Mabunda Comes out Fighting against IFAW and ARA
04 Sep 2012


Dr David Mabunda, CEO of Sanparks, spoke out strongly against officials from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), Mr Jasson Bell-Leask, and Animal Rights Africa (ARA) represented by Michelle Pickover and Steve Smit who cooked up “a storm in a teacup over his views on culling and sustainable hunting”.

“I’m left wondering what crime I committed that warranted the ‘blitzkrieg’ response’” Dr Mabunda said.

He said the SA government’s commitment to fund conservation saves the country “from the vagaries of the likes of IFAW and other animal rights and welfare organisations as is the case in other African countries where these NGOs rule the roost. ARA might argue that it is indigenous to Africa, but its links (as displayed on its website) with the international animal rights fraternity place it squarely in the realm of this new form of colonialism and imperialism.”

IFAW and ARA were responding to articles in The Sunday Independent, which “elicited vitriolic and venomous attacks on my personal integrity after comments I made were misinterpreted by my detractors as reflective of SANParks’ policy on the sustainable use of natural resources.

“IFAW and ARA, although different in their architecture and gearing, are joined at the waist in opposing any form of sustainable-use practices and culling of animals, including elephants. They seem to be too focused, obsessed even, on issues that only form a relatively minor part of managing a complex and diverse conservation organisation like SANParks in the 21st century and the importance of compliance with one of the main objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – to ensure that biodiversity conservation translates into access and benefit-sharing for the socio-economic upliftment of poor communities living adjacent to protected areas.

“Their morbid views lead to inappropriate investment into trendy ‘conservation initiatives’ of one kind or another to discredit successful state conservation institutions and liken its leadership to the apartheid-era conservation managers. A strong, financially viable and functional state conservation institution is not in the interest of any animal rights and welfare NGO because its independence from donor funding to execute its primary functions limits opportunities for animal rights and welfare NGOs to influence the conservation policies of the state.

“The references to ‘failed conservation policies or outdated approaches to conservation’ are nothing but grand public relations stunts. Let me repeat my earlier responses to the lie peddled by our detractors that SANParks is allowing Kruger Park animals to be hunted on community-owned land adjacent to it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“We have done no such thing. We are a responsible national custodian of the national park system. The fact that the Timbavati game reserve (as part of the Association of Private Nature Reserves) hunts certain quotas in terms of the historical agreement that was entered into with the previous SANParks leadership is a truism inherited from the past. The matter has been contested in the High Court and the said court, based on evidence before it, ruled in favour of Timbavati. My advice to the anti-hunting lobby is to take this matter to the Appeal Court rather than levelling false accusations at SANParks,” Dr Mabunda continued.

Terming it “an anti-hunting campaign directed at a soft target”, he categorically denied that SANParks “is pushing the agenda of the powerful commercial hunting industry… Why would I take such a burden when I already have the huge task of managing one of the largest and most complex conservation agencies in the world?”

Reiterating that hunting is a legal land-use in certain designated areas, bar national parks, he said it was not for SANParks’ task to “police” the shenanigans of a few irresponsible hunters, but to refer any such repugnant deeds to law enforcement agencies.

Hunting is in the domain of the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs and should not be directed to SANParks. “Our mandate does not have a single reference to ‘hunting’ in it. I’m not a hunter myself and no dead animals ‘grace’ my lounge – but I’m not opposed to those who hunt. It is their democratic right to do so, just as it is the democratic right for people to associate with animal rights NGOs in this country.

“The public has been left with a mistaken image of our policy on the sustainable use of resources which was deliberately misconstrued to fit the ARA and IFAW attacks on SANParks. We were accused of killing South Africa’s heritage. The Protected Areas Act of 2003, as amended, excludes any form of extractive use including mining and hunting in national parks.”

He pointed out that local communities are BEE partners in SANParks’ luxury lodge concessions businesses, medicinal nurseries for indigenous use were created where there was no medical doctor and food security gardens were created from which communities could supply park restaurants.

Besides bursaries for learners and students, SANParks assist adjacent communities to set up buffer zones for ecotourism purposes in Community- Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) outreach programmes.

SANParks created approximately 100 000 jobs directly and indirectly through various industry sectors such as construction, tour operating, travel and car hire, retail outlets, lodges in private nature reserves surrounding national parks and various procurement opportunities for small SMMEs.

“It would be interesting to see what animal rights and welfare NGOs have done for our society besides megaphone politics in newspaper columns and radio stations,” Dr Mabunda said.

“Perhaps ARA and the Southern Africa regional IFAW want to emulate the ‘success’ that IFAW and the Humane Society of the US (HSUS) achieved in Kenya in 2004 when they successfully lobbied the president not to sign an important amendment to the Wildlife Act (World Economics Vol 8, No 2 April-June 2007). Hunting and sustainable use policies were banned in Kenya in 1977 with the heavy lobbying of animal rights and welfare NGOs, thus triggering unintended backdoor plundering of wildlife for the bush meat trade.
“This led to private land owners having little interest in practising wildlife economics in the same manner as the private nature reserves do in South Africa. In general, wildlife in Kenya has declined by between 60 percent and 70 percent (World Economics Vol 8, No 2, April-June 2007).The proposed amendment to the Wildlife Act to provide for greater participation of wildlife landowners who owned rangelands, and to address the issue of compensation for the loss of human life and damage to property, thus transformed conservation management practice.

“The amendment came from the floor of the House, went through all the required procedures, debates and public consultations, including the Attorney-General’s office, and was properly voted on by parliamentarians. However, the foreign animal rights and welfare NGOs were able to hijack the entire consultative process by shipping in rent-a-mob crowds who successfully reduced everything to an endless shouting match about the amendment being a ploy to ‘re-introduce hunting and sustainable use’ in Kenya. IFAW launched a massively well funded publicity campaign in newspapers and on TV with posters in Nairobi and the international airport.

“Noticeable by their silence were the established progressive international conservation NGOs, including the WWF, African Wildlife Foundation and the IUCN, all of which have regional offices in Kenya. They were frightened off by IFAW’s publicity campaign and the threat of being labelled as advocates of ‘killing animals for fun’. No one has any objection to IFAW or ARA holding an opinion, but one can and must question the lengths they are prepared to go to achieve their objectives.

“I argue that such objectives are not in the interest of conservation in Africa but to please their masters in the northern hemisphere. As Deepak Lai elegantly puts it: ‘Foreign NGOs claim to speak on behalf of the world’s poor but in fact speak the language of the world’s rich and invariably seek their own agendas and purpose rather than those they purport to help. Through their financial strength and access to political elites, especially in poor countries, they are able to subvert the representative democratic process and insinuate foreign minority views into what are supposedly parliamentary majority voting systems.’ (Lai, 2006, Reviving the Invisible Hand: the case for classical liberalism in the 21st Century. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press).

Dr Mabunda pointed out that the current leadership at SANParks emanated from the liberation struggle and “will not support policies that are at odds with the protection of the dignity of conservation, indigenous people and the national heritage for the equitable benefit of all and make national parks the pride and joy of all its citizens.”


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Well done Dr Mabunda