UK charity’s $10 million for-profit trophy hunting venture
Jamma International plans to invest $10 million into a for-profit Mozambique trophy hunting venture.
UK charity Jamma International recently pumped millions of dollars into sustainable use propaganda. The charity hired a communications specialist “to develop an evidence-led sustainable use communications campaign to promote sustainable use as a principle in conservation and community economies and challenge entrenched narratives around conservation in the global north.”
Jamma is owned and managed by the Johanssons, a wealthy European philanthrocapitalist family. Anders Johansson stated that his family uses Jamma for non-profit charity and for-profit investment.
Sustainable use activists funded by Jamma claim their work does not contain financial conflicts of interest. That is incorrect.
In September 2021, Jamma submitted a response to the Call for Evidence on hunting trophy imports in the UK’s Animals Abroad Bill. Jamma explicitly noted that the UK’s potential hunting trophy import ban would restrict the Johanssons’ ability to profit from their planned $10 million trophy hunting venture in Mozambique.
“Jamma is currently in negotiations with the authorities in Mozambique for contracts to manage two very large conservation and wildlife utilisation areas, namely Coutadas 4 and 13 with a combined size of approximately 10,000 square kilometres. These areas are very remote, do not have much of a local economy, basically no infrastructure and badly depleted to non-existent wildlife populations. Jamma intends to build a wildlife-based economy in these areas and is prepared to invest approximately US$ 10 million to achieve this. Our assumption is that we shall over time be able to recover our investment. This serves to confirm that we have been able to establish a sustainable wildlife based local economy. It is anticipated that the payback period will be at least 30 years. Trophy hunting will be the only income source but can only commence once the wildlife populations have been adequately rebuilt. This will take 8-10 years. If trophy hunting is restricted, for example by the UK government deciding to ban the import of trophies, the revival and conservation of these areas will not happen.” – Jamma International’s 2021 response to the UK’s Animals Abroad Bill.
Mozambique’s Coutadas, or trophy hunting concessions, were created by the Portuguese government in the 1950s to regulate and control hunting. Jamma’s investment would give a single European family control over approximately 1.25% of a ‘formerly’ colonized African nation’s land.
Many of the sustainable use groups taking money from Jamma do so with the specific intention of communicating a positive view of trophy hunting. This public relations campaign protects the Johansson family’s investments.
Here are some notable sustainable use groups doing PR for the wealthy European family:
Resource Africa
Resource Africa, an organization with a history of fake grassroots movements, received $1.2 million from Jamma in the last two years. Jamma stated, “An important task for [Resource Africa] is to make sure that the voices of rural African people are heard in the global north.”
“The Directors are pleased with the relationship with Resource Africa. The Voice of the People project aims to enable the voices of rural Africans, to inform and influence national, regional and international opinion and policy on natural resource management in southern Africa. Such voices are often ignored when countries in the global north, introduce laws that directly affect African people.” – Jamma International.
The trophy hunting industry described Resource Africa as an “ally” in 1996. Resource Africa is the Jamma-funded lynchpin in the trophy hunting industry’s coordinated effort to stop European hunting trophy import bans 25 years later.
IUCN SULi
Jamma donated $84,360 to IUCN SULi in 2021 and another $78,326 in 2022 for IUCN SULi and Oxford University’s harvesting study. The harvesting study linked to a for-profit public relations initiative owned by Shane Mahoney, a Canadian trophy hunter and IUCN SULi Vice-Chair.
Christopher Comer, an American trophy hunter and IUCN SULi member, labeled the public relations initiative a “hunter advocacy program.” IUCN SULi’s webpage denied that its work contained any conflicts of interest despite acknowledging taking Jamma’s donations for public relations work.
“SULi is extremely grateful for the generous financial support of Jamma International which is helping to build the capacity of SULI to enable more strategic engagement in key policy forums and for improving and enhancing its engagement in policy, communications and advocacy.” – IUCN SULi.
Morally Contested Conservation
Jamma donated $82,914 to Morally Contested Conservation in 2022. MCC is a trophy hunting public relations effort from WildCRU, Cornell University, WWF Germany, and Jamma.
MCC’s team is led by WildCRU Director Amy Dickman and Research Fellow Darragh Hare. WildCRU conducts trophy hunting research with conservative gun rights activist Catherine Semcer on behalf of the Property and Environment Research Center, a climate denial group funded by America’s right-wing oligarchs.
WildCRU’s call for MCC applicants stated, “Powerful external voices typically dominate debates and influence conservation and development policies, often amplifying historical inequalities and disempowering sub-Saharan African people who bear the costs of living alongside dangerous species.”
Jamma’s MCC webpage featured a quote that stated, “We aim to directly and clearly communicate the findings of this project to the people whose decisions will influence the future of conservation in sub-Saharan Africa, through publications in peer-reviewed academic journals and articles.”
MCC’s funding and goals raise questions:
Will MCC researchers publicize that their funding comes from the trophy hunting industry?
Will MCC researchers publicize that their funders, the Johansson family, are powerful external voices that dominate the trophy hunting debate and that their investments in Mozambique’s colonial Coutadas amplify historical inequalities and disempower sub-Saharan African people?
Will MCC researchers publicize that the trophy hunting industry acknowledged growing anti-trophy hunting grassroots movements in multiple African countries and that the industry planned to combat those movements by “hiring a Fifth Avenue Public Relations (PR) firm to give trophy hunting linked to community based conservation and development an image to the world”?
Into The Wild
Jamma donated $7,479 to Into the Wild in 2022. Into The Wild created a trophy hunting propaganda video to fight the UK’s potential hunting trophy import ban.
Jamma stated that Into The Wild aimed “to produce an unbiased video” and “to give a platform to the voices in rural Africa that are being ignored in the global north.” Both claims are false.
The video’s creator, Ryan Dalton, unabashedly stated on Twitter that the aim was to talk to people who said they benefited from trophy hunting and not to talk to people who said they did not benefit from trophy hunting.
The only thing more pathetic than doing PR for the trophy hunting industry is doing it for a small amount of money. Know your worth, Ryan.