Where do you see more value in the following pictures? Which is more important? Both of the following photos courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com.
Actions have consequences. What seems like a good policy often causes more of the harm you wanted to prevent.
If you want to stop big game hunting, the unintended consequences include increasing the amount of farmers’ crops that get gobbled up by elephants and increasing the amount of ranchers’ livestock that gets gobbled up by lions. Villagers will be poorer.
I have previously discussed this issue: If you want to increase the number of large animals like elephants and rhinos, allow them to be privately owned and hunted.
Two years ago Botswana banned trophy hunting of big game animals. Since then the number of conflicts between big animals and humans has soared.
There are huge numbers of large animals in Botswana, which previously were managed as a public resource, with hunting intentionally managed and much of the fees shared with local villages.
The New York Times provides the details on 9/12: A Hunting Ban Saps a Village’s Livelihood. The NYT of all places. It is amazing to me that their editors even allowed the story to run.
One quoted person said he has lost 30 goats since the hunting ban went into effect, elephants have destroyed his maize and sorghum fields, his family no longer gets some of the big game meat the trophy hunters used to leave behind, and falling income for the village from hunting fees have ended his mother’s $200 a year pension. He and his family have suffered as a direct result of the ban.
Continue reading “Which is more important to you? Actual people or big animals?”
