Search South Africa Online using Google. Simply enter your search keywords in the box below and click the search button!
| South Africa to End 'Canned Hunting' |
(2006-05-03) South Africa proposed new laws on Tuesday that would end the "canned hunting" of wildlife bred in captivity to be shot in closed reserves by wealthy tourists. Speaking at the De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre in Brits in the North West Province, Minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk unveiled a draft for the Threatened and Protected Species Regulations and the much-anticipated draft National Norms and Standards for the Regulation of the Hunting Industry.
These will be formally published on 5 May in the Government Gazette for public comment over the next six weeks. They are also available to be downloaded on the Department’s website at www.environment.gov.za
“The greatest value of both these documents,” said the Minister, “Is that they will establish, for the first time, uniform national systems that will apply the same standards across the country. The management of threatened and protected species, both plants and animals, is currently regulated in terms of provincial ordinances, whose application has tended to be inconsistent. These new regulations and the Norms and Standards for hunting, will ensure that we clear up the current confusion and close the loopholes that have allowed environmental thugs to get away with immoral activities like canned hunting, illegal trade, and unethical breeding. No longer will ‘province hopping’ allow them to escape the law. No longer will there be any excuses for their abuse of our natural heritage.”
Also banned would be all hunting that causes unnecessary suffering, such as the use of bows and arrows on large animals that can take hours or days to die.
The draft regulations effectively ban so-called ‘intensive breeding’ of listed large predators, like Cheetahs, Lions, Leopards and Wild Dogs, for any purposes of hunting or sale for hunting – and provide for the formal registration of all captive breeding facilities, nurseries, scientific institutions, sanctuaries, and rehabilitation facilities.
“Any person who contravenes these regulations, or who falsifies their applications, will be liable for a fine and imprisonment of up to five years – penalties that our Environmental Management Inspectors (the “Green Scorpions”) will be instructed to apply with vigour. It will also be forbidden to hunt any listed large predator kept in captivity which has not been rehabilitated in an extensive wildlife system and been fending for itself in the wild for at least two years.” Van Schalkwyk added.
“Issues of breeding, trade, and hunting of protected and endangered species remain amongst the most important and sensitive considerations in any national conservation and biodiversity strategy,” said the Minister. “We believe that these two draft documents take South African conservation to new heights and that they establish a system to provide much-needed clarity and direction. We urge all interested South Africans to examine the drafts and to make their voices heard in this consultation process. Above all however, we undertake to strengthen our compliance and enforcement capacity – in cooperation with responsible partners in conservation.”
Click here for the page with the new regulations.
Return to the previous page.
|
