Still forming my opinion on "African Indaba" as I have only recently been exposed to it, and was wondering what opinions you guys might have of it/them.

One thing that really shot up the was this quote from an article titled "Namibia: The Key To Conservation Success:"

"Having such a low population density, Namibia was able to transfer ownership of wildlife conservation to the people. This is similar to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (transferring) the duty of gray wolf protection to Montana cattle ranchers.

Uhhh.... WHAT?

Anyway, here's the link to said article. http://www.africanindaba.co.za/Newsletter/13.htm

So what do you guys think?

Good Hunting,
SFH

That's right. In 1967 the nation of what was then German Southwest Africa (now Namibia) gave de-facto ownership of wildlife over to landowners - sparking a revolution in game ranching. It was so successful, both ecologically and economically, that it was copied 10 years later by Zimbabwe and a year after that by South Africa, which now has over 9,000 game ranches covering about 17% of the entire land mass of that nation.

And it was all financed by trophy hunting.

It became the model for the “sustainable use” of wildlife (and all natural resources).

Zimbabwe recognized that rural, indigenous peoples could also benefit from the wildlife on their lands, and the CAMPFIRE program, the original model for CBNRM, was created (CBNRM = Community-Based-Natural-Resource-Management & CAMPFIRE = Community Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources).

Namibia finally embraced CBNRM in 1998 and developed their own extraordinarily successful CBNRM model (see http://www.nacso.org.na/index.php) ... and now over 15% of the land mass of Namibia is CBNRM land, almost all of which is available for trophy-hunting … which is the economic driver for CBNRM too.

In both southern Africa and the US, wildlife is “res nullius” (belonging to no one), but in the US, wildlife is “held-in-trust by the people of each state” (i.e.: state government) … whereas, according to the southern Africa model, wildlife, although still res nullius, becomes the property of whoever takes possession of it. (That was, in fact, the logic of the Roman emperor Justinian, who coined the term “res-nullius”, and who wrote, in his famous Codex: “Quod enim nullius est, id naturali ratione occupanti conceditur” (surely that which belongs to no one is ceded by natural law to whoever takes possession of it).

What that means, essentially, is that if there’s wildlife on your land and you “take possession of it” by shooting it or fencing it in or breeding it or whatever, then it’s yours to do with as you wish … with minimal interference by the government.

Power to the People!

(You asked. )

(Corrections welcome.)

And by the way, African Indaba is just about the most pro-hunting organization in the world ... with articles written by the best and the brightest.

quote:

Originally posted by SteveGl:
And by the way, African Indaba is just about the most pro-hunting organization in the world ... with articles written by the best and the brightest.

Ain't that the truth.

And while I'm on the subject, Namibia's change in law in 1967 ultimately resulted in the greatest resurgence of wildlife populations ever recorded ... while a decade later, in 1977, Kenya took the opposite approach, banned hunting, and watched it's wildlife populations plummet ever since.

See the trailer for Peter Flack's new film HERE.

In case anyone is interested, here is the Indaba site link-

http://www.africanindaba.co.za/entry.htm
http://www.africanindaba.co.za/archive11.htm

Thanks for the responses and the info.
What little experience I had had with African Indaba before was positive, I was just wondering what some of the more enlightened members here thought. And you have come thru.

Thanks again,
SFH