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Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH)

CITES and other Dangerous Illusions

2/22/2017

11 Comments

 
Picture
                                      ​DANGEROUS ILLUSIONS
 

                                                               by
 
                                                      Richard Peirce
          Author, wildlife campaigner      Website www.peirceshark.com
 
                                                               and
 
                                                       Chris Mercer
                  Director, Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH)
 
In AD 1028 when the Anglo Nordic King Canute decided to sit on the beach and command an incoming sea to recede he was conducting an exercise in futility, and he knew it.  To what extent are today’s conservation activists, naturalists, environmentalists and others conducting similarly futile exercises trying to conserve wildlife, and campaigning for humans to live sustainably on our planet? 7.48 billion people, ineffective national governments, giant profit driven corporations, and the lack of effective joined up global governance are a deadly combination.  Against this onslaught of irresponsibility are the world’s conservation and environmental organisations emulating King Canute?  If so they are unwittingly, and certainly not deliberately, contributing towards producing dangerous illusions.
 
The Paris climate summit, CITES meetings and others all generate reassuring headlines for the world’s public, and the illusion that effective action is being taken. What chance has the world’s public got of understanding the gravity of the global environmental situation when President Trump, the most powerful leader in the free world, peddles the illusion that climate change is all a Chinese invention?
 
A terrifying example of reality, as opposed to illusion, comes from the WWF/ZSL Living Planet report. In the 46 years between 1970 and 2016 global wildlife declined by 58%. On present trends that figure will be 67% by 2020.  By 2012 1.6 earths were needed to provide the natural resources and services we humans were consuming each year. These figures are the reality, the illusion is that we are taking effective actions to halt our headlong rush to decimate wildlife, combat climate change, and live sustainably.
 
Global problems need global solutions, and until national governments either act effectively in concert, or cede powers to a global governance entity, efforts to save wildlife, halt climate change and live sustainably are doomed to failure.  Only a radical re-think of the way we live will enable us to live sustainably and in harmony with nature.  I do not believe this will happen until the human race feels so threatened that survival becomes the prime consideration.
 
In the Second World War the people of Great Britain cheerfully accepted consumer austerity measures they would never have been accepted in peacetime, because they believed their survival was at stake.  When climate change starts to manifest itself by causing worldwide large scale human death and misery, then the world’s population will demand from their leaders the changes needed for survival.
 
In future decades, I believe that today’s pathetic climate change and wildlife conservation measures will be recognised as having been inadequate and illusory. It would be a suicidal NGO that stood up and said “We are not winning and we cannot win”, and this is one of the reasons illusions will persist.
 
                                                            ______________
 
One thing is clear which is that current conservation paradigms, in which traditional conservation (preservation) has been superceded by policies of regulated exploitation (sustainable use), are not working. Wildlife numbers in Africa and elsewhere continue to decline dramatically. Some scientists have proposed combatting the incompetence and corruption of African governments by privatising wildlife conservation, but the unintended consequences of this are potentially disastrous.
 
The privatisation of wildlife has already been implemented in South Africa. More than 10,000 farms have abandoned agriculture in favour of game farming in which the ‘wild’ has been taken out of wildlife, and rural employment has declined.
 
The South African example shows that privatising wildlife management is no substitute for real conservation and so is another dangerous illusion.
Treating captive lions bred for canned lion hunting as ‘wildlife’ is not conservation. It is farming for profit and to call it conservation is illusory.
 
The doctrine of sustainable wildlife use has largely failed. Everywhere we look we find that in practice, sustainable use has become sustained abuse. Sustainable use has become mostly just a licence to exploit and kill. 

In Africa, whether it is the senseless destruction by rich white men (hunting), or by poor blacks (bushmeat and poaching), or by Asian syndicates (poaching) the result is the same – devastation of biological diversity and dreadful animal suffering.

We have forgotten that conservation means “the preservation of natural functioning eco-systems”. Nowadays hunters style themselves as conservationists because they are only killing some animals - not all of them.

We need an environmental philosophy that gets back to true conservation. However idealistic and aspirational it may be, it is better than adopting licences to kill as an overarching policy.

To preserve biodiversity, we need discipline and rigid protection. One example of this is the island of Santo Domingo. A clear line can be seen running down the border that divides Haiti from the Dominican Republic. On the Haiti side, no trees, no life, just environmental ruin. On the Dominican side, rich natural forests still survive, because right from the start, the Dominicans adopted a zero-tolerance approach to Haitian poachers and woodcutters. The army was deployed to shoot trespassers on sight.

This hard line did not result in substantial loss of human life. Once a dozen or so Haitians had been killed, the message got home, and they stopped coming over the border to poach. Africa is now heading steadily in the direction of becoming a continental Haiti – a continent failing to stem the tide of poverty, misery and environmental degradation. What is needed is for Africa to aim at becoming a continental version of the Dominican Republic.

Involving local tribesmen is important. Every effort must be made to ensure that a good proportion of funds derived from eco-tourism reaches local communities so that they feel that they have a stake in the preservation of biodiversity. But along with the carrot must come the stick. Experience has shown that benefits alone are inadequate. Nature reserves need also to be rigidly protected with the most effective modern technology and with ruthless military efficiency. 

Rigid protection of biodiversity also requires African governments to pursue unpopular policies that will inevitably alienate some sections of their voting constituencies. Sadly, based on experience to date, this is most unlikely to happen, at least in the short to medium term.

There are examples where indigenous people have organised resistance to exploitation of natural resources, such as is currently happening in Amazonia, but this pits them against their own governments, and their own national armies.

There is apparently no such grassroots resistance among indigenous tribes of Southern Africa. Until indigenous Africans reclaim and remember at least part of the culture and heritage that was so disastrously dismantled by white colonial governments, continent wide conservation successes will be few and far between.  Without a widespread reawakening of the value of the natural world, conservation successes are potentially dangerous illusions if we allow them to distract us from the general decline so evident all around us.
 


11 Comments
Thelma Wilson
2/22/2017 06:56:51 am

We are losing so much of our wildlife and this practice of canned lion hunting is a cowardly, disgusting practice

Reply
Pierre le roux
2/22/2017 08:56:38 am

Ban hunting of all free ranging populations of ALL wild species. Poputaions on gameproof fenced land is registeredss as property of the landowner and he may do what he likes with them ...a minimum of regulations. A permit may be applied for to deal with (?kill?) an individual that in spite of measures taken to prevent property losses cannot be managed/relocated.All wilodlife gets protection and the entire country is then a conservancy. No automatic ownership if a free ranging animal steps on to private land and end of biltong hunting. .

Reply
loretta franklin link
2/22/2017 10:20:40 am

Chris, I very, very often feel like King Canute, especially with the result of our last election! However, I'll continue to donate, write letters, and keep protesting. I think SA has quite a struggle ahead with the propaganda that canned hunting is good for the economy. I think the only way to deal with that is getting more and more exposure. I've been waiting to see the movie advertised somewhere and as surprised to see it available in a number of places but I've never seen any promos on it until I went digging. Too bad. Wish there was some way to promote it better. Anyway, this is an excellent article although a bit disheartening...I mean realistic!! Nonetheless..

Reply
Audrey Farrelly
2/22/2017 03:19:38 pm

Sadly I feel that this is an accurate assessment of the world and our headlong rush towards the extinction of all wildlife in the selfish pursuit of mankind's greed and consumption. I would like to see a worldwide tax on every country to finance the creation of wildlife zones which are large enough to allow the animal population to recover. Zero tolerance of all poaching & hunting outlawed worldwide. The removal of meat and animal products from consumerism, a worldwide ban on fishing and whaling with money spent on organic farming of sustainable agriculture. An end to fossil fuels and a massive investment in sustainable energy all regulated by a nonprofit organisation without corporate or governmental affiliation. Yes this would turn our lives upside down but without radical changes now there is no future for wildlife or for the human race.

Reply
Lisa Scharin
2/22/2017 04:00:30 pm

Audrey-that is what I want too! NOW we can PRAY for it and HOPE that our efforts WILL make a difference!!!!
Keep fighting for what you believe in and what you want this world to be! I will do the same and pray that people open their eyes and hearts too!!

Reply
Sue Schofield
2/22/2017 08:49:14 pm

Couldn't agree more. I get emails every day about animal abuse, torture and willful destruction of forests and extinction of wonderful species...let alone hunting by feral humans who don't care. The main enemies are the world governments - in the pockets of large corporations and fossil fuel industries for whom only billions of $$ profit is enough - who also don't give a fig about what is happening around them and this stunning planet and species. I am in tears on a daily basis...but then gather my strength to fight on. The trouble is that unless the world can stop reproduction of humans (MAIN problem) and all the over use of the planet's resources to support it...then I truly feel all our efforts are doomed. It will only be when there is catastrophic climate change events...generating massive food shortages and migrations that our wise leaders will actually do something. I can't bear seeing the willful destruction of the only planet we have as our home...

Reply
Thelma Wilson
2/23/2017 04:59:25 am

Audrey I couldn't agree with you more on this subject. Canned lion hunting is one thing that is despicable but the poaching of our beloved wild life is another. When is everyone going to wake up, quite obviously the way things are going, will be when its too late.

Reply
Martin
2/24/2017 12:04:25 pm

"Once a dozen Haitians had been killed...". The nexus between environmental protection, sustainable development and human rights is more complex and contested than many liberals would like to believe but ffs with this attitude is the world you seek to conserve one we'd like to live in (even if we were allowed to with your happy acceptance of shoot to kill policies or should that only worry brown people?). Oh, and you misunderstand the Canute story which is not about hubris but rather about good leaders being clear about the limits of their power)

Reply
cinzia
3/7/2017 04:14:41 pm

Honestly, the best thing for Animals all around the world would be the sudden extinction of humanity, or their own sudden extinction. They would be free from human's cruelty forever. I don't even know what to hope for anymore.

Reply
Mwana Bermudes link
1/25/2019 02:37:52 am

Yebo Richard & Chris, that's it, your article says it all, thank you both. We need a true pro nature conservation international body, CITES is not the one, period. According to credible statistics there is only around 25% of wilderness left on Earth, therefore every little living creature within It should be listed as Highly Endangered. It doesnt take a bunch of useless Phds to realize this. It's common humane intelligent sense. I also read from very credible source that in South Africa, our own case, it's only 6.9% left of wilderness. Ban trophy hunting of any form and let's go seriously Green, lots of work to do! Blessings to you both from Blyderiver Canyon's remaining wild soul creatures, the struggle must go on!

Reply
Indian Dating Sites Florida link
1/20/2023 04:59:11 pm

Thanks foor the post

Reply



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