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African leaders, including the President of Botswana, have argued that the proposal is colonialist.

• Trophy hunting generates revenue for African conservation, supporting habitat protection and wildlife management.
• A unilateral import ban would undermine economic development in Africa, conservation efforts, and the UK’s international agreements, which regulate a sustainable wildlife trade for African countries.
• African leaders backing the paper compare the ban to colonialism: Dr Shylock Muyengwa says “Colonialism is over – yet British politicians still forget to respect the will of African communities.” Dr Mike Musgrave says, “It’s the last gasp of an entitled elite who thinks African wildlife conservation still falls under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office.”
• Broadcaster and scientist Professor Adam Hart says the proposal is “poorly thought through from a conservation perspective, and has been branded ‘neocolonial’ and ‘racist’ by heads of state and community groups in Southern Africa.”

A well-intentioned ban on importing hunting trophies to Britain could undermine conservation efforts in Africa, according to a new briefing from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the free market think tank. The new Labour government committed to ending the imports in its election manifesto.

The ban is meant to help conserve African wildlife. However, the paper’s author, Dr Francis Vorhies of the African Wildlife Economy Institute in South Africa, says trophy hunting creates revenue that enables species conservation, landscape conservation, and anti-poaching efforts. It also supports economic development for rural communities at a higher value and with less environmental impact than agriculture or tourism.

Earlier this year, Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi echoed these concerns by threatening to send 20,000 elephants to Germany after the German government threatened stricter limits on trophy imports.

Elephant in the Room argues that the ban is entirely unnecessary because global agreements already manage the legal and sustainable trade in hunting trophies.

The United Kingdom and over 180 other countries are parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This agreement creates strict rules for the sustainable export and import of hunting trophies. Endangered animals require special export permits, strict assessments that the trade is not detrimental to their survival, and proof of legal acquisition.

A ban on imports into the United Kingdom would override this multilateral agreement despite a lack of evidence that the system fails to protect animals.

A 2016 meeting of the CITES countries’ governments explicitly recognised that “well-managed and sustainable trophy hunting is consistent with and contributes to species conservation, as it provides both livelihood opportunities for rural communities and incentives for habitat conservation, and generates benefits which can be invested for conservation purposes”.

According to Dr Vorhies, the ban would also undermine the Global Biodiversity Framework, to which the UK is also a party. This Framework explicitly commits to the idea of “sustainable” management of wildlife species in a way that provides “economic, and environmental benefits for people”, including through products and services.

The proposed legislation, the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill 2023-24, introduced into the last Parliament, would also tie the UK to European Union regulations on endangered species. This could make Britain’s decisions about what species to ban outside of the government’s control.

Dr Vorhies concludes that the United Kingdom should stick with the “tried-and-tested multilateral rules-based framework” rather than a go-it-alone import ban.

Dr Francis Vorhies, paper author and director of the African Wildlife Economy Institute at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and Research Visitor at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford, said:

“Trophy hunting, if well managed, conserves wild species and habitats and enhances livelihoods in rural communities. Further, most trophies are imported from countries – notably South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia – with abundant and stable populations of the species being hunted. 

“A UK ban on imports would undermine both conservation and rural development in these countries. It would represent a rich Western country dictating policies to impoverish poorer African nations.

“There are already international agreements that govern and support a sustainable trade in trophy hunting. Britain should not come in, overwrite these rules, and hurt African communities and animal conservation.”

Dr Shylock Muyengwa, Programs Director at Resource Africa, a charity supporting rural African communities use their natural resources to sustain livelihoods, said:

“Colonialism is over – yet British politicians still forget to respect the will of African communities. We should be viewed as partners in conservation, not as British subjects that are forced to adhere to policies that please the British public who don’t have to live alongside elephants, lions or other dangerous animals. There’s not a shred of evidence to justify a ban. It’s just counterproductive virtue signalling.”

Dr Mike Musgrave, Conservation Leadership Faculty at the ALU School of Wildlife Conservation, said:

“The UK government’s proposed legislation that will ban the import of hunting trophies from Africa is so riddled with problems it’s difficult to know where to start a critique. Dr Vorhies solves this problem in a detailed and systematic exposure of the hypocrisy and factual inaccuracies on which the legislation is based. African wildlife is not endangered by trophy hunting and the attempt by the UK government to interfere with the revenue from sustainable hunting is unwelcome. It’s the last gasp of an entitled elite who thinks African wildlife conservation still falls under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office. It does not.”

Dr Dan Challender, Research Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science (ICCS) and Oxford Martin School, said:

“I welcome this new report which criticises proposed legislation on banning the import of hunting trophies to the UK. While the UK is entitled to adopt such measures, it is likely that a hunting trophy import ban would serve to undermine successful conservation models in sub-Saharan Africa by reducing revenue flows to rural economies. It would also likely negatively impact the benefits that marginalised rural communities receive from trophy hunting programmes. A more evidence-based approach is required.”

Dr Wiseman Ndlovu, Programmes Manager & Post Doctoral Fellow at the African Wildlife Economy Institute, University of Stellenbosch, said:

“Banning trophy hunting could lead to a crisis in rural economies that rely on it to create jobs and stimulate growth in related industries such as tourism, game meat production, and artisanal markets. I cannot begin to imagine how the wildlife economy can sustain itself without the crucial support from trophy hunting, that promotes both ecological and economic sustainability.”

Dr Adam Hart, Professor of Science Communication at the Gloucestershire and documentary broadcaster, said:

“The planned legislation we have seen to date has been poorly thought through from a conservation perspective, and has been branded ‘neocolonial’ and ‘racist’ by heads of state and community groups in Southern Africa. To find out that it is also problematic in terms of key international agreements is, sadly, not a surprise.

“If lawmakers want to help conservation then they should listen to the many voices telling them that trophy bans are a bad idea. On the other hand, if they want to ban trophy hunting then they should do so in the UK.”

Dr Amy Dickman, conservation biologist at Department of Biology and Pembroke College, Oxford University, said:

“Dr Vorhies provides a compelling outline of how the UK’s proposed trophy hunting import ban risks undermining conservation, in direct contravention to what the public have been promised. Trophy hunting occurs across the globe from stags in Scotland to markhor in Pakistan and polar bears in Canada. It is not threatening a single species, generates revenue for local people, and helps reduce major threats such as habitat loss and poaching.

“The UK and other countries should value evidence and rights over ideology and rhetoric, and hesitate before enacting well-meaning but misguided bans.”

Dilys Roe, Principal researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development, said:

“Trophy hunting – while many may find it distasteful – does not pose a threat to the conservation of any species, and indeed it often provides a rare source of revenue that supports conservation. This paper explores this contradiction and explains why going against the spirit of the treaties doesn’t just undermine multilateralism but also undermines conservation and livelihoods.”

Sebastian Winkler, Director General of the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC), said:

“The paper provides a sound assessment that unilateral trophy import bans which are becoming increasingly fashionable in the global North often driven by emotional animal welfare reasons are in fact counterproductive in that they undermine a well functioning multilateral system and thus preventing that much needed conservation and socio-economic dollars are lost.”

Notes to Editors

Contact: media@iea.org.uk / 07763 365520

Read a copy of Elephant in the Room: Why a trophy hunting ban would hurt conservation and development.

About the author

Dr Francis Vorhies is a conservation economist with a special interest in unlocking and diversifying the wildlife economy across Africa. He is the founding director of the African Wildlife Economy Institute at Stellenbosch University and a research visitor at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford. Previous positions include academic director of the School of Wildlife Conservation at the African Leadership University, chief economist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature and resource economist at the African Wildlife Foundation. Dr Vorhies studied economics at the University of Colorado and integrated environmental management at the University of Cape Town.

The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.