LION ECONOMICS – ECONOMICAL WITH THE TRUTH
by
Richard Hargreaves
​ 
As you will probably be aware the South African Government issued a Media Statement on 16th July 2018 stating:
 
Minister Edna Molewa establishes lion bone export quota for 2018
 
In accordance with advice provided by the Scientific Authority, the Department of Environmental Affairs has determined the 2018 lion bone export quota. The approved quota of 1500 skeletons (with or without the head) is effective from 7 June 2018.
 
This was further to a South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) statement dated 28th June 2017 setting the initial quota in 2017 as follows:
 
Lion export quota for 2017 communicated to the CITES Secretariat in line with CITES requirements
 
The Scientific Authority, through the National Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Management Authority, has determined the 2017 export quota for lion bones and other derivatives of lion.
 
A quota of 800 skeletons (with or without skull) of captive bred lion has been determined.
 
This legal quota system was established at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES in Johannesburg in the autumn of 2016 as part of a package of fudge measures to try to keep the conservation community sweet when, for the second time in CITES history, a valid and fully justified proposal to give lions the same ‘protection’ as all the other big cats under CITES / International Law was rejected to keep the massively rich and influential lion trophy hunting industry sweet.
 
When asked how its initial 2017 legal export quota of 800 captive-bred lion skeletons was established the DEA responded by stating:
 
“The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) reviewed available information regarding the export of lion bones, lion skeletons and captive produced lion hunting trophies from South Africa between 2005 and September 2016. Based on the CITES trade database information and two studies, (i) Bones of Contention: An assessment of South African trade in African lion bone and other body parts and (ii) Southern African Wildlife trade: an analysis of CITES trade in the South African Development Community (SADC) region – a study commissioned by the Department of Environmental Affairs and the South African National Biodiversity Institute, the Scientific Authority recommended an export quota of 800 skeletons per year. The Scientific Authority considered the recommendation by SANBI, and the comments were received by the Department of Environmental Affairs and made a recommendation to the Minister, relating to the final quota.”
 
In other words it was partly based on the 2015 ‘Bones of Contention’ report written for the TRAFFIC NGO by Dr Vivienne Williams from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Andrew Newton from TRAFFIC and Andrew Loveridge and David Macdonald from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) within Oxford University’s Department of Zoology. 
 
‘Bones of Contention’ was written further to contributions by the likes of Werner Boing who has granted probably hundreds of lion export permits from South Africa over the years and Pieter Potgeiter who was the previous President of the South African Predator Association (effectively South Africa’s canned hunting and captive lion breeding industry’s own governing body). As a result, perhaps unsurprisingly, with Williams as the lead author, ‘Bones of Contention’ concluded that:
 
“In South Africa, the trade in Lion bones currently has a negligible impact on wild Lion populations. The trade in bones appears to be a sustainable by-product of the sizeable trophy hunting industry in South Africa, and Lions that are hunted are almost exclusively captive-bred.”
 
For the recent quota increase from 800 to 1,500 South African captive-bred lions whose skeletons may legally be exported in 2018, the DEA relied upon a 2017 report for the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) titled ‘South African Lion Bone Trade – A Collaborative Lion Bone Research Project – Interim Report 1’.  Again Dr Vivienne Williams was the lead author but for this one she was ably assisted by Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes who is currently embedded as a Research Fellow within Oxford University’s ‘Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade’. With a postgraduate degree in Environmental Resource Economics, ‘t Sas-Rolfes has been pro-trade for decades and is one of the few people outside of Asia to openly come out in favour of Asian tiger farming.
 
The 16th July 2018 Government Media Statement stated that Williams and ‘t Sas-Rolfes’ 2017 study revealed that:
 

• Due to quota restrictions, there appears to be a growing stockpile of lion bones in South Africa;

 

• There has been no discernible increase in poaching of wild lion in South Africa, though there appears to be an increase in poaching of captive bred lions for body parts (heads, faces, paws and claws);

 

• The captive breeding industry is in a state of flux as breeders respond in different ways to the US’ restrictions on trophies as well as the imposition of the skeleton export quota.

 
It also revealed that there were 14 applicants for the 2017 quota of 800 skeletons (four of whom had already exported lion bones to Asia in the past) and that the quota had been filled in less than two months. As a result a recent lion report for the upcoming CITES meeting in Sochi in October reveals that ‘t Sas-Rolfes will shortly publish a piece advising that:
 
“This constriction of the legal trade could lead to an illegal trade sourced both from South Africa’s captive population and from wild lions across the continent.”
 
I remember liaising with one of the world’s key lion scientists back in the early days of the lion bone trade out of South Africa who thought along similar lines, that maybe a captive-bred lion bone industry out of South Africa was a ‘necessary evil’ to soak up demand so it didn’t impact upon wild lion populations. I also remember the basic economic principle from my school days that supply feeds and stimulates demand.  No doubt ‘t Sas-Rolfes would tell you that’s outdated now but it’s one of the very first things they teach you in High School level economics and sure enough it’s now being proven by reports of entire wild lion skeletons being removed after illegal killings from both Mozambique and the Kruger National Park.
 
Also, those ‘US restrictions’ referred to, which came into effect in January 2016 prohibiting US hunters from importing lion trophies from captive-bred sources, they were lifted by the Trump administration in March of this year…
 
Further, as we’ve been telling the conservation NGOs for years, these lion skeletons are passed off as tiger within tiger products once they reach Asia. As a result that massive South African injection into the supply side of the Asian tiger trade then feeds and stimulates demand for more tiger products, thereby increasing the poaching pressure on the world’s last 3,000 tigers and making this lion bone trade a far greater threat to wild tigers than it currently is to wild lions.
 
So what is CITES doing about all of this and this massive quota increase? For their Sochi meeting in October and no doubt for their next big tri-annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Sri Lanka next May they simply recommend that:
 
“In order to improve traceability Parties [to CITES] that are importing lion specimens from South Africa are encouraged to use the information generated by South Africa’s Barcode of Wildlife Project that South Africa developed for priority CITES species including lions and including DNA analyses of lions bred in captivity and exported as skeletons.”
 
So in other words, a green light for those 1,500 lion skeleton exports this year and no doubt further significant quota increases in the years to come, but for each of those lions who were the subject of lives uniquely their own and who didn’t want to die just stick a barcode on them after slaughter...

​Kicking up dust – some thoughts on the Colloquium held in Cape Town on the 21st and 22nd August 2018.

Members of Parliament who sit on the Portfolio Committee for Environmental Affairs were present, including the Chairman, who chaired the workshop.

The subject of the colloquium (I hate that pretentious Latinism – it was a workshop plain and simple) was” Captive Lion Breeding for Hunting in South Africa: Harming or Promoting the Conservation Image of the Country.”

The meeting was attended by many interested bodies, including government, NGOs and other stakeholders. About two hundred people in attendance altogether.

The Keynote Speaker was Edna Molewa, the Minister of Environmental Affairs. Other speakers included  DEA, Dept of Agriculture (DAFF), EMS and Ban Animal Trading, Born Free Foundation UK, EWT, Don Pinnock, SanParks, Brand SA, and of course all the hunting orgs,  PHASA,SAPA, CPHC-SA, International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation, and CHASA.

Molewa claimed:

1. that government support for the hunting industry is rooted in science (whatever that means, but I would say that if that were true, the root never grew, blossomed or flowered, and has suffered root-rot)
2. that canned hunting has been banned under the Threatened Or Protected Species – TOPS –regulations
3. that the bad publicity surrounding Lion Trophy hunting in South Africa obscures the many benefits that lion farming brings in terms of ecotourism, job creation and conservation
4. that the ethical side of lion farming and canned hunting has nothing whatever to do with her since she considers animal welfare and health issues to fall within the mandate of the Department of Agriculture (DAFF)
5. that lion farming and canned hunting do not pose a threat to wild lion populations
6. that lion breeding, hunting and trade are well-regulated, and
7. that the quota system for lion bone exports are ‘a control measure and a monitoring tool.’

Other hunting apologists contended that a ban on line farming would merely result in wildlife traffickers turning to wild lions in order to meet the demand in Asia for lion bones.

The problem with these workshops and one of the reasons why I did not attend personally, is that the flaws in the hunting arguments cannot adequately be dealt with in that forum, because the serious and time-consuming business of exposing the flaws gets crowded out in the general clamour of so many attendees.

For example, Minister Molewa’s bald statement that canned hunting has been banned needed to be unpacked. Her claim is based on a narrow and artificial interpretation of what constitutes a canned hunt; one that differs from that which is accepted by everyone else in the conservation spectrum. She argues in effect that hunts take place in terms of permits which are issued pursuant to the TOPS regulations, and are therefore legal. However if one of the conditions of the permits is violated, for example a failure to report the hunt to the local provincial conservation service within the time limit stipulated in the permit, then she considers that to have been a canned hunt.
In other words she conflates ‘canned’ with ‘unlawful’ in the sense of contrary to permit conditions. This is of course a deliberate and misleading way of missing the whole point, which is the absence of fair chase.
It is, in short, a lie.

And all the other claims listed by her are equally flawed. The excellent Working Paper by Ross Harvey, titled The Economics of Captive Predator Breeding in SA, effectively demolishes the Ministers contention that lion farming benefits SA by ecotourism, job creation and ‘conservation.’  

Ah but now, to kick up dust and counter Ross Harvey’s cogent criticisms, comes a representative of the sustainable use gang based at Oxford University, argued that banning lion farming would cause an upsurge in the poaching of wild lions in order to meet the demand for lion bones in Asia. In other words, he maintains that captive lion farming provides a buffer against the poaching of wild lions.

There is not a shred of scientific evidence to justify this extravagant claim. No one has done a study of the size of the lion bone market in Asia and whether there are enough lions on the planet to meet that insatiable demand. Without knowing the limits of the Asian market one cannot argue that the lion bones taken from captive lions will satisfy the market and meet demand so that there would be no need for poaching of wild lions.

On the contrary we know that wildlife trafficking syndicates are motivated by profit and it is much cheaper and therefore more profitable to poach a wild lion than to pay out thousands for the carcass of a captive lion. Reports coming to us from across southern Africa indicate that the poaching of wild lions for their carcasses is already happening. However because this has not been studied by the sustainable use gang and sanctified by a peer-reviewed paper, these inconvenient facts may be swept under the carpet as merely ‘anecdotal.’

What I was afraid of right from the outset, with my experience of dealing with South African conservation services, is that at the end of the workshop the waters would have been so badly muddied that independent observers and stakeholders would emerge confused.

The two opposing camps, the hunters and the animal welfarists, are not going to be affected by anything said at the workshop. Their positions are firmly entrenched.
It is the other independent attendees who need to be convinced. And unfortunately, the reports coming through to me are that the hunting industry has kicked up sufficient dust to confuse the independent observers and to ensure that they do not take sides and throw their weight behind the campaign to ban lion farming and canned hunting.

Nothing new has come out of this ill-termed Colloquium. Both sides have merely restated their arguments and counter arguments and the independent stakeholders have left confused.

I do not see anything positive coming out of this workshop other than perhaps a symbolic tightening up of regulations which are already merely aspirational since no one pays much attention to them and enforcement is notable for its absence.
​
I would love to end on a positive note. But so long as the hunting industry maintains its stranglehold on conservation structures in South Africa and indeed globally, bunfights like the Colloquium will always be much ado about nothing.

As most will know, there will shortly be a Colloquium (workshop) at the SA Parliament.
​
CACH UK has prepared a 50 page review of bad publicity for Brand SA to inform the Portfolio Committee.

Toni Brockhoven of Beauty Without Cruelty in Cape Town has kindly offered to print out and bind this seminal review, and hand deliver it to the Parliamentary Secretary for the Portfolio Committee.
Along with this covering letter:

Letter to SA Minister of Tourism
cc: Members of Portfolio Committee of Parliament for the Environment

 Dear Hon Minister
How the DEA is sabotaging the SA Department of Tourism: see the annexed Nash report from CACH.

Everyone knows that lion breeding and canned lion hunting in South Africa has attracted significant international criticism, and that this has increasingly damaged South Africa’s image abroad. Yet your Department spends millions every year trying to promote tourism here.

What you, and in particular your colleagues in other departments, may be less well aware of is the sheer scale of the overseas reaction. When you see the extent of the damage to SA brand image, you will be shocked.

To demonstrate this, retired lawyer David Nash of Campaign Against Canned Hunting ( CACH) UK has prepared the attached review. It lists the huge range of import bans, airline trophy bans, negative press coverage, anti-canned hunting campaigns, protest marches, tourist industry views and social media criticism.

Once you read this important research, you will clearly see how Min Edna Molewa's DEA is undermining your efforts.

Further, the damage to Brand SA adversely impacts Responsible Tourism - the fastest growing sector of the global tourism industry.

Hunting PR, swallowed by the DEA and other SA conservation structures, claims that canned hunting is essential to the South African economy. CACH strongly disagrees: rather than benefiting the South African economy, captive lion breeding and canned hunting is a wasteful use of land and significantly limits employment and up-skilling opportunities when compared with other farms of farming and ethical wildlife tourism.

This Review demonstrates a clear economic case for banning lion farming (through a managed phasing out) and canned lion hunting.
 
You can view and download the whole 50-page report here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d6nymf20qtpyaut/CACH%20Brand%20SA%20Review%20August%202018.pdf?dl=0
 

There is such a hype in animal welfare circles over the forthcoming 'Colloquium' on lion farming in SA, that I felt compelled to try to offer some cautionary opinion.

Especially because there seems to be some puzzlement on why I am not going to Cape Town for this event. It is about lion farming, right? Surely CACH should be there, right?

This report explains what it is about:
​www.thesouthafrican.com/sas-macabre-captive-lion-breeding-industry-to-be-investigated-by-parliament/

I don’t know why there has to be such a pompous and pretentious Latinism to describe what is clearly a workshop. And notice that the agenda is restricted to the effect of lion farming upon South Africa’s conservation image.

The Department of Tourism is not even mentioned or represented.

So do not think for one second that this chat group is going to lead to a ban on lion farming or on the trophy hunting of lions. I'm writing this blog post because I think that there is an unrealistic expectation from members of the animal welfare community about the purpose and results of this workshop.

The hunting industry is at this workshop in force to ensure that the message gets across that responsible trophy hunting is a wonderful tool of conservation, job creation, foreign currency generation, blah blah.  And they’ll call for regulation of lion farming, not to ban canned hunting, but to minimise the bad publicity that it brings to all hunting and the threat felt by the hunting industry that the excesses of canned lion hunting will pull down the whole trophy hunting industry.

People who live in the developed world where parliamentary committees are important and can actually effect change will have unrealistic expectations for this workshop.

I have been to Parliament to talk to members of the portfolio committee on the environment and I can tell you that these are not animal lovers. Or in my experience qualified to understand what true conservation is. One of the MP’s looked me in the eye and asked: ‘what’s wrong with hunting. I hunt.’ Talk about the cruelty to helpless animals involved and their eyes glaze over.

Conservation as you and I understand it, which is the preservation of natural functioning ecosystems for their own sakes, is a totally alien concept to this government in general, and to the portfolio committee in particular. Like the DEA, they've swallowed the pro-hunting narrative.

This workshop is about public relations surrounding the hunting industry and how to improve it.  Nothing more.

Indeed, Minister Molewa has publicly stated that biodiversity is merely a resource that needs to be exploited and transformed (a euphemism for transferring income to previously disadvantaged South Africans)

So please put this workshop in that political context.

The most effective tactic for CACH to adopt is to circulate David Nash’s compendium of bad publicity to Brand South Africa, a comprehensive list of all the poor publicity that Brand SA gets from lion farming, canned lion hunting and the hideous lion bone trade.  And that is what we'll do - even though this workshop is not about the financial damage to the tourism industry.

If it were the Department of tourism would be involved.

Add to all this the fact that the portfolio committee would be unable to change anything even if it wanted to. Conservation structures in South Africa have been utterly and completely captured by the hunting industry and any attempt to crack down on lion farming and canned hunting would be met with a torrent of lobbying and litigation:-
‘You gave us permits to breed lions for hunting and for lion bones’, they would argue, ‘so if you want to close us down we want compensation.’

So in short I regard this workshop is a total waste of time. I cannot justify the cost and time involved to attend. If I thought there was a sliver of hope that I could achieve anything by attending, I would be there like a shot. But to spend a day travelling to Cape Town, two or three nights in a hotel and another day travelling back home, all of five days away from the work which I regard as really important, is out of the question.

I'm not telling any of you not to go. Attending will certainly do no harm. Subjecting the members of the committee to something other than hunting propaganda would certainly do no harm - if only to cause them some bafflement.

And if I regard the Portfolio Committee as a, no doubt well-intentioned, but woefully un-qualified and ineffective bunch of political appointees utterly incapable of understanding why it is in the national interest to ban lion farming, why, I may be wrong.