Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Should President Masisi and SADC make their case before UK parliament?

Posted by Botswana Safari News on May 21, 2019 | No comments


Can President Mokgweetsi Masisi ask to present Botswana’s case to the UK parliament on Botswana's plans to restore trophy hunting?
Former South African President Nelson Mandela addressed the UK parliament twice in 1993 and 1996 and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie in 1954. Fast forward to 2019, there is a heightened campaign against trophy hunting in UK so the question is: Can Masisi asks to explain our case before UK parley? Is it possible?
If UK campaigners can present issues that directly affect us before their parley why can’t we be given a chance to make our position known to their lawmakers in UK as well?  
On Friday, Michael Gove, UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs invited anti trophy campaigners to present their position to him on whether UK should ban trophy hunting imports in to UK. The campaigners argued that UK is a big hunting market and banning imports there can help stop the extinction of endangered wildlife species.
 Should such a law pass, (at the moment that’s a doubt,) how will it impact our returning trophy hunting industry?  On Saturday one commentator observed about the UK campaign: “As proponents of sustainable utilisation we find ourselves on very thin ice. Our warnings of the effects the banning of sustainable utilisation will have on Africa's wildlife will be used by the animal rights movement against use as they will blame the ultimate extinction of species on us as the world's government did not heed their warnings and acted to late in banning sustainable consumptive use.”:
Like the saying goes: “'If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.

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