Celebrities may inflict real harm on villages they want to protect

It has become a fashionable cause among celebrities from Ricky Gervais to Joanna Lumley and Ranulph Fiennes. Even Queen guitarist, Brian May, has demanded an end to ‘this sense-less slaughter’.

They are fervent supporters of the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill – legislation that would prevent people from bringing trophies such as heads and hooves into Britain following trips stalking big game in Africa and elsewhere.

But by what right, many Africans ask, do these ‘mzungus’ (white people) have to weigh in on these policies from ‘Mud Island’ (the United Kingdom)?

The answer, of course, is none at all.

These high-minded crusaders may believe that, by ­campaigning for a ban on the importation of big- game ­trophies, they are ­saving ­animals’ lives while ­parading their own virtuous credentials.

Poaching

But a new study by Oxford University has concluded that they are wrong-headed and risk inflicting real harm both on indigenous communities and on the wildlife they claim to want to protect.

The study, led by biologist Dr Dan Challender, examines the issues surrounding the Bill. Its key finding is that, by banning trophies, Britain could actually hasten the destruction of wild habitats in Africa – shrinking these majestic animals’ territory.

Animal rights activists have been campaigning to ban big-game hunting altogether for decades. But their arguments are based on the suggestion that trophy hunting in particular is contributing to a decline in wildlife across Africa. They also claim there is a link between hunting and illegal poaching. Dr Challender’s study comprehensively disproves both claims. This is a major blow to the anti-trophy movement and contains ­several major findings.

Firstly, legal trophy-hunting is not a major threat to any of the 73 species and subspecies imported into the UK such as lions or hippos. In fact, the opposite is true: trophy hunting provides significant environmental benefits. These include preventing the conversion of wild habitat to agriculture, ­providing resources to prevent poaching, and bringing employment to local people.

Hunting is a revenue earner that can benefit poor rural communities and thus actively discourage poaching, particularly in southern Africa. Furthermore, just 159 trophies from 116 animals are imported into the UK every year. This represents less than 1 per cent of the global trade. Meanwhile, the vast majority (79 per cent) of the hunting trophies imported to the UK in 2015-21 were from countries where ­populations of the hunted species were ‘stable, increasing or abundant’.

Despite this, the Bill, sponsored by Labour MP John Spellar, has already passed through its second reading. Observers expect Keir Starmer’s government to pass it as soon as possible.

In recent years, animal-rights groups such as the Born Free Foundation and The Campaign To Ban Trophy Hunting have intensified their efforts. The Oxford University report found that more than two-thirds of the responses submitted to the government’s ‘public consultation’ were linked to these campaigns.

The lobbyists argue it is ‘medieval’ to kill beautiful wild creatures with high-powered weapons, and insist that this practice is depleting endangered species such as lions, elephants, leopard and buffalo. 

But scientists warn that such sentimental arguments have no place in conservation. When wild animals are given names by Western activists – such as ‘Cecil the lion’, shot by an American hunter – emotion cloudsthe debate. One southern African tourism executive, who asked not to be named, told me: ‘Cecil has done more damage to African wildlife conservation than any other single animal.’

Dr Challender told me that it was easy ‘to put one’s own values and moral positions above anything else when talking about issues as contentious as trophy hunting. But, if we’re interestedin what is best for wildlife,we need to think about ­scientific evidence.’

Quite so. And the evidence suggests that import bans could impoverish rural communities. ‘Understanding the wants and needs of local people where trophy hunting takes place is critical,’ says Dr Challender.

African conservationists have long criticised the Hunting Trophies Bill as an act of ‘colonialism’. Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Msisi has called it a ‘racist onslaught’ from people ‘who sit in the comfort of where they are and lecture us about the management of species they do not have’.

Namibia’s environment minister, Pohamba Shifeta, has declared: ‘Your bill implies that your judgments supersede our insights, those of the people who actually look after these animals.’

Across seven African countries, trophy hunting brings in more than £160 million annually. In Namibia, which has arguably the best-run conservation model, hunting brings in a welcome £24 million every year in a country where the average wage is around just £2.20 a day.

Threatened

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Maxi Pia Louis, director of Namibia’s community conservation body NACSO, embraced the results of the new Oxford study, saying: ‘This is good news. Trophy hunting bans demotivate communities.’ She appealed to the British government ‘to reconsider decisions that are detrimental to our conservation efforts’.

Last year a group of African high commissioners and community leaders accompanied British conservation scientists, some of whom were co-authors of this month’s Oxford report, to the House of Lords in an attempt to dissuade peers from taking the bill forward.

They tried to explain what life was like on the ground in rural Africa and how difficult it was for poor communities to live among wild animals, which constantly threatened their precious crops as well as the lives of their children.

Professor Patience Gandiwe, Zimbabwe Parks & Wildlife Authority’s director of international conservation affairs, said that the bill ‘exhibits a master-slave relationship. It is baffling to us Africans that they can plan legislation without fully understanding the issues.’

Demands

Professor Gandiwe highlighted data from Zimbabwe’s Bubye Valley Conservancy, a reserve where hunting is permitted. It was established in 1994 after a series of devastating droughts made cattle farming unviable.

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Today Bubye boasts the third-largest black rhino population in Africa as well as Zimbabwe’s largest lion population. Key to the reserve’s survival is the sale of 16 lion-hunting licences bringing in £1.2 million annually.

Professor Amy Dickman, director of Oxford University’s Conservation Research Unit and a co-author of the new study, insists the Bill should not go through – ‘not the least because the parliamentary debate last year was riddled with misinformation.’

She claims: ‘The MPs appeared to be willing to ignore scientific evidence, major risks to conservation, animal welfare and the rights and livelihoods of affected people’.

Now the Labour government is faced with a stark choice. It can listen to the deeply researched evidence from conservation experts such as Professor Dickman and Professor Gandiwe.

It can also recognise the right of African leaders to do what is best for their own rural communities, while protecting endangered species from poachers.

Or it can cravenly surrender to the demands of celebrity do-gooders who are blind to the damage they do – and the suffering they cause.

Graham Boynton is a British author and journalist who grew up in Zimbabwe and writes frequently about African conservation issues.