‘Trophy hunting gets a bad rap. It can aid conservation and boost biodiversity’

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is trying to position itself as a serious party, driven by a combination of principle and evidence.

Unfortunately, one area where Labour has failed to grasp the importance of evidence is environmental policy. Environmental politics in Britain has always been warped by sentimental pablum that believes that fluffy animals and the colour green can replace hard evidence about how to increase biodiversity and lessen greenhouse gas emissions, and unfortunately Labour has historically been as hostage to cranks claiming to be green as any other party.

The latest example of the warped and evidence-free world that is British environmental politics is the passing, almost without opposition, of the trophy hunting (import prohibition) legislation, currently winding through the House of Lords.

Trophy hunting crack down has almost no opposition

Despite having been proposed by a Tory MP, the legislation has received almost no opposition from any party, including Labour. This is probably because being against hunting is one of the easiest positions one can take in British politics, up there with being against puppy farming and for visiting your grandmother. But this legislation deserves not just to have opposition, but to be actively opposed by anyone who values evidence over sentiment in politics.

A ban on trophy hunting imports not only will do nothing to prevent biodiversity loss, but will actively aide in its loss, while also bringing back the worst of neo-colonial “conservation” practice. If Labour wants to show that it is a party that thinks evidence is more important than mawkishness, and that developing countries having sovereignty over their wildlife isn’t a charade, it should oppose this legislation. 

Conservation is the art of the possible

Conservation is about protecting biodiversity – it is not about caring about how green a landscape is, or about the lives of individual plants or animals. Like politics, conservation is the art of the possible. Ideally, there would be no trade-offs between human wellbeing and biodiversity or fights over how to allocate money between conservation and other areas.

But we do not live in that ideal world – often a pound spent on species A means a pound not spent on species B, and a pound spent on any species that isn’t Homo sapiens is a pound not spent on poverty alleviation.

These trade-offs are starkest in the countries where biodiversity is highest, which are often also the poorest. It is hard to look a peasant in the eye and say that you have funds for a local bird or fish, but not for a school or indoor plumbing. This is especially the case for large animals – the elephants and lions which feature so much in conservation advertisements in Britain.

When properly managed, trophy hunting boosts biodiversity

To us, they might be majestic, but to locals who have to live with them, these animals are violent threats to lives and livelihoods. It is precisely to help relieve the pressures of these trade-offs that, to conserve it, biodiversity must pay. 

It may seem perverse to make biodiversity pay through killing individuals, but study after study has shown that, when properly managed, trophy hunting can help fund conservation efforts while not reducing the overall population of the species. This isn’t just idle speculation – the regulated trophy hunting which is the target of this legislation already exists across sub-Saharan Africa, and is an integral part of many countries’ conservation finance strategies.

This bill does nothing to target actual drivers of population declines in these species, such as poaching or land use change. Poaching is already outside the law, and any animal products from poached animals are already illegal.

As for alternative ways of making biodiversity pay, such as ecotourism – those have been tried! Many have their own environmental impacts, which can be larger, if less apparent, than trophy hunting. And none pay as much for conservation as trophy hunting does. 

Conservation must fight the legacy of colonialism

There is also the question of fairness. Conservation has a long and sorry history of racism and imperialism, the ghosts of which are still actively being exorcized from the field.

A key part of fighting these pernicious legacies is to accept that, while biodiversity might be global in its importance, it is up to local governments and peoples how best to protect it. Most sub-Saharan countries have legalised trophy hunting, precisely because it is one of the most effective ways to fund conservation. Why should lachrymose anti-hunting sentiment in Britain prevent them from doing what they think is best with their own local biodiversity? 

The British have an unhealthily mawkish view of animals. Famously, we had a RSPCA before there was a NSPCC. But perhaps this sentimentality would be harder to sustain if we had to live amongst the animals we love to protect.

A lion, an elephant, or a cheetah, can all look majestic when they are in a zoo or on a coat of arms, but to a villager whose crops are trampled or relative is mauled, there is nothing majestic about these animals. Only by making their existence pay can their non-eradication be justified locally, and this is precisely what trophy hunting does. 

Labour must get serious, not sentimental, on conservation

There is very little chance that the trophy hunting bill doesn’t become law. It passed its third reading in the House of Commons several weeks ago without so much as a pip of opposition, and in the Lords opposition has been led by the very few peers who are willing to listen to actual conservation biologists on the issue, who unfortunately happen to be Tories. There is even less of a chance that a future Labour government will repeal it.

That is a pity, since it is a piece of neo-colonialist legislation, driven by sentimentality, that stymies actual conservation efforts. If Labour wants to show that its agenda for government is a serious one, driven by evidence, it would oppose this legislation. Unfortunately, there are no signs it is interested in doing so.