by Anthony Ham (Post Pandemic Travel Feature)
There are very few silver linings to this pandemic, and those that do exist can never replace what has been lost. But the natural world has had a breather, enjoying 18 months of rest from over-development, over-tourism, and humankind’s never-ending encroachments into our planet’s last tracts of wilderness. Whether this is merely a momentary respite or a precursor to some new appreciation of the need to protect the wild places of our planet, remains to be seen.

Either way, when it comes to going on safari in Africa and elsewhere, conservation issues that faded into the background during the pandemic have not gone away. They remain central to our engagement with the lands through which we pass, and are still very much part of the back-story to any African safari.

Trophy-Hunting

Let me be clear: I loathe the very idea of trophy hunting. The notion that a majestic African animal could be more beautiful mounted on a wall than it is roaming the African savannah is mystifying at best, abhorrent at worst.

But Dr. Craig Packer, one of the world’s pre-eminent lion experts, has estimated that “80 percent of the lions left in the world are in the hunters’ hands”. Put another way, hunting concessions ‘protect’ many more lions than do national parks in Africa. As I wrote in my book The Last Lions of Africa, much of wild Africa, much lion territory, is simply unsuitable for photo safaris or what’s known as photo tourism. It may be inaccessible to ordinary safari vehicles, or it may not provide the kind of scenic beauty that safari tourists expect from their once-in-a-lifetime African experience. Or Africa’s governments may not have the resources to care for these vast tracts of wilderness. If these lands were to be cleared for agriculture or livestock, as much as 60,000 sq km would be lost across Africa as a result.

So much for the theory. In practice, in very few places in Africa does trophy hunting fulfill its conservation mandate. Too often, corruption in the awarding of hunting concessions means that it is wealthy interests with close ties to government officials who win the contracts rather than conservation-minded hunters. Too often, hunters ignore quotas, or kill lions in their prime. This is what happened with Cecil, just outside Hwange National Park in 2015, his son Xanda in 2017, and a lion called Mopane in 2021. All three were in charge of a pride at the time of their deaths, and the chaos and social dislocation in lion society that results from such killings could one day threaten entire lion populations in Hwange and elsewhere.

Valuing wildlife

Those who argue that trophy hunting can help save wildlife because animals have a value to locals may be onto something. After all, if locals don’t enjoy the benefits of safari tourism, then Africa’s wildlife may not survive. There is no more uncomfortable truth for the safari industry than places where elevated levels of luxury often sit alongside some of Africa’s poorest communities, who benefit little, if at all. Where this occurs, it is only a small step for impoverished community members to turn to bushmeat to supplement diets chronically low in protein, or to poaching.

In some southern African countries, hunters have been known to pay as much as US$140,000 for a permit to hunt a lion, although $US50,000 is more common. In 2014, Namibia’s government organised an auction for a hunter to kill a black rhinoceros. Black rhinos may be critically endangered, but the male in question was past breeding age, posed a danger to other rhinos, and the proceeds went to support rhino conservation. With a winning bid of US$350,000, a hunter from Texas named Corey Knowlton took the permit, claiming he was doing far more for rhino conservation than those in the conservation community who refused to match his bid.

While many safari operators do excellent work in directing a proportion of their profits to community projects, the industry as a whole needs to do better. Once an advocate for carefully controlled hunting, Dr Craig Packer calls instead for something akin to a ‘Marshall’ Plan for wildlife.

“We need to get the international community to help shoulder the burden of what are, after all, World Heritage sites,” Dr. Craig Packer told me back in 2016. “I think the world is a better place because there is a Serengeti. Because there is an Okavango. Unless the international community is ready to subsidise these places, they’re all doomed.”

Human-wildlife conflict

It is easy to go on safari and imagine that you’re visiting some wildlife theme park, or a zoo without fences. But there are very rarely fences between animals such as lions and elephants, and the villages where people live. It is one thing to see a lion from the safety of a safari vehicle. It is another thing altogether to live among lions who could lie in wait along the path your children take to school, or where you go down to the river to fetch water.

On 4 August 2015, at the height of the global outrage that followed the killing of Cecil by Minnesota dentist, Walter Palmer, the New York Times published an op-ed piece by a Zimbabwean called Goodwill Nzou. It was headlined ‘In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions’. When he heard about the killing of Cecil, Nzou wrote, “the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.” It was a stark reminder of the disconnect between many of those who want to save lions (and many other animals) and those who must live among them.

As with all of these issues, it’s not that this issue will necessarily impact upon your safari. But perhaps it should.  Perhaps an awareness of these broader matters – the privilege inherent in going on safari, the trade-offs for local people of living with wild animals, the financial costs of conservation that safari tourism alone cannot meet – ought to become a part of any aspiration towards sustainable safaris.

Now more than ever.