On March 7, 2016, Namibia’s Information Minister, Tjekero Tweya, announced that the Cabinet of Namibia has upheld their opposition to ban or restrict hunting or the exporting of wildlife products from Namibia.
In 2013, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism announced that they had approval from the Cabinet to issue five black rhinos hunting permits every year, for five years. Anti-hunting zealots criticized the Namibian government for allowing the legal, regulated hunting of rhinos. Namibia’s management and conservation of wildlife is based on science and not swayed by the emotionalism of anti-hunters. The revenue derived from legal hunting remains critical to Namibia’s continued wildlife conservation success, as demonstrated by the Cabinet’s decision.
In related news, the Namibian Professional Hunting Association has released a position paper titled, “The Importance of Hunting towards Conservation.” You can read it here: NAPHA Position Paper.
Safari Club International is very pleased with this position paper. A few of the best points made by the document include:
- "It is just to point out that hunting contributes to the protection of intact ecosystems – which as such is one of the worldwide conservation concerns. To put it very simple: Hunters certainly do not contribute to the large-scale “killing” of natural environments; rather the contrary."
- "Regulated, sustainable hunting (which after all is one of the forms of natural predation) only pre-empts mortality in one of the other forms: disease, starvation or old age, all of which serve to keep natural balance intact."
- "It is of particular importance that visiting trophy hunters directly contribute to nature conservation by adding financial value to lion and elephant and allow communities to compensate crop and stock losses via income from hunting quotas. The growing intolerance for elephant and lion and the indiscriminate killing of lion in rural communities in North-western Namibia is the direct result of interference of the animal-rightist movement with the sustainable use principle."
- "Even if accepting the relevance of natural laws, a human being is no wild animal. His actions should comply with basic human traits like compassion and circumspection. We hunters very clearly state that we feel that hunting should be conducted according to very strict legal regulations, ethical behavior and always be sustainable. There is urgent need for schemes to up hold the on-going destruction of natural habitats. Hunting is one."
Thank you Safari Club for the Article. The Link: https://www.safariclub.org/what-we-do/freedom-to-hunt/first-for-hunters-blog/first-for-hunters/2016/03/08/namibian-government-opposes-restricting-hunting-or-exporting-wildlife