By Dr. Maurus J. Msuha
On November 18th, I had the opportunity to educate American policy makers and defend the positive impacts of hunting at a U.S. congressional panel focused on highlighting international conservation efforts worldwide. The forum, graciously hosted by the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Republican members, also featured testimony from other African voices in our fight for sustainable use practices in Africa including H.E. Tadeous Chifamba, the Honorable Ambassador of Zimbabwe, and Ms. Maxi Louis, community expert and Director of the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organizations.
The opportunity for me and my fellow Africans to address hunting advocates and conservationists on Capitol Hill has come at a crucial time. African conservation strategies that rely on sustainable use are facing ongoing threats from the U.S. to impose importation bans on some of Africa’s wildlife species that are legally hunted and harvested in Tanzania and our respective countries. Many of these bans originate from baseless claims made by activists and are commonly motivated by emotions rather than scientific research and population data.
Western countries fail to recognize that Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have some of the most successful wildlife management programs in Africa. As a result these three countries are home to several of the largest safari animal populations in the world. Tanzania and Zimbabwe rank among the top five countries for megafauna conservation and Zambia among the top 15—all ahead of the U.S.
In my home country of Tanzania specifically, regulated hunting has yielded successful results that speak for themselves. For example, Tanzania has set aside 32.5% of its land surface for wildlife conservation. This is directly due to regulated international hunting and a robust American market of hunters, as much of these protected areas are only suitable for sustainable hunting as opposed to photographic tourism.
Tanzania also holds the record for the world’s largest lion population, which amounts to roughly 16,800. This impressive statistic is a product of our lion harvest monitoring program that we regularly tout to stakeholders, most recently by my colleague Elisante Ombeni from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism at SCIF’s 19th African Wildlife Consultative Forum hosted this year in Kasane, Botswana.
Additionally, Tanzanian safari operators are heavily committed to anti-poaching efforts and have invested millions of dollars in combating and reducing these behaviors. These funds come directly from hunting fees and help us far exceed Tanzania’s wildlife conservation regulations that set a $5,000/year minimum required contribution for hunting operations.
It is unfortunate that members of the U.S. Congress have introduced misguided proposals that would derail the successes of Africa’s conservation system, ultimately threatening wildlife sustainability and the livelihoods of rural communities.
The most concerning of them is the inclusion of Section 436 in the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act 2022, which the House of Representatives unfortunately passed earlier this year. This dangerous proposal seeks to ban the importation of sport-hunted elephants and lions from Tanzania, Zimbabwe, or Zambia—an outright assault on African wildlife management.
The language outlined in Section 436 would make it extremely difficult for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to approve the importation of legally harvested lions and elephants. Misinformed U.S lawmakers advertise this proposal as a “conservation effort” and a “method to manage African species,” but in practice sustainable hunting activities in southern Africa would face negative consequences due to decreased legal hunting activity from the American marketplace, and conservation efforts would be put at risk.
An alarming aspect of this proposal is that it fails to distinguish poaching in African countries from legal, regulated hunting by Americans. Anyone dictating wildlife policy should know that hunting is a well-regulated activity that ensures sustainable practices for species and habitats, especially in Africa. Failing to distinguish legal hunting from criminal poaching also completely disregards the strict regulations established by African leaders to protect their wildlife and our proven capability to do so without Western interference.
The implementation of Section 436 would negatively impact conservation beyond the issue of poaching as well. Africans residing in rural communities who tolerate serious human-wildlife conflict would lose incentive to protect these species and could eventually turn a blind eye to dangerous poachers. Similarly, with reduced revenues from a decrease in hunting activity, safari operators in concession blocks would lose the benefits of conserving their areas for wildlife habitat, risking abandonment that would lead to uncontrolled conversion of blocks to poaching, cattle, and other destructive land uses. Poaching and habitat loss are the two greatest threats to wildlife species across Africa and we can hardly tolerate a U.S policy that would exacerbate these problems.
Political decisions from the U.S. must consider how their policies impact Africans interaction with and management of wildlife under our comprehensive conservation strategies that rely on regulated hunting. Section 436 violates our communities’ human rights to benefit from hunting and Tanzania’s right as a sovereign nation to manage these conservation strategies. I must strongly urge members of Congress to respect that.
Dr. Maurus J. Msuha holds a PhD in Biological Anthropology and currently serves as the Director of Wildlife at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism in Tanzania.