Gov’t, communities face another hunting showdown in UK
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday March 6, 2024 17:03
Representatives of the communities living with wildlife in the country plan to travel to London later this month to lobby, ahead of the debate which is tentatively scheduled for March 18. Meanwhile, government is reportedly working with other communities and the Botswana Wildlife Producers Association (BWPA) to lead Southern Africa’s resistance to the planned bill.
After the defeat of a similar effort at the House of Lords last year, Labour's John Spellar has launched a Private Members Bill to ban hunting trophies. The move would mean hunters returning to the UK with their trophies would not be able to get them into that country, thus discouraging hunting.
According to the British Parliament, the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill, will go for second reading later this month in the House of Commons, the lower of the UK’s two legislative houses.
On Wednesday, BWPA Leonard Matenje told local media that the re-emergence of the hunting bill after its defeat in the House of Lords last year, was not an accident.
“The proposed ban has been heavily influenced by a commercial lobby group, based in the UK, who acted as the Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group to Ban Trophy Hunting,” he said.
Matenje said even though few trophies are currently imported into the UK from Botswana, the ban on the import of trophies into the UK will have a systemic effect on the viability of the hunting industry in many other African countries, including Botswana’s neighbouring countries.
“The potential of a spillover effect of an import ban in the UK will influence other countries to follow suit – countries such as Finland, France, Germany and Italy are considering hunting import bans/restrictions – these threats cannot be ignored. “There is no evidence that hunting in Botswana or elsewhere in Southern Africa is leading to species decline to levels of endangered or extinction in the wild as being claimed,” he said.
Supporters of the pending Bill include former President Ian Khama who was recently in the UK lobbying legislators to support the legislation. Khama also travelled to the UK in 2022 where he engaged with legislators and journalists, advocating for the hunting bill, which he said was necessary to prevent the decimation of key species.
In his most recent trip, Khama blasted the House of Lords for defeating the hunting bill at its last presentation last June.
“The House of Lords is not like the House of Commons. Because they are appointed, they’re not elected. They don’t have a constituency. “It’s not like they say: ‘I’m representing people. And if I don’t do this, I’ll be out at the next election.’ “So they are easily lobbied by the pro-hunting cartel... it may be part of the democratic system, but it’s also undemocratic,” he was quoted as saying The Telegraph.
Despite the victory of communities and government over the anti-hunting lobby last year, the new showdown at the House of Commons carries no guarantees. According to the BBC, enacting a hunting lobby is part of the ruling Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto and the new bill is being moved by a Labour legislator, which could trigger bilateral support.
However, the BBC also noted that the Conservative party is eager to avoid direct parliamentary debates on hunting, a practice steeped in British culture and still done by certain segments of that society who tend to lean towards the Conservative party.
The legislation is being brought as a Private Members Bill meaning it will require government to pass to the House of Lords. As a Private Members Bill, the legislation will also get less debate time.
Local communities, government and the BWPA will anchor their lobbying on the science behind controlled hunting and the revenue impact on communities and conservation.
“There is no evidence that hunting in Botswana or elsewhere in Southern Africa are leading to species decline to levels of endangered or extinction in the wild as being claimed,” Matenje said. “It is misleading to allocate species decline to hunting and poaching in the same sentence, when habitat losses and human expansion are the biggest threat to biodiversity on the planet.”
The local effort has received wind in its sails from a study released recently by ten international scientists gauging public perceptions of the acceptability of trophy hunting in sub-Saharan Africa among people who live in the urban areas of the USA, UK and South Africa.
The study is key as legislative efforts in countries such as the UK have been framed as legislators responding their constituents’ concerns.
“Overall, acceptability was higher when hunts would produce tangible benefits for local people, suggesting that members of three urban publics adopt more pragmatic positions than are typically evident in polarised international debates,” the study found.