Hunting sector bag's $2.5bn for SA economy

A new study shows the industry's important economic footprint.

- By Ed Stoddard

South Africa's hunting sector generates about $2.5-billion for the economy annually, creating badly needed jobs while conserving habitat and wildlife, according to the findings of a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Wildlife Research.

This is a significantly larger sum than previous estimates, underscoring the importance of hunting to a barely growing economy that faces many challenges.

The study's findings come at a time when the hunting industry in Africa is in the crosshairs of animal welfare and rights organisations and Western public opinion, with campaigns in the UK and elsewhere to ban the import of trophies from hunts.

Hunting is a hot-button culture issue. Critics maintain that it is a needlessly cruel activity, that its economic and conservation contribution is often inflated by its backers and that it endangers a number of species. This strikes a chord with the educated, middle-class people who tend to spearhead anti-hunting campaigns.

But such views have little traction in Africa outside the urban middle class, and African governments such as Namibia, Botswana and others have lobbied against trophy hunting bans in large part because of the economic benefits hunting brings for their developing economies and the rural communities who have to live alongside dangerous wildlife.

There is a growing body of objective, peer-reviewed research in academic journals that highlights hunting's economic and conservation importance. And pointedly, there are no such studies that suggest that properly regulated hunting is driving any species to extinction.