Billionaire-funded sustainable use group reshaping African conservation through free market fundamentalism
The African Wildlife Economy Institute brought together free market fundamentalists, sustainable use activists, and climate deniers to push an economic agenda that suits right-wing oligarchs.
The African Wildlife Economy Institute was a floundering conservative think tank before obtaining funding from the Oppenheimers, a South African billionaire family invested in wildlife trade and trophy hunting. The sudden influx of cash turned AWEI into one of the most threatening sustainable use groups in Africa.
AWEI’s 2022 Impact Report claimed that it was “reshaping the conservation agenda” and “building a continent-wide constituency that is able and willing to promote the development and diversification of wildlife economies.” Its constituency of free market fundamentalists, sustainable use activists, and climate deniers is a dangerous mix when supported by South African oligarchs.
A history of free market fundamentalism
AWEI Director and Co-Founder Francis Vorhies studied economics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Vorhies said that his professor encouraged him to read “Austrian School of Economics and especially the works of Ludwig von Mises.”
Those works taught him “that the delivery of so-called public goods do not necessarily require government intervention and that they potentially be delivered by markets—hence, making capitalism work for conservation.”
Vorhies’ economic ideology origin story was similar to another economist. That economist became a climate denier.
“… I believed that the government shouldn’t get involved with economic issues. One of my professors told me where I could find like-minded people and explore these ideas more deeply; he felt like a trusted authority, so I didn’t see what harm there could be in his recommendations.
He pointed me to a website he wrote for, run by a right-wing organisation called the Ludwig Von Mises Institute. At first, I just read articles related to free-market economics, but there were pieces on all sorts of subjects, including climate change. I blanked out some of the more unsavoury things contributors posted that, in hindsight, scare me now – like apologism for the Confederacy – but the skepticism about climate change seemed to make sense to me. It had to; because I believed what they were saying about economic conservatism, this seemed like the logical next step. And to pick holes in it would mean I would have to question my other beliefs in turn.” – former climate denier Moya Lothian-McLean.
Mises is a favored economist of free market fundamentalists and climate deniers. A Climate Social Science Network report examined this connection.
“The ideology of this tradition of Austrian Economics based on Ludwig von Mises provides important conceptual tools that are highly relevant for climate denial and obstruction purposes. Mises social theory is based on a peculiar theory of action (praxeology), distinguishing between a) free exchange of individuals, b) coercive action (infringing on free individual exchange), and c) retaliation (against coercive action). On this basis, not only economic relations but all social relations are held to be explained with a normative emphasis on “free exchange” within and beyond the marketplace. Resting on, fixed assumptions (a priori ideas not subject to the test of experience), praxeology and its deductive method can be considered a descendent of outdated idealist philosophy of science, providing cover for pseudo-scientific attacks on climate sciences.” – Climate Social Science Network.
Vorhies was not a climate denier. But he has a long history of working with climate denial organizations because of their shared economic ideology.
Vorhies was Research and Publications Director at the Free Market Foundation, a South African conservative think tank, in 1989. FMF’s Co-Founder, Leon Louw, was a climate denier that spread false information about tobacco smoking.
The Institute for African Alternatives criticized FMF for claiming that free enterprise empowered poor Africans. The researchers said the claim contradicted reality and was “made repeatedly by the foundation and conservative economic commentators in South Africa.”
Vorhies wrote an article in 1989 for Foundation for Economic Education, a US-based think tank and climate denial organization funded by right-wing oligarchs, that blamed Marxists for black South African farmers’ poverty.
“Africa is not starving because Europeans imposed alienating and exploiting relations of capital on the African people. Africa is starving because colonialism prevented capitalism from flourishing. …
When independence came to Africa starting in the 1950s, the new African leaders took over the existing structures of government. These structures had been designed to extract rents for those in power. They were not designed to promote profit-seeking activity. European colonialism was replaced by African neocolonialism.
Into this situation entered the Marxists. Following Lenin’s flawed concept of capitalist imperialism, they labeled colonialism as part of capitalism. In fact, colonialism was part of the pre-capitalist system of mercantilism. Nevertheless, the Marxists, with international support, replaced so-called capitalist colonialism with African socialism. The results have been disastrous.
In Africa today, the hunger brought about by European colonialism has in many nations been replaced by the starvation brought about by African Marxism.” – Francis Vorhies.
Vorhies’ solution was simple, albeit delusional.
“The solution to the low productivity on black South African farms is to create a system of private property and free markets. …
Private property and free markets, furthermore, are culturally compatible with black African values.” – Francis Vorhies.
Little changed in 30 years
Vorhies recently wrote an article announcing a “global mission… to promote sustainable wildlife use for current and future generations.” He saw free African trade as an integral component of the mission.
“The recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) can be a key platform for developing wildlife enterprises that conserve areas and deliver wildlife products across the continent. With its commitment to reduce non-tariff barriers, the AfCFTA will enable the expansion of intra-African trade of wildlife products.” – Francis Vorhies.
AfCFTA launched in 2019 to much fanfare. But free trade agreements historically benefit wealthy countries and hurt poor countries.
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) disproportionately hurt rural Mexican farmers. A 2010 study found that free trade in Western Africa devastated poor rural farmers that could not compete against industrialized operations.
“A truly free market does not exist in this world,” said the study’s co-author, Laurence Becker. He added, “We don’t have one, but we tell hungry people in Africa that they are supposed to.”
Vorhies reveled in the idea of expanding wildlife exploitation opportunities.
“The growth of African markets for sustainable African wildlife products will require numerous new public-private partnerships operating at national, regional, and continental levels to support the development of goods and services derived from wild animals and plants.” – Francis Vorhies.
Growing markets for wildlife products benefit those invested in wildlife trade and trophy hunting, like AWEI’s primary donors, the Oppenheimer family.
AWEI’s billionaire funding opens the door to new partnerships
AWEI said it produced a report that “explored the nexus between trade barriers agreed by CITES COPs, livelihoods, and landscape” at the request of IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods, a pseudo-scientific organization that supports a trophy hunting advocacy project.
“Further, we have started to explore pathways to policy coherence between CITES and the recently launched the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which aims to eliminate trade barriers such as those adopted by CITES COPS. A research project on non-tariff barriers (NTBs) facing the intra-Africa trade in wild meat led to a number of policy recommendations with respect the reporting on these barriers through the AfCFTA NTB Mechanism and to establishing an enabling environment for wild meat exports at the national level. By linking CITES and AfCFTA, we are supporting African policy makers to develop and support a shared vision of the livelihood and landscape opportunities from liberalising wildlife trade across the continent.” – AWEI’s 2022 Impact Report.
AWEI’s 2022 Activities Report said that it secured funding “for research on non-tariff barriers in the intra-African wild meat trade” from the Atlas Network, a global network funded by right-wing oligarchs and comprised of more than 500 climate-denying free-market think tanks. AWEI said that the Atlas Network “have also provided several capacity building opportunities for the AWEI team, including in-person training with African think tank peers in Dar es Salaam. Discussions are underway for scaling up their support in 2023.”
AWEI also secured partnerships with IUCN SULi and the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, a pseudo-academic group that supports a US-based free-market think tank’s African initiative. Vorhies is a Research Visitor at WildCRU which AWEI said “opened opportunities to integrate a wildlife economy perspective into their research.”
AWEI partnered with the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) and was in the process of partnering with Jamma International and Resource Africa.
CIC, a European trophy hunting lobbying group, made a propaganda film in Namibia to fight Germany’s proposed trophy hunting import ban. Jamma, a UK charity and investment firm, made an eerily similar propaganda film in Namibia to fight the UK’s proposed trophy hunting import ban one year later.
Jamma donated more than $1.2 million to Resource Africa, an African trophy hunting lobbying group, in the last two years. Resource Africa worked with CIC on a coordinated effort to promote sustainable use in Europe.
AWEI said that it is flooding academic institutes with their sustainable use activists. It “also provided support on the wildlife economy to post-graduate students at other universities” including the following:
Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes, an economist with past ties to the UK’s leading climate denial organization, and Catherine Semcer, a National Rifle Association ally, are at the University of Oxford. Both came from Property and Environment Research Center, a US-based free-market think tank that espoused climate denial and promoted sustainable use.
Bupe Banda, Resource Africa and CIC’s leading voice in their coordinated effort to promote sustainable use in Europe, is at the University of Cambridge.
These partnerships would not have existed without the infusion of cash from the billionaire Oppenheimer family. They also show this is not a grassroots endeavor meant to benefit rural African communities.
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