This is a little like banning gambling in Las Vegas. Sure, Vegas shows pull in a lot of revenue. But so do the slots. Big game hunting bucks encourage the protection of habitat from both organized agriculturalists and disorganized poachers.
Peter A. Lindsey discusses trophy hunting in “Trophy Hunting in Sub Saharan Africa”:
Trophy hunting occurs in 23 sub Saharan African countries, and generates at least USD 201 million/year from ~18,500 international hunting clients. Approximately 1.4 million km2 is used for trophy hunting, which is an area 22% larger than, and in addition to the area encompassed by national parks (i.e. protected areas where hunting is not permitted). Those are not tiny sums. And taking this activity away would lead to habitat loss. In addition, “Trophy hunting is viable in several countries that receive few conventional tourists (e.g. CAR, Chad, and Ethiopia), and in remote parts of countries that are popular among tourists (e.g. northwest South Africa, and southern Tanzania).” It also has high revenue per tourist yield, which implies fewer facilities and fossil fuel use in sensitive areas.
Do you really think that this money ends up helping anybody, other than in the most marginal sense? Most African country governments are corrupt, and if most of that money doesn’t end up in the bank accounts of senior government officials, I’d be dumbstruck.
Yeah I do, because I’ve read of projects where they cut deals with villagers on adjoining lands. No cite and my memory might be faulty, but that’s the background. If it’s a top-down governmental arrangement, then it’s hard to organize proper curbs on poachers. Less so with the local efforts. I’m not claiming that all operations are on the up and up, but that applies to photo safaris as well.
Okay, but if he’s going to be the king, why the fuck would he care? It makes no difference what you think of hunting, only what God thinks of it. Perhaps this will give you an opportunity to re-think your retarded political structure.
Well, no. Photo safaris don’t require expensive permits from customers. Payments go directly to the companies who run the camps, who in turn hire the guides, buy the food, tents, vehicles, furniture, etc., which in turn supports local economies. These companies likely have to pay the government to operate, but the money is coming from the bottom up instead of being filtered through a government entity first.
I have no doubt that some good is being done with hunting permit money, just as I have no doubt that most of it ends up in an off-shore account. Unless a couple hundred years of historical trends have somehow been magically reversed.
Let me quote the report from Peter Lindsey:
3.6 Relatively low leakage of revenues
Ecotourism packages are often booked through overseas agents, with the effect that a significant proportion
of revenues are lost from host countries. By contrast, most hunting operators working inAfrica are based
in Africa (92.6%) and many are based in the countries in which most hunting is conducted (88%). In
Botswana, 75% of trophy hunting revenues remain within country, compared to 27% of tourism revenues.
However, in Central andWestAfrica, most operators are based in Europe and so significant proportions of
revenues are leaked overseas. That’s an offsetting effect. Some of that 75% goes to overseas accounts presumably. I don’t have any data breaking down hunting expenditures by destination. And of course there is corruption, though that afflicts ecotourism as well: Corruption affects the trophy hunting industry in Africa at multiple levels, from government scouts who overlook
the overshooting of quotas, to government ministers favouring certain operators when granting concessions.
I’ve eaten meat perhaps three times in the past year to avoid confrontation. My refusing to eat it wouldn’t put the animal back in a pen, nor would I convince anyone that it was a reasonable position to take.