Colonial mindset is strong in this comment. Africans are poor (wonder why?), and kept poor by western elites. Kept in a condition where they have to prioritize eating before conservation. So the same elites who keep them poor, need to come in and give the people a “reason to care about preserving their natural environments”, not by helping the society, but by killing big game for money so they can pose with their trophies.
Also, big game hunters are not bloodthirsty killers, they pay millions to kill animals not for bragging rights, but to help conservation. Just ask Don Jr. They even do a lot to minimize the suffering of the animal, out of the goodness of their hearts apparently, and not because that’s a basic rule of hunting that you have to follow if you wanna keep hunting. Those dumb Africans need sensible hunters to teach them about conservation, don’t you know?
I’ll respond earnestly, even if my comment won’t be taken that way.
The point of view I try to adopt is not about who is to blame, but what should be done.
Kept in a condition where they have to prioritize eating before conservation.
Suppose we murder all the evil western capitalist elites keeping them in poverty. Now what? There are still millions of people who cannot be supported by the land via a hunter-gatherer or subsistence farming lifestyle. As Smith wrote more than 100 years ago in The Wealth of Nations, a nation and its people do not gain wealth by extracting things from the ground, but by adopting technological innovations and creating lasting institutions. These things take time. And during that time, the impoverished will still see poaching elephant tusks as a good way to bring their family out of poverty. So what do we do? Well, we protect the elephants until the population is not so impoverished that they gain an appreciation for elephants beyond their economic value.
Meanwhile, the people working at the western NGOs which do a lot of the funding of these preserves (and which have done and continue to do a lot of the work to being average Africans out of poverty) do indeed care a lot about not taking a colonialist stance. But a common problem they run into is corruption. Whether you are digging wells or building hospitals or saving the lions, it is common that any given official at any given level will step in to take their cut. While NGOs will do their best to avoid these losses, they are inevitable to a certain extent. And trying to circumvent or oust government officials would be very, very colonial.
So the NGOs play ball, and generally try to find common ground with the governments and the preserves. Of course, not all Africans are poor and nature-ambivalent, just as not all westerners are colonizers. And typically, the Africans involved with the preserves do care about protecting the animals and ecosystems in them quite a bit. And importantly, the preserves are the ones issuing the hunting permits. The locals who direct, organize, and run the preserves on a day to day basis have determined that from the position they are in right now, yes, they do want to issue these hunting permits. So challenging this issuance seems somewhat colonialist to me.
Also, big game hunters are not bloodthirsty killers, they pay millions to kill animals not for bragging rights, but to help conservation.
No population is a monolith, and people can have multiple reasons for doing what they do. Talk to a hunter in an open minded way about the last hunt they went on, and they will give you any number of reasons they enjoyed it - exercise, fresh air, camaraderie. But also possibly the thrill of the moment they successfully took the shot, and the pride they feel about the trophy they took home. Still, I don’t think this necessarily makes any individual a bad person - hunting is a ritual humans have engaged in since before we were human. And hunting has long been not only a necessity, but a mark of status in indigenous tribes around the world for millenia. Should we also cast an indigenous person who specifically pursues the largest and most dangerous boar near his villiage, so he can boast about his kill and wear its tusks as a necklace, as an evil, frothing, bloodthirsty killer?
Just ask Don Jr.
He also plays golf, combs his hair, and breathes air. The association isn’t a ding against your doctor, who also golfs.
They even do a lot to minimize the suffering of the animal, out of the goodness of their hearts apparently, and not because that’s a basic rule of hunting that you have to follow if you wanna keep hunting.
This is a norm enforced by… other hunters… Who else would enforce it? It isnt hard to go into the woods and shoot an animal in the leg and then torture it to death if you feel like it. There’s not a game warden hiding behind every tree in the forest. Really, the fact that all hunters know about this norm seems like a point in their favor.
Those dumb Africans need sensible hunters to teach them about conservation, don’t you know?
Well, no. The pragmatic and conservation-minded Africans reached a mutually beneficial agreement with the hunters to help fund their preserve, to protect the species there against the actions other Africans might take due to the pressures of poverty, which is a difficult and complex issue to deal with, but in which both Africans and foreign governments and NGOs have been making slow - but steady - progress on for the last half century.
Colonial mindset is strong in this comment. Africans are poor (wonder why?), and kept poor by western elites. Kept in a condition where they have to prioritize eating before conservation. So the same elites who keep them poor, need to come in and give the people a “reason to care about preserving their natural environments”, not by helping the society, but by killing big game for money so they can pose with their trophies.
Also, big game hunters are not bloodthirsty killers, they pay millions to kill animals not for bragging rights, but to help conservation. Just ask Don Jr. They even do a lot to minimize the suffering of the animal, out of the goodness of their hearts apparently, and not because that’s a basic rule of hunting that you have to follow if you wanna keep hunting. Those dumb Africans need sensible hunters to teach them about conservation, don’t you know?
I’ll respond earnestly, even if my comment won’t be taken that way.
The point of view I try to adopt is not about who is to blame, but what should be done.
Suppose we murder all the evil western capitalist elites keeping them in poverty. Now what? There are still millions of people who cannot be supported by the land via a hunter-gatherer or subsistence farming lifestyle. As Smith wrote more than 100 years ago in The Wealth of Nations, a nation and its people do not gain wealth by extracting things from the ground, but by adopting technological innovations and creating lasting institutions. These things take time. And during that time, the impoverished will still see poaching elephant tusks as a good way to bring their family out of poverty. So what do we do? Well, we protect the elephants until the population is not so impoverished that they gain an appreciation for elephants beyond their economic value.
Meanwhile, the people working at the western NGOs which do a lot of the funding of these preserves (and which have done and continue to do a lot of the work to being average Africans out of poverty) do indeed care a lot about not taking a colonialist stance. But a common problem they run into is corruption. Whether you are digging wells or building hospitals or saving the lions, it is common that any given official at any given level will step in to take their cut. While NGOs will do their best to avoid these losses, they are inevitable to a certain extent. And trying to circumvent or oust government officials would be very, very colonial.
So the NGOs play ball, and generally try to find common ground with the governments and the preserves. Of course, not all Africans are poor and nature-ambivalent, just as not all westerners are colonizers. And typically, the Africans involved with the preserves do care about protecting the animals and ecosystems in them quite a bit. And importantly, the preserves are the ones issuing the hunting permits. The locals who direct, organize, and run the preserves on a day to day basis have determined that from the position they are in right now, yes, they do want to issue these hunting permits. So challenging this issuance seems somewhat colonialist to me.
No population is a monolith, and people can have multiple reasons for doing what they do. Talk to a hunter in an open minded way about the last hunt they went on, and they will give you any number of reasons they enjoyed it - exercise, fresh air, camaraderie. But also possibly the thrill of the moment they successfully took the shot, and the pride they feel about the trophy they took home. Still, I don’t think this necessarily makes any individual a bad person - hunting is a ritual humans have engaged in since before we were human. And hunting has long been not only a necessity, but a mark of status in indigenous tribes around the world for millenia. Should we also cast an indigenous person who specifically pursues the largest and most dangerous boar near his villiage, so he can boast about his kill and wear its tusks as a necklace, as an evil, frothing, bloodthirsty killer?
He also plays golf, combs his hair, and breathes air. The association isn’t a ding against your doctor, who also golfs.
This is a norm enforced by… other hunters… Who else would enforce it? It isnt hard to go into the woods and shoot an animal in the leg and then torture it to death if you feel like it. There’s not a game warden hiding behind every tree in the forest. Really, the fact that all hunters know about this norm seems like a point in their favor.
Well, no. The pragmatic and conservation-minded Africans reached a mutually beneficial agreement with the hunters to help fund their preserve, to protect the species there against the actions other Africans might take due to the pressures of poverty, which is a difficult and complex issue to deal with, but in which both Africans and foreign governments and NGOs have been making slow - but steady - progress on for the last half century.