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Trophy hunting certification

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 1, pages 1791–1793 (2017)Cite this article

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Adaptive certification is the best remaining option for the trophy hunting industry in Africa to demonstrate sustainable and ethical hunting practices that benefit local communities and wildlife conservation.

The killing of well-known lions in 2015 and 2017 has sparked a polarized debate around trophy hunting, and led to bans on entry of legally acquired trophies into key consumer countries. Such bans are a reaction to concerns about unethical or unsustainable hunting practices, but they do not consider the complex trade-offs around land and resource use in Africa, and the role that regulated hunting can play in wildlife conservation. Here, we propose an adaptive trophy hunting certification scheme that is a market-based solution for sustainable and ethical hunting practices, building on the lessons learned from other natural resource-use certification schemes. We argue that integrating effective compliance and wildlife monitoring, adaptive co-management and a landscape approach into a certification scheme will spark a constructive discussion of trophy hunting, achieving conservation- and community-development objectives. We propose a scheme that is routed through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), and where the cost of accreditation is borne by the hunting industry. Certification may be the last option for the trophy hunting industry to demonstrate and assure sustainable practices that benefit wildlife conservation and rural livelihoods.

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Fig. 1: Schematic overview of adaptive trophy hunting certification.

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Acknowledgements

T.C.W. was funded by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. L.W.T. was supported by a Carnegie Corporation of New York Fellowship through the Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand (grant B8749.R01). T.T. was supported by the DFG-CRC 990 EFForTS and the BMBF project Limpopo Living Landscapes. T.C.W. thanks M. Fortin-McCuaig for initial discussions on the topic.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Agroecology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

      Thomas C. Wanger & Teja Tscharntke

    2. Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

      Thomas C. Wanger

    3. School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

      Lochran W. Traill

    4. School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

      Lochran W. Traill

    5. Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales, New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

      Rosie Cooney

    6. IUCN CEESP/SSC Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group, New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

      Rosie Cooney

    7. ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

      Jonathan R. Rhodes

    8. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

      Jonathan R. Rhodes

    9. Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

      Jonathan R. Rhodes

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    Contributions

    T.C.W. and L.W.T. conceived the work. All authors wrote the manuscript.

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    Correspondence to Thomas C. Wanger or Lochran W. Traill.

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    The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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    Wanger, T.C., Traill, L.W., Cooney, R. et al. Trophy hunting certification. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 1791–1793 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0387-0

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