, and
“one of the reasons for their increase in numbers
is that they have a value.”
5. The Money Story
According to an IUCN report, the sport
hunting industry does not provide significant
benefits to the communities where it occurs.
Across Africa, there are only about 15,000
hunting-related jobs—a tiny number,
especially considering that the six main
game-hunting countries alone have a
population of nearly 150 million.
Besides that, local communities make an
average of only ten cents a hectare (25 cents
an acre) from trophy hunting. A return that
small, the report says, explains locals’ “lack
of interest in preserving hunting areas and
their continued encroachment
and poaching.”
With more than one-sixth of the land in
those six countries set aside for trophy
hunting, and the fact that land-hungry
politicians are seizing more and more
land for themselves, impoverished rural
communities often resort to poaching
and the illegal wildlife trade to
sustain themselves.
Citing the failure of trophy hunting interests
to provide much needed revenue for both
conservation and communities, and the
failure of governments to control rampant
elephant poaching, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service imposed a ban on imported
elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and
Tanzania for 2014 and 2015. The ban is
likely to be extended indefinitely.
The view that sport hunting of elephants in
Zimbabwe and Tanzania is causing more
harm than good is gaining momentum. In
Zimbabwe, says Gavin Shire, a spokesperson
at the service, “trophy hunting does not
currently support conservation efforts that
contribute towards the recovery
of the species.”
Still, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s
director, Dan Ashe, maintains that there
is a place for “responsible, scientifically
managed sport hunting.” The Service, he
says, “remains committed to combating
heinous wildlife crimes while supporting
activities that empower and encourage local
communities to be a part of the solution.”
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