George Aman is the President of The International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC), which represents and speaks for approximately 30 million registered hunters. Here he outlines how wildlife charities recognize the important role that hunting plays in tackling threats to wildlife, and why education providers should teach sustainable hunting and fishing practices as a tool for conservation.
The biggest threat to wildlife nowadays is clearly habitat loss, with the poaching and illegal trafficking of wildlife the second threat. However, well-managed, regulated and sustainable hunting helps control poaching.
This is why conservation organizations such as The International Union for Conservation of Nature and WWF International, explicitly recognize sustainable hunting as a tool for conservation.
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“Conservation organizations such as the WWF explicitly recognize sustainable hunting as a tool for conservation.”
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However, there is a basic problem of encouraging young people to get out there, connect with nature and hunt – and this is related to individual lifestyles and physical proximity to nature.
Hunting is natural and a part of nature, yet this alienation from nature results in an unnatural relation between it and humans. This deeply affects hunting and can be best tackled thorough education and clear communication.
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“Hunting teaches children the importance of the connection between conservation and the environment and that death is part of the natural cycle.”
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While hunters in many countries run education programs for youth hunters as a voluntary activity, the solution here would be to have conservation through sustainable practices (such as hunting, fisheries, forestry etc.) officially integrated into the curricula of institutional education.
This requires that teachers be trained in this subject. On the communication front, alliances need to be built to rectify the image of using nature sustainably.
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“Hunting is natural and a part of nature.”
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Hunting also teaches children the importance of the connection between conservation and the environment and it’s a sad fact that today’s children have little basic knowledge about the interrelations and ramifications of nature. Most of our youngsters learn about nature through the media – via second hand and not from the source.
Another crucial point is the pathetic fallacy or humanization of nature and its animals. This is the main raison why the CIC believes children should be able to approach hunting in order to gain a better and more in-depth knowledge of nature. They have to learn that death is part of the natural cycle and, consequently, that hunting is part of a natural process.
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CREDITS:
This is a post reblogged from the themonocular.com
Image: themonocular.com
