Month: November 2015

Tide turns against canned-lion hunting

Animal activists and conservation bodies have declared “a victory for lions” following a number of ground-breaking decisions that could lead to the collapse of captive-lion breeding and canned hunting in South Africa.

This week the Professional Hunters’ Association of SA voted to distance itself from captive-bred lion hunting until the SA Predators Association could prove the conservation value of the practice to professional hunters and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

This followed the announcement by Matthias Kruse, editor of Germany’s leading hunting magazine, that, as of next year, Germany’s leading hunting show would no longer allow the advertising or sale of any form of canned or captive-bred hunts.

According to insiders at the association’s annual general meeting, battle lines were drawn in the lead up to the vote this week.

There were 147 votes in favour of the association distancing itself from canned hunting.

There are between 6000 and 8000 lions in the captive-predator industry, most of them kept in the Free State, North West and Limpopo.

Australia banned the importing of lion trophies in February, when Environment Minister Greg Hunt sponsored legislation banning all imports of lion body parts.

Hunt called South Africa’s canned-lion hunting industry “cruel, unethical and barbaric, and definitely out of step with 21st-century thinking”.

Linda Park, Johannesburg director of Campaign Against Canned Hunting, said: “This dreadful industry, which has nothing to do with conservation, has been a blight on the country and has tarnished South Africa’s image in the eyes of the world.

“Lions are firmly in the public eye at the moment.”

Andrew Venter, Wildlands CEO and executive producer of the documentary Blood Lions, hailed the decisions as “milestones”.

Pieter Kat, of Lion Aid, a UK animal rights organisation, said that France would no longer allow hunters to bring home lion hunting trophies.

“This is excellent news. France ranks high among the EU member states for the importing of such trophies, ” Kat said.

Leeubedryf wil sy huis in orde kry

Die leeujagbedryf het vanjaar wereldwyf opskrifte gehaal na die Amerikaner, Walter James Palmer, te midde van groot omstredenheid, Cecil die leeu in Zimbabwe geskiet het.

Lynette van Hoven Leeube wil sy huis in orde kry Die leeujagbedryf het vanjaar wereldwyd opskrifte gehaal ná die Amerikaner, Walter James Palmer, te midde van groot omstredenheid, Cecil die leen in Zimbabwe geskiet het. Op eie bodem het die dokumenter Blood Lion die tonge laat klap. Hierin word daar gewys hoe leeus in haglike omstandighede leef en mishandel word.

Geblikte leeujag lok ook groot konsternasie uit met meer as 1 000 leeus wat jaarliks op hierdie wyse geskiet word. Kenners is dit eens: Dit is tyd om die leeubedryf in orde te kry. Daarom het die Suid-Afrikaanse Roofdiertelersvereniging (SAPBA / South African Predator Breeders Association) vir prof Melville Saayman en sy span by die Tourism Research in Economic Environs and Society (Trees) by Noordwes-Universiteit se Potchefstroomkampus genader om na die waarde van die leeubedryf in SuidAfrika te kyk. Die studie, wat meesal op die hoofteelareas van Noordwes en Vrystaat gefokus sal wees, gaan ook kyk hoeveel leeus daar in die bedryf is, want getalle wissel tussen 4 000 en 6 000.

 ”n Verbod op jag in Zimbabwe en die gepaardgaande verlies van inkomste vir Zimbabwiers beteken dat sowat 2.3 miljoen kinders nou van nodige hulpmiddele ontneem is. Dit beteken dat die onderwyssektor daaronder ly en dat brood uit hub borde geneem word. Hub reeds lae lewensgehalte het nog verswak as gevolg van ‘n ondeurdagte besluit deur die regering,” se Saayman.

“Ons sien klaar dat wildstropery toeneem en dat werkloosheid toeneem. Dit is nie gesonde situasie nie.”

Volgens Saayman het die Blood Lions-dokumenter die prentjie ietwat skeefgetrek, maar ook daarin geslaag om die kollig op misdrywe, wat uitgewis moet word, te plaas.

“Blood Lions het ‘n slegte indruk van die bedryf geskep en een van ons uitdagings gaan wees om dit reg te stel. Daar is ongewenste praktyke wat die hele bedryf skade aandoen. Dit kan egter slegs aan paar persone toegeskryf word, maar dit lei tog daartoe dat wanpersepsies oor die bedryf geskep word. Daar is een of twee vrot appels in die leeuhok.”

 Saayman se verder dat Suid-Afrika se leeupopulasie ver daarvan is om gevaarligte te laat flikker, maar meer kan gedoen word om leeus doeltreffend te versprei asook beter te benut.

“Ons gaan ook kyk waarheen die oorskot leeus gaan, want daar moet ondersoek word wat die beste vir die mark sal wees. Sommige van die leeus moet terug parke toe gaan en sommiges moet aan nuwe gebiede voorgestel word om die genepoel te verbeter. Ons het ‘n gesonde getal leeus in die land en danksy ons teelprogramme sit ons nie met ‘n gevaarsituasie nie, maar ons moet kyk na wat met die oorskot leeus gebeur,” verduidelik hy.

 “Daar is verskeie moontlikhede wat die oorskot leeus betref. Hub be kan opvoedkundige doel dien, hub be kan groot rob in ekotoerisme speel, soos om met leeus te stap, en soos genoem kan hulle rondgeskuif word om die genepoel in die land te versterk. Dan kan ons ook natuurlik leeus uitvoer na lande waar daar tekort is. Dit sal web behels dat hierdie lande die versekering moet gee dat daar na die leeus gekyk sal word. Ons het dit in die verlede gedoen, maar toe word die diere gestroop.”

Saayman het ook SAPBA se toewyding aan die verbetering van die bedryf asook hub wedywering vir beter toekoms vir leeus in die land geprys. “Cecil het die bedryf baie seergemaak. Blood Lions het die bedryf benadeel. Deur die beroep vir hierdie studie wys dit web dat die bedryf ernstig is om vrot kolle uit te wis en dit sal tot voordeel van die hele bedryf strek.”

The end of canned lion hunting looks imminent

Breaking news has also come out of the Professional Hunters Association of South Africa (PHASA) AGM. A motion has been passed that disassociates PHASA with the captive-bred lion industry until such a time that the industry can convince PHASA and the IUCN that the practice is beneficial to lion conservation. This came after canned lion breeders and supporters were apparently outvoted 147 to 103.

A post on the Facebook page, The ‘Con’ in Conservation states: “This won’t ever happen, so its over for them. Thanks to Ian Michler and his Blood Lions documentary, which made such a big difference.”

Blood Lions also stated on their Facebook page that the recent screening of their documentary on the lion breeding industry to European Parliament members, “may well turn out to be the most significant one to date.”

Following the screening, the UK government has decided to meet next week for a full debate on the conservation status of lions, including the role played by all forms of trophy hunting. There was a commitment from the MEPs to ensure that Blood Lions would eventually be seen by the politicians of every state in the EU.

Matthias Kruse, the editor of Jäger, the leading German hunting magazine, made the trip to Brussels especially to see Blood Lions. He announced after the screening that, as of next year, Germany’s leading hunting show that is held in Dortmund will no longer allow the advertising or selling of any form of canned or captive hunts. The show will also no longer allow the sales and marketing of any species bred as unnatural colour variations, such as golden wildebeest.

Blood Lions has also been invited to screen the film for Italian and Spanish parliaments next year.

Lion industry wants to get its house in order

The lion-hunting industry made global headlines after the American Walter James Palmer shot Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, causing great controversy.

At home the documentary Blood Lions had tongues wagging. It showed how lions lived in terrible conditions and were abused. Canned lion hunting also causes great controversy, with more than 1 000 lions being shot in this manner every year.

Experts agree: It is time to set the lion industry straight. That is why the South African Predator Breeding Association (SAPBA) contacted Prof Melville Saayman and his team at TREES (Tourism Research in Economic Environs and Society) at the North-West University’s Potchefstroom Campus to investigate the value of the lion industry in South Africa. This study, which will focus mainly on the main breeding areas of North West and the Free State, will also determine how many lions are part of the industry, as numbers vary between 4 000 and 6 000.

“A ban on hunting in Zimbabwe and the accompanying loss of income for Zimbabweans mean that approximately 2.3 million children are now deprived of the necessary aids. This means that the education sector is suffering, it means that bread is taken from their mouths. It means that 2.3 million children are worse off and their current low quality of life has deteriorated even more as a result of a bad decision by the government,” said Saayman.

“We can already see how poaching is increasing and we see unemployment increasing as well. This is not a healthy situation.”

According to Saayman, the Blood Lions documentary portrayed a rather skewed picture of the industry, but also succeeded in putting the spotlight on offences that need to be wiped out.

“Blood Lions created a bad impression of the industry and one of our challenges will be to rectify the situation. There are undesirable practices that harm the whole industry. However, this can be attributed to only a few people, but still leads to the fact that misperceptions about the industry are created. There are one or two bad apples in the lion cage.”

Saayman further says that South Africa’s lion population is far from showing problems, but more can be done to distribute the lions effectively and also to utilise them better.

“We will also determine what must be done with the surplus of lions, because it has to be determined what the best will be for the market. Some of the lions have to go back to the parks and some must be introduced to new areas to improve the gene pool. We have a healthy number of lions in the country and thanks to our breeding programmes we are not in a dangerous situation, but we will have to see what is going to happen with the surplus lions,” he explained.

“There are various possibilities as far as the surplus lions are concerned. They can serve an educational purpose, they can play a major role in ecotourism, like walking with lions and, as was mentioned before, they can be distributed to improve the gene pool in the country. Of course we can also export lions to countries where there is a shortage of lions. This will mean that those countries will have to guarantee that they will care for the lions. We did that in the past, but then the animals were poached.”

Saayman also praised SAPBA’s commitment to improving the industry, as well as to striving for a better future for lions in the country: “Cecil hurt the industry a lot. Blood Lions hurt the industry. The initiation of this study shows that the industry is serious about erasing the bad patches, and that will be to the benefit of the whole industry.”

Photo safaris trump trophy hunting

In July, the illegal killing of Zimbabwe’s iconic lion, Cecil, re-ignited the debate over the desirability of trophy hunting in Africa. Supporters of the practice argue that it contributes significantly to the continent’s economy – particularly in impoverished rural areas – and helps to fund conservation efforts. But are these assertions actually true?

In September, a New York Times article claimed that a ban on trophy hunting in Botswana lead to “a precipitous drop in income” for local communities.

However, Costas Christ, Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler magazine believes that it’s misleading to argue that rural communities in Africa benefit more from trophy hunting than they do from non-consumptive wildlife tourism and that they have been negatively impacted by the ban on trophy hunting. “I have yet to find more than a one-off random example of trophy hunting viable as either a conservation strategy or income generator that can compete with the economic benefits of non-consumptive wildlife tourism.”

South African safari operator and conservationist, Ian Michler, agrees. He comments “There is no evidence to support the claim that rural communities benefit more from trophy hunting than they do from non-consumptive wildlife tourism. In fact, in areas where the two exist as a comparison, the opposite is true and that’s one of the primary reasons the Botswana government has stopped trophy hunting. Of course hunting offers work and creates revenue, but when measured in the bigger picture against a range of factors, including ecological and ethical ones, well-managed, non-consumptive tourism offers a significantly better long-term model”.

While Larry Rudolph and Joe Hosmer of the US-based hunters’ organisation Safari Club International, have claimed that “revenues from hunting generate $200m annually in remote rural areas of Africa”, the accuracy of this figure has been questioned. More importantly, it shrinks into insignificance if considered in the context of the whole of the African tourism industry.

In 2009, a study published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature characterised big game trophy hunting in West Africa as using “up a lot of space without generating corresponding socio-economic benefits”, making “insignificant” financial contributions to local populations and national GDPs.

A more recent briefing paper released by the World Tourism Organisation asserts that “the total international tourism receipts for Africa in 2013 reached $34.2bn” and that the number of international arrivals is predicted to more than double from a record 56 million tourists in 2013 to 134 million a year by 2030.

The authors note that Africa accounts for about half of the global wildlife watching market, which “has been estimated at 12 million trips annually and is growing at a rate of about 10% a year”. They highlight the fact that “wildlife watching represents 80% of the total annual sales of trips to Africa and sales are increasing”.

Regional case studies show that in 2005, 176 000 nature tourists spent $194m in Zambia, and in 2009, Tanzania’s popular Serengeti-Ngorongoro Circuit alone generated $500m from wildlife watching visitors.

The recently released documentary ‘Blood Lions’ estimates the annual revenue generated by a typical African hunting lodge to be $800 000 compared to $2.46m raised by an equivalent photo safari outfit. Operating all year round, the wildlife-watching business trumps the seasonal (6 months of the year) hunting company by serving a significantly larger number of tourists and making a substantially greater contribution to the local economy, for instance through airfares, wages and taxes.

A 2013 report by the organisation Economists at Large describes the role of trophy hunting in Africa as “tiny” and “completely insignificant” in the context of national economies, accounting for less than 2% of overall tourism revenues and never more than 0.27% of the GDP of the countries surveyed.

This appears to be the case even in South Africa, the continent’s most lucrative trophy hunting state. A report published by the global wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC in July puts the average annual revenue for all mammals killed by trophy hunters in South Africa between 2003 and 2010 at $55m. Approximately 20% ($10.9m) of this is accounted for by the controversial practice of hunting lions bred in captivity. In a recent opinion piece, Edna Molewa, South Africa’s Minister of Environmental Affairs, estimated the number of international hunters visiting the country in 2012 at 8 500 and the value of its trophy hunting industry in 2014 at about $80m (R1.07bn).

These figures are dwarfed in comparison with the yearly income raised by the country’s tourism industry as a whole, which is estimated at around $19bn. Non-consumptive wildlife watching tourism plays a much greater role than trophy hunting in South Africa and the eco-tourism sector has become one of the leading and fastest growing segments of the market.

Contrary to claims by the industry, very little of the money made from trophy hunting appears to be finding its way to affected communities. Based on an analysis of the literature available on the issue, the Economists at Large report finds that only 3% of this revenue actually reaches the rural communities in the areas where the hunting takes place.

By contrast, the World Tourism Organisation’s briefing paper suggests that “there is a wide range of beneficiaries from wildlife watching tourism”, including local communities which draw both direct and indirect benefits, for example through the provision of goods and services to tourists, employment opportunities, fees from national parks and social and infrastructure development programmes. In the case of the Serengeti-Ngorongoro Circuit in Tanzania, mentioned above, for instance, $100m a year is considered “pro-poor”, reaching local people in the form of wages and other benefits.

To what extent trophy hunting fosters the conservation of African wildlife remains open to debate (although at least one scientific paper published in recent years suggests that it does the opposite), but it seems clear that its supposed economic benefits are routinely overstated by its supporters.

What’s of growing concern is the immense reputational damage this small industry can potentially inflict on the continent’s much more important non-consumptive wildlife tourism sector. The dubious, unethical or downright illegal actions of some of its members can have devastating effects on public sentiment as the overwhelming worldwide outcry following the killing of Cecil attests.

For the South African tourism industry in general, and for its very substantial and valuable wildlife watching component in particular, the mounting controversy over the captive-breeding and ‘canned’ hunting of lions, which is powerfully documented in the documentary Blood Lions, adds a particularly distasteful dimension that is unlikely to find any favour among international tourists interested in experiencing our increasingly embattled wildlife in its natural surroundings.

All Star Auction Raises Record R6.2 million at Gary Player’s Charity Play-off

In an already monumental year for Gary Player, the sporting legend’s charitable tournament of golf and giving, the Gary Player Invitational presented by Coca-Cola, raised a record R 6.2 million in donations and during its all-star auction dinner at the South African leg of the series at Sun City.

The Gary Player Invitational South Africa, which finds itself in its 16th year as the sport’s premier charity event, has raised more than R800 million across the world in an effort to help sustain the worthy causes supported by The Player Foundation. All proceeds raised from the event will go to charity beneficiaries – Wildlands in partnership with Qhubeka and Wings and Wishes.

“I am thrilled that once again we managed to raise a significant amount of money for our foundation,” said Gary Player. “The generosity was truly special and it’s a great privilege that such a substantial amount was raised under the umbrella of golf and giving.”

The Gary Player Invitational is frequented by international celebrities, prominent business executives and pro-golfers who gather upon Gary Player designed courses to team up in support of The Player Foundation’s contribution towards the betterment of others. With 2015 bringing Gary Player’s 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his career Grand Slam, this year was no exception as guests rubbed shoulders with the likes of Graeme Smith, Aaron Mokoena, Ronan Keating, Carly Booth, Roland Schoeman and Richard Sterne.

Presenting sponsor, The Coca-Cola Company are extremely proud of the partnership with Black Knight International and the results the tournament achieved over the years. “We are always excited to be involved in this premier charity golf event that celebrates the partnership of influential business and sports leaders to raise funds for beneficiaries supported by The Player Foundation. We recognise that healthy and thriving communities are critical to the sustainable future of our world. Uplifting vulnerable communities with focus on women and children is a shared goal for both The Player Foundation and Coca-Cola.”

The most sought-after auction item of the evening was The Masters fetching R 425 000 with other items on auction such has The Open, Wimbledon, Swarovski encrusted Rhino sculpture by Gadget Candy, The Gary Player Wildlife Collection by David Yarrow, UEFA Euro in Paris 2016 and many more.

“The support we have received from the Gary Player Invitational series truly has made a difference in the world,” said Marc Player, GPI series founder and CEO of Black Knight International. “From the professional golfers and celebrities to our sponsors, they make it all possible to change people’s lives.”

Empowers Africa Presents Blood Lions™ – Behind The Scenes

Non-profit foundation Empowers Africa is hosting a special screening of the new documentary film, Blood Lions™, which exposes the shocking captive lion breeding and canned hunting industry in South Africa. This will be the first public screening of the full 85-minute documentary in the United States.

The fundraiser will take place at The Explorers Club, 46 E 70th St, New York, starting with cocktails at 6:00 p.m. The special screening will be followed by a panel discussion on South Africa’s captive lion industry and its links to canned hunting, voluntourism and the burgeoning lion bone trade with Asia, featuring Dr Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands, Dr Luke Hunter, President of Panthera, and Ian Michler, Blood Lions™ consultant, and lead character.

“We are hosting this fundraiser to support the Blood Lions™ campaign to raise awareness and put a halt to this brutal and unethical industry,’’ says Krista Krieger, executive director of Empowers Africa. “If hunters, volunteers and tourists stopped supporting South Africa’s commercial lion breeders, it would go a long way towards closing their facilities down.”

According to leading South African NGOs Wildlands and Endangered Wildlife Trust, as well as the respected New York based NGO, Panthera, captive lion-breeding does nothing for lion conservation. Not a single captive-bred, hand-reared lion has been successfully released into the wild. Instead, every day in South Africa, two to three captive-bred, effectively tame, lions are killed in canned lion hunts. Helping to fuel this industry are eager volunteers who unwittingly pay up to $1,000 per week to hand-rear lion cubs that have been forcibly removed from their mothers after birth.

Says Dr. Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands: “The scale of the industry is huge, with some 4,000 lion cubs born in captive breeding facilities in South Africa each year. Unbelievably, in South Africa canned lion hunting is legal, generating some US $10 million per year.’’

Dr Luke Hunter, President of Panthera, says the growth in Asian demand for lion bones (used as a proxy for tiger bones in traditional Chinese medicines) has created yet another revenue stream. South African lion breeders export over 1,000 lion skeletons annually for the lion bone trade in Asia. Hunter says: “There is absolutely no medicinal value in lion parts – you might as well consume cow for all the health benefits of lion bone. South Africa’s legal trade only fuels the demand for big cat body parts, providing a ready market for cats poached in the wild.’’

In order to reserve a seat for the Blood Lions™ event on 2 December, a donation of $150 can be made for regular seating or a $250 for VIP seating. “All donations from the screening will be granted from Empowers Africa to Wildlands to support the Blood Lions™ campaign. Funds raised will be used to recruit additional NSPCA Wildlife Unit inspectors to prevent abuse in the captive lion industry and to support wild lion conservation in South Africa,” Krieger says.

“We are thrilled to be supported by Empowers Africa in New York,” says Blood Lions™ co-producer Pippa Hankinson of Regulus Vision. “It’s been four years since I embarked on this project and I am determined to see an end to this cruel industry. As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

For tickets for the event, click here. http://bit.ly/bloodlions.

Empowers Africa Presents ‘Blood Lions™’ – Behind the Scenes.

The Explorers Club, New York, December 2, 6:00-8:30 p.m.  

NEW YORK, N.Y.  (November 10, 2015) Non-profit foundation Empowers Africa is hosting a special screening of the new documentary film, Blood Lions™, which exposes the shocking captive lion breeding and canned hunting industry in South Africa. This will be the first public screening of the full 85-minute documentary in the United States.

The fundraiser will take place at The Explorers Club, 46 E 70th St, New York, starting with cocktails at 6:00 p.m. The special screening will be followed by a panel discussion on South Africa’s captive lion industry and its links to canned hunting, voluntourism and the burgeoning lion bone trade with Asia, featuring Dr Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands, Dr Luke Hunter, President of Panthera, and Ian Michler, Blood Lions™ consultant, and lead character.

“We are hosting this fundraiser to support the Blood Lions™ campaign to raise awareness and put a halt to this brutal and unethical industry,’’ says Krista Krieger, executive director of Empowers Africa.  “If hunters, volunteers and tourists stopped supporting South Africa’s commercial lion breeders, it would go a long way towards closing their facilities down.”

According to leading South African NGOs Wildlands and Endangered Wildlife Trust, as well as the respected New York based NGO, Panthera, captive lion-breeding does nothing for lion conservation. Not a single captive-bred, hand-reared lion has been successfully released into the wild. Instead, every day in South Africa, two to three captive-bred, effectively tame, lions are killed in canned lion hunts.  Helping to fuel this industry are eager volunteers who unwittingly pay up to $1,000 per week to hand-rear lion cubs that have been forcibly removed from their mothers after birth.

Says Dr. Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands: “The scale of the industry is huge, with some 4,000 lion cubs born in captive breeding facilities in South Africa each year. Unbelievably, in South Africa canned lion hunting is legal, generating some US$10 million per year.’’

Dr Luke Hunter, President of Panthera, says the growth in Asian demand for lion bones (used as a proxy for tiger bones in traditional Chinese medicines) has created yet another revenue stream. South African lion breeders export over 1,000 lion skeletons annually for the lion bone trade in Asia. Hunter says: “There is absolutely no medicinal value in lion parts – you might as well consume cow for all the health benefits of lion bone. South Africa’s legal trade only fuels the demand for big cat body parts, providing a ready market for cats poached in the wild.’’

In order to reserve a seat for the Blood Lions™ event on 2 December, a donation of $150 can be made for regular seating or a $250 for VIP seating. “All donations from the screening will be granted from Empowers Africa to Wildlands to support the Blood Lions™ campaign. Funds raised will be used to recruit additional NSPCA Wildlife Unit inspectors to prevent abuse in the captive lion industry and to support wild lion conservation in South Africa,” Krieger says.

 “We are thrilled to be supported by Empowers Africa in New York,” says Blood Lions™ co-producer Pippa Hankinson of Regulus Vision. “It’s been four years since I embarked on this project and I am determined to see an end to this cruel industry. As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”.

For tickets for the event, click here. http://bit.ly/bloodlions.

Empowers Africa Presents ‘Blood Lions™’ – Behind the Scenes.

The internationally acclaimed film Blood Lions™ – Bred for the Bullet, has partnered with the Born Free Foundation to bring you the London premiere. The controversial film will be screened on the 27th of November at 19h00 at the Royal Geographical Society in London (1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR – Exhibition Road Entrance). For a small contribution of only £20 you can witness this ground breaking film.

“Blood Lions™ joins other films, like Gorillas in the Mist, Echo of the Elephants, The Cove (Taiji dolphins in Japan), Blackfish”— Born Free Foundation president, Will Travers says, “which have truly influenced the way we interact with wild animals.”

Lions bred for slaughter in South Africa is big business. The Blood Lions™ story is a compelling call to action to have these practices stopped. Blood Lions™ follows presenter, researcher and safari operator Ian Michler, and Rick Swazey, an American hunter, on their journey to uncover the realities about the multimillion-dollar predator breeding and canned lion hunting industries in South Africa.

“Being able to screen Blood Lions™ at the Royal Geographical Society with the Born Free Foundation as a partner is a great honour,” said Ian Michler – Presenter and Researcher for Blood Lions™. “The film and its messages continue to receive global attention, and this opportunity allows us to extend the discussion on a personal basis to include the British people and media.”

The Blood Lions™ team are implementing campaigns of awareness and action aimed at the general public; Government (both local and international) and provincial decision-makers; the scientific and conservation community (NGO’s); the tourism industry; the professional hunting bodies and the volunteer agencies. The Blood Lions™ team are also establishing two projects to feed funding into, namely – a Wild Lion Range Expansion Project and NSPCA (National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in South Africa) support.

“We are proud to partner with the Born Free Foundation for the UK premiere of our feature documentary in London later this month,” said Pippa Hankinson – Producer and driving force behind Blood Lions™. “The support that the film has received from across the United Kingdom has been phenomenal, and it is already playing a significant part in our campaign to create global awareness around the captive lion breeding industry in South Africa and to end the terrible exploitation of these lions.”

Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands and Executive Producer said: “Blood Lions™ exposes the cons of Lion breeding and hunting in South Africa. Over 900 lions are hunted each year, with 99% bred for the bullet. They are hand-reared by paying volunteers that believe they are saving ‘Africa’s Lions’. 4 days after their release from a life in captivity they are considered wild and can then be shot by hunters looking for a guaranteed kill; or slaughtered for the Lion bone trade to China. We have to stop this barbaric and fraudulent practise and believe that Blood Lions™ will help us do this. Creating awareness through this film across the world is an absolute honour, and Wildlands are very proud to be a part of this movement.”

Born Free Foundation president, Will Travers, concludes by saying: “South Africa’s failure to address the canned hunting industry has emboldened those who make a living out of the death of lions bred, raised and slaughtered on a ‘no kill, no fee’ basis. The canned hunting industry is unnatural, unethical and unacceptable. It delivers compromised animal welfare and zero education. It undermines conservation and creates a moral vacuum now inhabited by the greed and grotesque self-importance of those who derive pleasure in the taking of life. Blood Lions™ lays bare the truth.”

Youth Employment in the Environmental Sector: Local NPO champions the cause

Two and a half years of dedicated mentoring by Wildlands staff, has seen the incubation of fifty “pioneers”, young people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds launching their careers in the environmental sector. Forty four of these have secured employment, thirty three within Wildlands and eleven into jobs elsewhere, in the sector and beyond.

In May 2013 Wildlands, in Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal was allocated 38 interns, dubbed “pioneers”, who were part of the Groen Sebenza Internship Programme, funded by National Treasury and co-ordinated by SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute). The aim of this National job creation and youth development programme was to focus on increasing some of the scarce skills in the Environmental Sector, through an extended, two and a half year internship.

Wildlands was selected as one of the “host institutions”, and has successfully incubated fifty pioneers which included Geographers, GIS specialists, Ecologists, Horticulturists, Assistant Project Managers, Community Development Workers, and others.

During this time, under the guidance of their respective Wildlands mentors, the pioneers received substantial training and work exposure with an emphasis on building their understanding of professionalism, and developing life skills, leadership skills and job-specific skills needed in the workplace. This has seen them grow in both confidence and ability, and they have become valuable members of the Wildlands staff.

Of the fifty pioneers Wildlands have incubated, eleven have found jobs elsewhere; at the likes of PWC and the Department of Environmental Affairs, seven pioneers were scooped up early into key positions in Wildlands’ communications and project teams, and the NPO has offered further employment to another fourteen pioneers whose internship contracts are about to expire. The remaining interns will complete their contracts in December 2015, of which a further twelve will be recruited by the organisation.

Simone Dale, Wildlands Groen Sebenza Project Co-ordinator is delighted with the success of the programme and commented on the contribution of mentorship to this success: “Mentoring requires time and patience, and is essentially an investment in our future; small sacrifices now, that lead to a more capable, confident workforce down the line. It has been challenging at times for the mentors as they all have demanding jobs, however their dedication to providing our pioneers with on-the-job experience and guidance has been remarkable and the results have proved their efforts worthwhile!”

Executive Director, Dr Roelie Kloppers, also commented that the organisational drive to employ as many Pioneers as possible was part of Wildlands commitment to youth development in this country and to the development of the environmental sector as a whole. “Building the capacity of youth in this country really needs to be a priority and it’s programmes like this, that offer alternative, more practical forms of learning that we believe will enable the development of effective leaders for sustainability.”