Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting

Ira Pastor, founder of Bioquark and ideaXme life sciences ambassador interviews Eduardo Goncalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting.

Trophy Hunting:

Ira Pastor comments:

Trophy hunting is hunting of wild game for human recreation. The trophy is the animal, or part of the animal, kept and usually displayed, to represent the success of the hunt. Over the past decade, hunters have taken home over 1.7 million trophies from animals they have killed for sport, more than 200,000 of them which were from animals in danger of going extinct, including 10,000 lions, such as the well publicized case of Cecil the Lion, from the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland, North Zimbabwe.

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals. CITES original aim, a few decades ago, was to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants did not threaten the survival of the species in the wild, and it accords varying degrees of protection to more than 35,000 species of animals and plants.

The critically most endangered wildlife at risk

However, a loophole in CITES, allows trophy hunters to kill even the most critically endangered wildlife. A poacher cannot kill an elephant to sell its tusks. But a trophy hunter can kill the same elephant and take the same tusks. Eduardo Goncalves, is Founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, a non-profit group that believes trophy hunting is cruel, archaic, immoral and unjustified, can inflict significant pain and suffering, undermines genuine conservation, and brings no real benefits to local communities.

Objectives of Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting

Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting wants to see an immediate halt to the trade in trophies of vulnerable or threatened species, calls on governments to ban trophy hunting and imports/exports of hunting trophies, and believes there should be a comprehensive global agreement banning trophy hunting, with proper enforcement and penalties.

Founder of Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting

Prior to the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, Mr. Goncalves was CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports, where he led a successful campaign to stop plans to bring back fox-hunting, as well as to persuade the government to increase jail sentences for dog-fighting and breeding and shipping dogs into the UK for organized fights. He has also spent several years with World Wildlife Fund (WWFP) working on forest conservation and sustainability. Mr. Goncalves’ wide-ranging career includes spells as a House of Commons researcher, a radio presenter, an investigative journalist, and as the director of a government department in UAE. In the run-up to the Paris Climate Summit, Mr. Goncalves was International Communications Director at The Climate Group, an influential organization set up with the support of then Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as business and political leaders from around the world. Mr. Goncalves is also the author / co-author of several books, including KILLING GAME: The Extinction Industry, TROPHY HUNTERS EXPOSED: Inside the Big Game Industry, “The WWF Pocket Book of One Planet Living”, “The Algarve Tiger”, and “Blueprint for a Nuclear Weapon-Free World”.

On this ideaXme episode we will hear from Mr. Goncalves about:

-His background, how he became interested in sustainability and conservation, and why he formed the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting.

-The structure / goals of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, its backers and its strategic partners.

-Misconceptions of the benefits of Trophy Hunting.

-The profile / psychology of the Trophy Hunter.

-The CITES loophole and plans to close off.

-About the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting – Botswana Elephants campaign.

If you enjoyed this interview please check out Ira Pastor’s interview with Professor Hildebrandt about saving the Northern White Rhino.

Credits: Ira Pastor interview video, text, and audio.

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