Insights into the trophy hunting industry’s communications strategy
The Community Leaders Network is working with the trophy hunting industry to change the narrative around trophy hunting.
In 1996, Safari Club International African Chapter published their Strategic Plan for Africa. Trophy hunting industry representatives discussed putting local community members in the media and “hiring a Fifth Avenue Public Relations (PR) firm to give trophy hunting linked to community based conservation and development an image to the world.”
“Sponsor them, rent a booth, take a series of photographs depicting how communities are involved in and receiving benefits from these areas. This will provide these spokesmen an opportunity to represent not only their peoples’ concerns, but to lobby for supporting the concept, “sustainable use of wildlife,” especially low offtake high economic return trophy hunting, for what it is meant to be – a tool for management, economic and rural development in Africa.” – 1996 SCI African Chapter Strategic Plan for Africa
But that was nearly thirty years ago. What does the trophy hunting industry’s communications strategy look like today?
As far as I can tell, there are currently two major strategies being employed to change the narrative around trophy hunting.
Send members of the media to African countries to talk to local communities and tell their stories.
Bring local communities’ representatives to Europe and have them tell their stories in front of politicians and members of the media.
Why do I think this? Because that’s what the trophy hunting industry is saying that they’re doing.
In June 2022, International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC), one of Europe’s main trophy hunting lobbyists whose top priority includes communicating “sustainable use successes of hunting,” hosted their 68th General Assembly under the banner of Conserve - Convene – Communicate. The assembly focused heavily on how to properly communicate the benefits of trophy hunting in the face of growing concerns about trophy hunting import bans.
The assembly’s second technical session, Utilising Communications Tools In The 21st Century, revolved around “how best to use modern communications tools” with “speakers invited to discuss their experiences with certain tools, and their use in communications campaigns.”
Strategic communications firm Idafield CEO Marc de Beaufort spoke about the need to emphasize storytelling and getting away from defending trophy hunting or hunting organizations. He is also running a project with CIC titled Nature’s Keepers which he envisions becoming a documentary series released on Netflix or BBC.
Digital public relations influence agency JIN Director General of Corporate & Partner Augustin Leclerc recounted how he’s helped some of his corporate clients fight against backlash from environmentalists. He spoke about the need to target undecided populations on social media with positive stories about trophy hunting.
Both Idafield and JIN have worked on public relations campaigns for Coca-Cola, the world’s worst plastic polluter according to Break Free From Plastic.
Sharing the stage with these public relations experts was Bupe Banda, a representative from the Community Leaders Network. The Community Leaders Network is a relatively new initiative that is supposed to represent local communities in southern African countries and claims to “provide a platform through which local voices can be heard on global stages.”
Banda told the audience that local communities do not have access to social media or journalists who can share their stories. She highlighted the need to get members of the media to visit local communities in African countries as part of the communications strategy.
“We do not want people sitting in Europe making stories that are not even true without going on the ground to go and see for themselves.” – Bupe Banda, Community Leaders Network, 68th CIC General Assembly
The moderator of the technical session posed a question to the panel about what other types of media could be used to further the trophy hunting industry’s communication strategy (he noted short films as a potential example). Banda answered the moderator’s question by reiterating her stance that members of the media must go and visit local communities in African countries to tell their stories.
“Any sort of media that is used, as long as it tells their true story, is something that communities are interested in. But what we need to do is, that for communities to actually tell their stories truthfully, people have to be on the ground.” – Bupe Banda, Community Leaders Network, 68th CIC General Assembly
When discussing the challenges of communicating pro-trophy hunting messages from collective voices without appearing unauthentic and corporatized, Banda makes it clear that the Community Leaders Network wants to preserve trophy hunting.
“Collaborative efforts will actually go a long way to help sort out this problem because we have a situation where we are defending – I don’t know if I should use the term defending – but ok, we want to preserve hunting. At the same time this is something that is also precious to the group that is here the same way we also have hunters in Zambia. But at the end of the day, how many times are we meeting with the hunters to come up with a strategy on how we are going to present our true stories? So those are the questions we have to be asking ourselves. And then how many times are we interacting with other members of society – political figures, lawyers, environmentalists – who are important in making policy or who are important in responding to any threats to hunting? How many times are we sitting down with them to actually come up with how we are going to respond or how we are going to present our stories?” – Bupe Banda, Community Leaders Network, 68th CIC General Assembly
Banda also revealed some information about the coordination behind the effort to amplify community voices to generate a positive trophy hunting narrative.
“We have not sat back… We have organized ourselves very well from a national level into a regional level so in most of the southern African countries we have national level CBNRM associations that have been formed with the aim of amplifying the community voices at a national level. Then we build up into a regional network, what we are calling the Community Leaders Network, and through this network we have been trying to voice out input from the communities to voice out how they feel about hunting, how everyone should respect their rights and their decisions when it comes to hunting and many other issues around conservation… We are using this network to actually be on twitter. We are using it to be on Facebook, to be on Instagram, interact with journalists and the like.” – Bupe Banda, Community Leaders Network, 68th CIC General Assembly
Amplifying voices and respecting rights sounds like something we should all celebrate – but let’s not be naïve here. This was said at a major hunting conference, in a discussion about how to promote trophy hunting, by a representative from an organization that wants to preserve trophy hunting, to an audience that wants to preserve trophy hunting.
Are we supposed to believe that all local communities across southern Africa have a single unified voice that supports trophy hunting? Why is there no talk about amplifying the voices and respecting the rights of communities that don’t support trophy hunting?
The assembly’s third technical session, What Can We Learn From Across the Table?, compared and contrasted different communications strategies. This session highlighted that there was a need to get media to go visit local communities in African countries and also for the trophy hunting industry to facilitate bringing community representatives to Europe to speak in front of politicians and members of the media.
Zoltán Kovács, the Hungarian State Secretary for International Communication & Relations, noted that the trophy hunting industry needed an identity and a narrative to effectively communicate.
“You have to go to the local people around the world. The local people have identity and they completely have integrity and they’re going to tell you a narrative that is going to help further the cause. We are all going for in that hunting has a role but even they themselves, very simple people, will be able to talk about hunting in a very natural, integral way that is going to be very telling for others… Especially important that is actually in Africa, as we’ve seen, so we’ve heard, those stories from Namibia and other places. We don’t have to teach those people there what to say because they know the story. We have to help them tell their own story and that is going to help.” – Zoltán Kovács, the Hungarian State Secretary for International Communication & Relations, 68th CIC General Assembly
Do you know what stories from Namibia Kovács referenced? I’ll give you some hints (and I’ll write about it soon).
The stories were shared in a short film.
The film’s producers traveled to Namibia from another country.
The film documented a non-hunter’s two-week trip through the country.
The film includes interviews with local community members about trophy hunting.
The film featured Community Leaders Network Secretary Maxi Pia Louis.
The film’s campaign was said to be backed by IUCN SULi members Amy Dickman and Adam Hart.
The film’s intended audience lived in a country that was considering a trophy hunting import ban.
Stephan Wunderlich of the German CIC Delegation discussed his role as a guide for Community Leaders Network representatives in Europe.
“During the last three weeks I was traveling with a team of representatives from the Community Leaders Network through Europe. We started in Dortmund, Germany… After that, we continued to the UK… We continued to Belgium. We were talking in Brussels. We had a public hearing in the European Parliament with a representative from Namibia in person and two representatives from Zambia and Botswana joining in online. After that we traveled to Paris and then back to Berlin… The experience that I made, and let’s be realistic, how to change the narrative, is I acted as a driver. I was a travel agency and I think that this beautiful family of the CIC should be this and this is a role that the CIC should play. Act as a driver, act as a transporter, act as a travel agency. But let the local people speak in front of our parliaments and in front of our journalists in Europe. Then we can change the narrative.” – Stephan Wunderlich, German CIC Delegation, 68th CIC General Assembly
Community Leaders Network Secretary Maxi Pia Louis was one of the representatives that took part in the European trip referenced by Wunderlich.
Interestingly, Resource Africa, a partner organization of the Community Leaders Network, took to social media to criticize anti-trophy hunting groups that chose not to participate in their Dortmund meeting. Resource Africa took offense that anti-trophy hunting groups stated that the meeting was taking place “together with a lobby organization of hunting trip providers” and conveniently said that they were not sure who they were referring to.
Banda also gave an interview for CIC and Deutscher Jagdverband (DVJ), the German Hunting Association, where she stated, “We have repeatedly tried to get in touch with critics of hunting in our countries in the past few days. However, these organizations prefer to present us as puppets of the hunting industry. In this way they are trying to discredit the credibility of our demands.”
Members of the Community Leaders Network are certainly not puppets, they know who they are working with (CIC and DJV) and what they are trying to achieve (the preservation of trophy hunting). However, they have discredited themselves by misrepresenting their affiliations and intentions.
Adding a little more to this story, Resource Africa actually received the 2022 CIC Communications Prize for the short film Let Africans Decide Open Letter during the 68th General Assembly’s closing ceremony. Banda accepted the award on behalf of the organization.
[The Let Africans Decide Open Letter film was, of course, unrelated to the Let Africa Live disinformation campaign funded and conducted by the trophy hunting industry.]
Resource Africa was noted as “an ally of the hunter/conservationist and local communities” in the 1996 SCI African Chapter Strategic Plan for Africa. It looks like not much has changed over the last few decades.
I don’t quite understand. What was the main point here?