Why is a trophy hunting outfitter’s photo being shared by a leading sustainable use activist?
Amy Dickman has been sharing a trophy hunting outfitter's photo to demonstrate how fortress conservation protects habitat from local communities.
Leading sustainable use activist Amy Dickman recently penned a blog post in her campaign to ban trophy hunting bans. I’m going to gloss over the hypocrisy of her attempt to blame anti-trophy hunting sentiments on misinformation when she was heavily featured in a pro-trophy hunting disinformation campaign and her call for open and honest discussion when she threatened legal action against critics.
Instead, I’m going to focus on this photo that she shared which is supposed to provide evidence of the conservation benefits of trophy hunting.
Isn’t this just fortress conservation?
This isn’t the first time that Dickman has used this photo to justify her defense of trophy hunting (see here and here). But a photo being used multiple times to prove a point isn’t really a concern.
The concern is how the photo came about in the first place. The photo belongs to African Professional Hunters Association president and Dallas Safari Club vice president Mike Angelides and was taken to market his trophy hunting business with McCallum Safaris in Tanzania.
Angelides connected with ‘biologist’ Karen Seginak at a Dallas Safari Club convention and began scheming on how to combat anti-trophy hunting rhetoric and trophy import bans that could harm his business. The pair decided to partner up and use Seginak’s scientific credentials to conduct a ‘study’ financed by Angelides which would show how trophy hunting prevents land degradation.
“This study will show that well-managed regulated hunting conserves habitat that would otherwise be lost. At the 2020 Dallas Safari Club convention, I met with Mike Angelides, of McCallum Safaris, where we began planning how to illustrate the realities, challenges, and benefits of hunting tourism in Tanzania. The many battles that occur daily on social media and in the press illustrate well that people calling for bans on trophy imports or outright bans on hunting altogether do not understand the challenges that outfitters face and the consequences that will result should they no longer be able to viably operate in remote, wilderness hunting blocks.” – Karen Seginak
One of the outcomes of this ‘study’ was the photo that Dickman is sharing to provide evidence trophy hunting’s benefits.
But to describe this work as a ‘study’ or even Seginak as a ‘biologist’ is a stretch. Seginak is a trophy hunter, Dallas Safari Club literary award winner, and past guest on a Blood Origins podcast episode that discussed “how we can and should evolve the message we spread as hunters.”
So why would Dickman need to use Angelides’s photo in the first place? Shouldn’t she, the director of WildCRU, have access to satellite imagery that could better prove her point?
[This is further concerning given that Dickman and other WildCRU members published a paper that they are using to push the narrative that trophy hunting block abandonment leads to habitat degradation despite providing zero evidence for this claim. Why did they not use satellite imagery to back up that claim?]
Dickman hasn’t been the only one sharing Angelides’s photo though. Safari Club International has also shared the photo as a prime example of how trophy hunters protect biodiversity (and the line separating researchers from industry continue to blur).
The photo is also conveniently the title photo for this Fieldsports Channel video describing Angelides’s work.
Don’t you just love how they separate ‘People land’ from ‘Hunting land?’
The video includes a conversation with Angelides that is very eye opening. He made it clear that his trophy hunting business protects habitat from poor people that poach wildlife and illegally harvest honey.
Angelides stated that he operates in a game reserve and that “there’s actually not allowed any people into that area.” You know, like a fortress.
When describing the necessity to hunt sustainably, Angelides stated, “I’m in business as an outfitter and I want to stay in business generations, for my son to take over. And so, therefore, you know, I look after what I have. I keep the wilderness as natural as it can be.”
Angelides is king in the castle and lords over his wildlife. He ensures the wilderness stays wild - and that means that no poor people allowed to enter.
[Just to add a little more color to what Angelides thinks about trophy hunting, take a look at this clip of his keynote speech at the Dallas Safari Club 40th annual convention. Angelides believes that wildlife will go extinct without trophy hunting.]
Dickman is a viewed as a trustworthy researcher by many and has the responsibility to provide context for the photos she shares in defense of trophy hunting. Unfortunately, she seems to have shirked any responsibility.
Dickman’s audience is getting a particularly biased view of trophy hunting and is likely missing the fact she is promoting fortress conservation by sharing Angelides’s photo. And here I thought that everyone, including the sustainable use community, was in agreement that fortress conservation was bad.
Looking at the bigger picture
I think many of us have been conditioned to believe that habitat degradation is a problem caused by poor people. Angelides’s photo proves that.
But we need to take a look at habitat degradation on a global scale. Who has done more harm to habitats - extractive corporations run by global elites or rural Tanzanians?
Pro-trophy hunting arguments take our focus away from the negative effects of elites by villainizing the poor. And with sustainable use, in particular, we always hear that a few wealthy people using a resource is sustainable while many poor people using a resource is unsustainable.
There will always be some unsustainable and damaging practices conducted by poor people but let’s not let that distract from the rich and powerful that are wiping out entire ecosystems in the name of profit. Let’s refocus our concerns.
The grand majority of Tanzania’s hunting concessions are abandoned and defunct, as much as Dickman likes to pin the blame on their emptiness on initial abandonment, they were hunted out long before that according to Dr. Pieter Kat. Tanzania has to resources and alternatives to phase out trophy hunting gradually, but there’s no way Dickman or SCI would let that happen unfortunately….
So what is a viable alternative to hunting? Apart from having a huge chip on your shoulder about hunting why dont you bid on one of the many hunting blocks available in tanzania and turn it around. Put your money where your mouth is .