Trophy import ban could be disastrous
Research suggests that banning hunting trophy imports may reduce conservation efforts, harming both wildlife and rural communities.
A study led by the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology has shown that the UK Government’s proposed trophy hunting import ban could do more harm than good for the animals it is supposed to protect. The study examined the UK’s role in the international hunting trophy trade and the potential impact of the proposed UK Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill.
MPs voted to support the bill last year and Labour has reiterated its commitment to a similar import ban in its manifesto.
The study found that an estimated 3,494 hunting trophies from 73 species included under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) were imported into the UK from 2000 to 2021.
This equates to just 159 trophies each year, representing less than 1% of the global trade in hunting trophies from species included in CITES.
The research indicates that legal hunting for trophies is not a major threat to any of the 73 species imported to the UK.
Conversely, legal trophy hunting was found to bring numerous benefits, including the protection of wildlands from conversion to agriculture, providing resources to prevent poaching, income and employment for indigenous peoples and communities, and enhanced population growth for threatened species.
Disproportionate
The researchers suggest that the proposed ban on importing hunting trophies to the UK is extremely disproportionate and could harm biodiversity.
They argue that the previous UK Government’s impact assessment failed to adequately consider the likely impacts of this policy on people outside the UK. The analysis indicates that this bill could have a “severe, even devastating” impact on marginalised rural communities and indigenous peoples who rely on legal hunting for their income and employment.
Oxford professor Amy Dickman, a contributing author to the study and a member of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, said: “Assuming past trade is indicative of future imports, the argument that the bill will reduce pressure on many threatened species is unfounded.
“Other threats, notably unregulated hunting, poaching and retaliatory killing, are much greater for most species imported to the UK as hunting trophies.”
Author and firearms expert Diggory Hadoke told ST: “Hunters are conservationists, and we urge the Government to follow the evidence, not emotion, when seeking to legislate. Without hunting concessions protecting the flora and fauna in a sustainable manner, millions of acres of wild Africa would become dusty, game-bereft cattle farms.”
