Category Archives: Key Articles

Western racism hurts African wildlife and people

By: Emmanuel Koro
Published in Voices 360

The world has just been reminded that racism is a deeply hurtful problem that cuts across all spheres of life. This month Republican U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly told four Democratic U.S. members of Congress to “go home.” All four were female and of colour. One of these elected officials might be a descendant of Africans who were brutally enslaved to help develop and enrich the American nation.

In Africa, those of us involved with wildlife conservation realize that Western racism is also a constant sub-theme in Western policy. Take Africa’s elephant and rhino range states. They have been subjected to a harmful form of racism by Western animal rights groups for the past 43 years. How? They have imposed their values on how African wildlife should be managed. For example, they have promoted a ban on ivory and rhino horn trade — and stopped all trade in domestically bred African grey parrots — in the hope that this will end poaching. It hasn’t. In fact, poaching of elephants, rhinos and grey parrots have increased because demand for these products remains high.

“The younger supporters of the Western animal rights groups, many of whom consider themselves politically progressive, do not realize the racist nature of these organizations,” said U.S. public policy specialist and Managing Director of the Ivory Education Institute, Godfrey Harris. “They have no idea that the money they donate is making things worse for Africa, particularly the rural populations who live among wild animals. Yet the animal rights groups shamelessly use the increase in poaching they knowingly enable in order to drag even more money out of their supporters. The ugly truth is that Western animal rights groups create and benefit from the poaching crisis.”

While the executives of the animal rights groups enjoy a luxurious lifestyle, rural Africans suffer the consequences of being unable to benefit from the wildlife that is part of their environment and culture. They go barefoot, poor, hungry, and hopeless, without clean drinking water, decent healthcare or adequate educational facilities. They suffer these conditions because African wildlife can’t pay for itself while the ban on ivory and rhino horn trade, and limitations on hunting, remain in force.

Worse, urban and rural African taxpayers are forced to pay for wildlife protection in order to satisfy the values of Western animal rights groups. Comfortable in their luxury homes and offices in New York, London, Brussels and Berlin, they claim that they know, what is best for African people and African wildlife. How is this attitude any different from the colonial racists such as Bismarck, Leopold, Rhodes or Livingston? Remember they proclaimed “the higher races have a right over the lower races. They have a duty to civilize the inferior races.” This idea of imposing abhorrent Western values on Africa then is no different than the attitudes of the Western animal rights groups today.

Without benefits from wildlife and after so many fatal attacks of elephant and lions on their people and livestock, Africa’s rural communities are suffering. If you were suffering in this way, wouldn’t you rather poach wildlife by collaborating with the poachers than adopt the racist attitudes of unseen and unknown do-gooders from abroad?

African leaders have long found racism abhorrent. Nelson Mandela, the former South African president and global icon, said it best: “I hate racial discrimination most intensely and in all its manifestations.”

The first black President of the first African independent country, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, told the U.S. civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King that he “would never be able to accept the American ideology of freedom until America settles its own internal racial strife.” We could extend Mr. Nkrumah’s thought to wildlife. Let the U.S. solve its own wildlife issues involving the white tailed deer, the wild Mustang horse, and the western mountain lion before it uses the UN Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as its tool to interfere in Africa’s wild animal issues.

Trade not aid saves African wildlife. If the SADC countries were to leave CITES, they could easily start trading in all their currently forbidden wildlife products with world markets without endangering their wildlife populations.

The Organization of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) is trading oil internationally without a UN environmental agency regulating it. Yet oil has and continues to negatively impact the environment. The diamond producing countries under the Kimberly process is also trading independently. Accordingly, there is no reason why SADC countries cannot do the same with their rhino horn, ivory and grey parrot stocks if CITES fails to end its continued racist prohibition of trade in these wildlife products. Before taking this action, SADC countries should ensure that the countries that are going to buy their products are also willing to defy CITES. The good news is that countries such as Japan are likely to agree to that because they have problems with international wildlife regulatory bodies as well.

In late December 2018, Japan set a precedent that sovereign countries can pullout of international wildlife regulatory organizations that don’t serve their national interests. Japan pulled out of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) because it was prohibiting its people from commercial whale hunting for meat, which is an important source of protein. Following its pullout from the IWC in December 2018, Japan started commercial whaling on 1 July 2019, totally ignoring Western animal rights groups’ outcries against commercial whale hunting.

About Emmanuel Koro
Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning environmental journalist who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa.

About This Article
This article was published online by the Voices 360 on July 29, 2019. Link to the article https://www.voices360.com/community-development/western-racism-hurts-african-wildlife-and-people-30025950

To the Prime Minister of People’s Republic of China

Following letter was sent to the Prime Minister of China. A copy of the letter in PDF format is at the end of the page.


October 30, 2018

The Honorable Li Keqiang
Prime Minister of China
People’s Republic of China
Beijing, CHINA

Dear Premier Li :

The Ivory Education Institute strongly applauds the People’s Republic of China’s decision to permit its hospitals to trade in domestically-raised tiger bones and rhino horn.

While many Western animal rights groups will react automatically and negatively to this  initiative because it will confuse their one-size-fits-all approach to wildlife conservation,  students of governance will recognize the carefully-crafted policy that China has forged.

From our perspective, you have done it exactly right. Now it is up to the farmers and their  support groups in Southern Africa to put pressure on their individual governments to join  China in seeking a change in CITES regulations to reflect this new policy.

As an organization fully committed to achieving a similar, carefully calibrated and properly  controlled market for ivory, I hope you will be able to turn your attention to saving  elephants suffering in overpopulated herds in Southern Africa.

I look forward to working with your delegates to the CITES Conference of the Parties in May-2019 on this and other questions.

Sincerely

Godfrey Harris
Managing Director


View the Letter in PDF format

To the President of the National Geographic Society

Following email communication was sent to Mr. Knell, President of the National Geographic Society on March 1, 2018


Dear Mr. Knell:

POLITICO for February 28, 2018 quotes you as follows:

“100 elephants a day are being slaughtered for ivory.” Given the prestige of the National Geographic Society and the incomparable platform it offers you, I would hope that you could prove the number of elephants you claim are poached per day before you repeat that number again in public. The Humane Society of the United States has long claimed 96 per day (derived from a 2010 estimate of 35,000 elephants killed in a 12 month period divided by 365.)

As you know, the Speaker of the California Assembly adopted the number for a bill she sponsored that bans virtually all ivory trading in the state. That bill became law. But as we note in our lawsuit appeal arguing to have the law declared unconstitutional, the number was never proven, details were never provided, the caveats accompanying the number were never revealed and a differentiation between animals killed for their ivory and those that died of natural causes was never established by any responsible public official in California.

The number has become the opposite of an urban myth; it is the big lie repeated so often that it takes on a Goebbels-like ring of verified truth. Check with the Natural Resources Defense Council. They use the number as if it were brought down from Mt. Sinai by Moses. Please do not add to the intellectual dishonesty this number implies by associating the National Geographic Society with its dubious provenance.

And one more thing. When groups like the Society publicly lament the death of elephants without equal concern for the rural populations who live among them and for the damage the elephants do to the land they occupy, these groups are playing into the hands of the poachers. Nothing the gangs that control the poachers want more than a limit on ivory supply without any alteration in demand. That, of course, increases the price of raw ivory and makes poaching even more lucrative. Ever think that what you are doing by addressing only a part of the elephant equation may do greater damage  than might occur without your intervention?

Godfrey Harris
Managing Director, Ivory Education Institute
520 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 204
Los Angeles, CA 90049-3534 USA

Trump on Trophies from Zimbabwe elephant hunts

Trump’s decision on trophies from Zimbabwe elephant hunts bad for elephant conservation

Zimbabwe’s anticipated successful elephant conservation lies in the hands of Trump. African and Western conservation organisations have appealed to him to not take too long to get the scientific facts from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to justify imports of hunted elephant trophies into the US.

By: Emmanuel Koro
Published in The Chronicle

UNITED States President Donald Trump has delayed a rare and early Christmas gift that he recently presented to the Zambian and Zimbabwean people.

By putting a halt on the lifting of the US ban on importing elephant trophies from the two countries into the US he has muddied the US policy waters.

The US is the world’s biggest hunting market and poor rural villagers in Zambia and Zimbabwe see their lives being significantly improved through money that the US hunters pay to hunt elephants.

Hunting elephants is legal under strict permit systems in several African countries, and the revenue is crucial for supporting conservation efforts. The large fees that trophy hunters pay to be allowed to hunt elephants, lions and leopards can be a significant source of revenue. In Zimbabwe, according to the Safari Operators’ Association, the annual revenue from trophy hunting for this year could be as much as $130 million, mainly from the US market.

The southern African countries, including Zambia and Zimbabwe, practise wise and sustainable use of wildlife products such as elephant hunting trophies, ivory and rhino horn trade, to bring wildlife into balance with their habitats.

Therefore, the US Department of Interior’s decision to suspend the US ban on elephant trophies from the two countries into the US was a breath of fresh air and good news for elephant conservation. Sadly, it only took a tweet from President Trump saying the ban would remain, “until such time as I review all conservation facts.”

That review if done responsibly as we anticipate can only result in the reinstatement of his decision to allow imports of elephant hunting trophies into the USA because the motivation facts are strong, scientific and tested.

The US Secretary for the Department of Interior, Ryan Zinke on Friday said: “President Trump and I have talked and both believe that conservation and healthy herds are critical”. “As a result, in a manner compliant with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations, the issuing of permits is put on hold as the decision is being reviewed.”

The US Fish and Wildlife Service had announced the welcome policy shift 48 hours earlier, with officials signalling in a statement that they would expand efforts to promote trophy hunting as a form of conservation.

Pro-hunting non-governmental organisations worldwide do not see any reason why President Trump should at a later stage reverse the honourable, scientifically based, elephant-saving and welcome decision to reinstate the imports of elephant hunting trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe into the US.

Sadly, President Trump’s decision to put on hold imports might have ended the celebrations of Zambian and Zimbabwean poor villagers that were set benefit from it. Without benefits from elephant hunting money the villagers will not have any incentive to conserve the iconic animals or to protect them from poachers.

Therefore, the fate of Zimbabwe and Zambia’s anticipated successful elephant conservation lies in the hands of President Trump. African and Western conservation organisations have appealed to him to not take too long to get the scientific facts from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to justify imports of hunted elephant trophies into the US. The decision to lift the ban was announced at the African Wildlife Consultative Forum in Tanzania – an event co-hosted by Safari Club International (SCI), a hunting rights group.

They certainly do not think that President Trump’s decision to put the elephant hunting trophies imports on hold was due to the animal rights outcry to reverse the decision because this is the man who unexpectedly pulled out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Deal; despite worldwide appeals, including those from animal rights groups. They know that President Trump does not share animal rights’ anti-wildlife use values. He and his advisors, who include the USFWS, are also fully aware that the elephant trophy imports into the US would benefit elephant conservation and fight rural poverty. Therefore, these NGOs think that his (President Trump) should be an honest attempt not to rush the elephant hunting trophies imports decision that he should soon reinstate.

Even his two sons, including Donald Trump Jnr- who recently went on an unforgettable hunting trip in Zimbabwe know that hunting revenue benefits wildlife and poor rural communities situated near national parks and game reserves. At a US government level, there is strong support for hunting as a USFWS spokesman was quoted in the media saying, “Legal, well-regulated sport hunting as part of a sound management programme can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation. The USFWS has determined that the hunting and management programmes for African elephants in Zimbabwe will enhance the survival of the species in the wild.”

Explaining the reason why President Trump put the elephant hunting trophy imports decision on hold, the Head of the Los Angeles-based Ivory Education Institute, Godfrey Harris said, “For the announcement of a policy to be official, it must be published in the Federal Register. The publication of an executive order, a rule change, the signing of a piece of legislation in the Register makes it official and gives it the force of law. (It can be then challenged in the courts if it is deficient in anyway.) If it is controversial, the publication is often delayed a day or two to let the storm abate. My guess is that the Interior Department has not published the change and it will sit in limbo until Secretary Zinke and President Trump talk. It may be weeks or it may be days.”

Meanwhile, the chief executive officer of a South Africa-based pro-hunting, ivory and rhino horn trade organisation, the True Green Alliance, Mr Ron Thomson said the original ban on Zimbabwe’s elephant hunting trophies was never justified because the USFWS (at that time under the Obama administration), was greatly under the influence of the American animal rights brigade.

“Indeed, Obama himself, is a fellow traveller and supporter of an animal rights group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) — whatever that acronym is supposed to mean,” said Mr Thomson. “The USFWS claimed that they had imposed the ban because Zimbabwe was unable to guarantee the sustainability of its stated annual elephant hunting quota. That is laughable. Those figures were, in fact, far too low. And the ban illustrated just how ignorant of the wildlife management facts pertaining to trophy hunting in Zimbabwe was the USFWS at that time; or has been at any other time.”

Mr Thomson said that like the major elephant populations throughout the whole of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s elephant populations were then – and remain now – gigantically in excess of their habitats’ elephant carrying capacities; and they could easily have sustained a hunting quota that was ten times (and more) above the official number.

“And it is because of actions – like the ban on the importation of Zimbabwe’s elephant hunting trophies to America — that the rest of the world has given undeserved credibility to the animal rights’ propaganda proclamations that the elephant in Africa is endangered and that it is facing extinction; which are far from true,” said Mr Thomson.

“The facts of the matter are that Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park now has 40 times as many elephants as its elephant carrying capacity had been previously determined — when the habitats were healthy in 1960. And the country’s Gonarezhou National Park is in much the same situation. Under our very noses these game reserves (and others in southern Africa) are being rapidly reduced to desert status with a constantly diminishing biological diversity.

Why? Because the rest of the world – in a very doctrinaire fashion —believes it has the right to interfere in Africa’s wildlife management affairs. The whole of the Western World (it seems) – like the good neo-colonialists that they all seem to be – believe that we Africans are too stupid to know what is best for our continent, our wildlife and our people.”

“The American Trump administration has now reversed the USFWS’s previously uncalled for, insupportable, unwise, and bullying demands on Zimbabwe’s wildlife management programme,” said Mr Thomson.

“On behalf of the whole of Africa, therefore, I say thank you President Trump. Now the question remains: Will the rest of the First World follow America’s wise and rational decision – and leave Africa alone to work out its own wildlife management salvation? Unfortunately, I doubt it. There are “Big Brothers” everywhere today, and they clearly believe that they know better than us Africans do about what constitutes the “best practice” management of our own wild natural resources. There is a storm brewing. And one of these days the bubble is going to burst.”

I really believe that African elephant range states should not wait for the US President to review this process without engaging him. I think in President Trump’s administration, the African states seem to have found a rare and useful ally for sustainable use.

Therefore, President Trump can bring hope for both improved wildlife conservation and better socio-economic development for poor African rural communities settled near national parks and game reserves.

His sons also support the use of wildlife products and hunting.

In a CNN news broadcast last Friday, one of Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Jnr, who recently undertook trophy hunting in Zimbabwe, spoke in support of the USA Government’s lifting of elephant hunting trophy imports into the US.

“I have been there (referring to his recent hunting trip to Zimbabwe) to understand how it works (trophy hunting industry),” said one of Trump’s sons, “The hunters are feeding the homeless.”

About Emmanuel Koro
Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning environmental journalist who has extensively covered conservation and development issues in African countries.

About This Article
This article was published online by The Chronicle on November 21, 2017. Link to the article http://www.chronicle.co.zw/trumps-decision-on-trophies-from-zimbabwe-elephant-hunts-bad-for-elephant-conservation/

Talking Truth To Power

Keynote address of Godfrey Harris To a conservation workshop of the IWMC World Conservation Trust

WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA
July 31, 2017


 

Mr. Minister, M. LaPointe, distinguished representatives of the Southern African Development Community (Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) interested guests: Know first that I am immensely honored by the invitation of the IWMC World Conservation Trust to share my ideas on the future of ivory and how this can be linked to worldwide attitudes toward Africa’s wildlife.

Note also that these ideas are rooted in an absolute abhorrence of the evils of poaching as well as a total rejection of the notion that all flora and fauna deserve to exist without human interference. Managed conservation means doing the hard work to balance the interests of man with the well being of the plants and animals that live among us. That’s why we are here.

Third preliminary note: Although my professional training is that of a diplomat, my daily activities are heavily involved with domestic and international politics. As you know, this is a tough arena in which to compete, primarily because it is occupied by the big guys who play for big prizes. For too long, though, those of us who understand and favor sustainable conservation techniques have been much too patient, much too polite, and much too diffident — in a word, much too diplomatic — in articulating our views and in expressing our disagreements with the major animal interventionist groups.

My hope is that right here, right now, we agree to talk the unvarnished truth directly and relentlessly to those among the animal rights groups who spend big money telling the world what is best for the people and wildlife of Africa. But in order for the rich and powerful from these animal rights groups to hear the truth from us — and in order for the public to accept it — requires a major change in the terms of the debate. We have to put those who oppose us on the defensive, starting right here and right now.

Straight talk about wildlife and human life in Africa can be our unique political contribution to the dominant social and economic trend of the 21st century. As you know, that trend is to be unapologetically disruptive of the status quo. The more, the better. We need to startle the American animal rights elites and their governmental and international supporters in the same way that Donald Trump uses TWEETS to break through what he sees as media barriers to reach his core supporters. Note these major disruptions in the social and economic order in the last few years:

Uber has become the world’s largest taxi company despite the fact that it owns no vehicles; Facebook is the world’ most popular media company but creates no content; Alibaba is the most valuable retailer in the world but owns no products; Airbnb has over 3,000,000 lodging listed in 65,000 cities in 191 countries — by far the world’s largest accommodation provider — and owns no hotels.

The disruption in politics at the outset of the 21st century is no less startling. The vote in the UK for BREXIT and the election of Donald Trump in the United States were the unmistakable expression of the unhappiness of voters with how governments now conduct the public’s business. The world’s democracies are no longer perceived by their citizens as instruments of, by, and for the people’s benefit.

Instead, governments are now seen by most citizens as vehicles to serve big business, big associations, big universities, big labor, and big nonprofits that employ career technocrats and an army of lawyers to ensure that their interests and their needs are met first.

I call this particular phenomenon of the 21st century, LOBBYCRATIC GOVERNANCE — the worldwide control of the major democracies by senior civil servants working with the staffs of large institutions to manage the levers of power through elected officials who serve as their enablers. Elections today are more like the shadows in kabuki theatre. The policies that emerge after the votes are counted are likely to turn out to be the same whether the Party of Tweedle Dee or the Party of Tweedle Dum wins. Why? Because career civil servants and their lawyers working with professional lobbyists have no intention of loosening their firm grip on the mechanisms of government.

Look at the field of conservation. The bureaucrats and the lobbyists from the big organizations control both public attitudes and government policy. Think about it! Dan Ashe, an obscure technocrat working in the back offices of the Natural Resources Committee of the U.S. House of Representative starts working closely with representatives from the big animal rights groups. Eventually he leaves the legislative side of the U.S. government for its executive branch where he becomes head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the explicit blessing of the big animal rights groups.

After years of supporting the interests of these groups within and through the U.S. government, he has been rewarded with a three-fold increase in salary — from $140,000 per year to $540,000 — as the new President of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. As of January 1, 2017, Ashe becomes a big time lobbyist seeking government support for the organization’s interests and doling out political contributions in return. Mr. Ashe, who had a big say in the decisions and public perceptions of CoP17, indicates that he expects to exercise similar power over CoP18 in Colombo. Tweedle dee, Tweedle dum.

Until we break through this revolving door of power sharing among the Western conservation elites, we will continue to cry wolf to a world that won’t hear us, won’t pay attention to us, and won’t care about us. Interventionist groups are really in the business of raising money to sustain their power and nothing raises money as effectively as the suffering of animals at the hands of sinister criminals and those who are seen to support their nefarious activities.

  • Culling deer overrunning homes in the U.S. northeast is forbidden because no one wants to shoot Bambi or his mother. But someone needs to start talking about the human deaths that will occur from the 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease caused by the ticks these deer carry. We ought to be that megaphone.
  • Wild mustang horses in the U.S. west have overwhelmed their ranges. Now it is costing $49 million a year to buy sufficient feed so these horses won’t starve. But no one is allowed to cull the herds because of Black Beauty. How else could that money be spent for the benefit of the people of the United States? We need to tell that story.

It takes brave souls to swim against the tide — whether in the U.S., the U.K., or Africa. To make a difference, we have to be disruptive, we need to become the Uber of the conservation movement. To do so, we have to recognize what a famous baseball manager said years ago:

NICE GUYS FINISH LAST

We have been too nice for too long. To finish in front — to WIN — requires a new disruptive direction. Getting started in this new direction reminds me of the story of the pastor who bought a mule to help him make the rounds of his parish. The problem was that once he took possession of the mule, the mule refused to move.

A farmer happens to see the stubborn animal willfully ignoring the pastor. Without a word, the farmer picks up a tree branch and approaches the mule. He is about to whack the mule on the side the head when the pastor says, “Wait. How will hitting the mule get it to do what I want?” “It won’t” admitted the farmer, “but first you have to get its attention before you can give it instructions.”

That is exactly what we have to do — we have to whack the world hard enough to get it’s attention. Once we have it, our ideas for change and improvement in the treatment of wildlife and human life will have the audience it needs.

How do you “hit” most of the animal rights groups, their enablers in Western governments, and the big international organizations hard enough to get their attention? In my view, you challenge their righteously adopted, smugly held, elitist attitudes of knowing exactly what is best for Africa’s wildlife and Africa’s future.

We could start by ridiculing their insistence that they can defy the laws of economics. They can’t, no matter how much money they throw at the problem from their patios in the Hollywood Hills, their balconies overlooking Fifth Avenue and their sitting rooms in Mayfair. By continually insisting that poaching will stop when the profits from ivory are eliminated, they are forgetting the immutable fact that prices increase when supply decreases. Choking off trade in ivory will only make it more valuable, enhancing the potential profits from poaching. By increasing the price of ivory through their misguided and unworkable proposed ban, these economic dimwits actually make the poaching problem worse.

We know this. But we never say it forcefully or loudly enough. We tend to make the point as if we were teaching economic theory in a university classroom in Cape Town — politely, reasonably, quietly. Why shout about something so obvious? Well, we forget that the do-gooders in Los Angeles, New York, and London tend to react viscerally rather than intellectually to facts. Economic arguments are boring compared to emotional stories. Fancy words versus gripping pictures. No contest. People who skip the book to wait for the movie tend to rearrange their prejudices rather than think afresh when new evidence arises.

We need to change this dynamic. We have to point out to most of these deaf and dumb Neanderthals that the methods used by the U.S. establishment to control illegal activities in the past have been blatant failures.

  • Take the failure of prohibition. Did the absolute ban on liquor imports into the United States stop alcohol consumption in the 1920s? No. Consumption increased and the U.S. got organized crime, corrupt police, and disrespect for the law as a result.
  • Did the U.S. deal with illegal drugs pouring into the country in the 1980s and ’90s any more successfully? No. It did exactly the same thing: It said it had zero tolerance for illegal substances, it threw military weapons at the problem, and it filled its jails with low-level dealers. Did drug use decrease? Just the opposite. The U.S. had a crack cocain problem that has given way to a horrific opioid epidemic — more than 50,000 overdose deaths a year. As always, the U.S. sees the problem as a supply issue that military measures can solve with bombs, troops and technology. It hasn’t worked because domestic demand for drugs — note the legalization of marijuana in so many U.S. jurisdictions — remains strong.
  • How then does the Trump Administration propose to deal with illegal immigrants? Same way. Provide more technology in the form of drones, radars and sensors, hire thousands of additional border agents, and build a great wall to block people crossing the nation’s southern border. Will it work? Of course not. How tough is it to bribe a guard to look the other way or patrol another sector when the group you are shepherding — at $4,000 a head — is crossing? How hard is it to build a taller ladder to get over a steeper wall, dig a tunnel deep enough to get under any foundation, go to northwestern Canada and walk into Alaska through an open border? If you don’t deal with demand, supply continues. As Albert Einstein is reported to have said:

Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

To get the world to see the insanity promoted by most of the animal rights groups, we need to hit the mule — those self-certain do-gooders sitting around their la-di-da patios, balconies, and sitting rooms — up the side of the head. We need to do this by relentlessly labeling them, as Trump incessantly talked about CROOKED HILLARY and CRAZY BERNIE, for what they are and yet most abhor:

RACISTS.

Tell me how what the big animal rights groups and their kept governments want is any different from what Livingston, Rhodes, Bismark or Leopold wanted? Tell me how these groups differ in attitude to the 19th century white men who brought, unbidden, Civilization, Christianity and Commerce to Africa? Tell me how Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States differs from Napoleon III’s prime minister, Jules Ferry, who said:

The higher races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilize the inferior races.

Tell me why today’s racists know more about what is better for the people of Africa than the people of Africa know themselves. They don’t, but we are keeping this as much of a secret as the Manhattan Project’s atomic bomb. You need to remind Americans to fix their own wildlife issues before telling Africa what to do about theirs.

Labeling these mostly American, affluent, educated, younger, urban crazies as RACISTS must be done by Africans to fundamentally change the debate. I can’t and my organization can’t. These liberals, so good at spending other people’s money and forcing change on someone else’s way of life, will writhe in agony at the thought that they, of all people, are being called racists by those they only want to help. To prove they aren’t as racist as any greedy, 19th century European, they need to tell the people of Africa why they alone can repeal the laws of economics, why their views on preserving wildlife should ignore the devastation suffered by humans who live among them, why sustained conservation measures shouldn’t be adopted as the standard for wildlife and habitat preservation.

We need to provide the media with footage of the destruction that wildlife causes in the bush to balance the havoc that poachers cause to elephants or rhinos; we need to show the anguish of burying a child killed by a wild animal to counter the images of hunters posing with their trophies; we need to portray the utter devastation of losing a home, a crop, or even a goat, because of the mindless policies promoted by CITES, its member governments, and the animal interventionist groups that control them. Those who live in Africa can gather that footage and those of us from the West can publicize it.

To start down this new path, I hope this meeting gives the world the DECLARATION OF WINDHOEK. May I suggest some wording for your review:

The People of Africa cherish their land and the resources it yields. It not only provided the nourishment to allow mankind to populate the world millions of years ago, but it continues to provide sustenance for those who live here and contribute to man’s progress. Finding the balance to sustain all of Africa’s resources is Africa’s responsibility.

The delegates representing the member countries of the Southern African Development Community declare that Africa is capable of finding that balance on its own, in its best interests, on behalf of the people who live on this continent, and for the ultimate benefit of the world.

Done at Windhoek, Namibia, on July 31, 2017

But issuing a Declaration provides only a stirring beginning, not the beneficial end we seek. That end is the culmination of what we have discussed here today:

  • THE NEED FOR STRAIGHT TALK
  • THE WILLINGNESS TO BE DISRUPTIVE
  • THE INTEREST IN CHALLENGING THOSE WHO NOW CONTROL LOBBYCRATIC GOVERNANCE
  • THE WILLINGNESS TO SHOW THE PAST FAILURES OF THE ELITE TO STOP PROHBITION, DRUGS, AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
  • THE COURAGE TO PUSH THE WEST INTO SOLVING ITS OWN WILDLIFE ISSUES
  • AND LABELING THOSE WHO MINDLESSLY SUPPORT ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUPS AS RACISTS.

The Declaration of Windhoek now needs a plan of action, a means to fund that action, and a timetable for its success. I hope this meeting and those to follow can build this framework. I pledge the Ivory Education Institute will do its part in creating that framework.


 

About Godfrey Harris:
Godfrey Harris is a a public policy consultant in Los Angeles. He serves as managing director of the Ivory Education Institute.