BY JOHN NASH

For those of you who may have missed it, Country Squire Magazine published my piece about the outrageous, unwarranted persecution and hate-mongering voided upon an innocent, law-abiding Mr Rizwan and his family by a fly-speck gutter reporter at the Mirror. You can see that Mr Rizwan is a decent family bloke in a short video (and rather more polite article than mine) from Fieldsports TV, although personally I see no reason for being polite about the despicable political and media cockroaches involved in this conspiracy of hatred.

And it is a conspiracy it is, Dear Reader. A huge one. Perhaps you are unaware just how big it is because, like a cockroach, the one you see, bad as it is, is merely evidence of hidden infestation. It is a labyrinth of fake news and misinformation generated by shysters and parasites, assisted by flouncing herds of self-serving celebrities and liars, coupled to a campaign of hate-mongering and woke censorship by a huge UK media group, all protected by the patronage of some of the most disgraceful, dishonest MP’s this country has had the misfortune to endure, every one of them undermining Parliamentary democracy, free speech and the ability of the great UK public to make an informed decision. 

This outrage is due to unfold even further on the 25th January when the phoney Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill emerges from its committee stage into its report stage in the Westminster Asylum. The bill itself is the bastard child of continuous, immoral behind-the-bike-shed congress between parasites and perjurers. Its midwife is the Conservative MP Henry Smith. It is without doubt a deception of breathtaking arrogance that seeks to ban the importation of hunting trophies,

 “providing international leadership in protecting and improving international biodiversity and undertaking international action to protect endangered species”.

Crap. Doublespeak, worse than fake news – the very opposite of what it claims to achieve. According to the IUCN, no species are endangered by trophy hunting. None. The international trade is governed by them, with bodies like CITES and the WWF whose hundreds of scientists and proper ecologists know a tad more about the industry than a pinhead Crawley MP with a degree in philosophy.

Not only is Smith wrong, but his new trophy import law that preserves nothing and will seriously hurt people and wildlife in Africa is not necessary anyway. Smith, like many politicians, wastes people’s time building this impressive, self-serving new bridge where there is no river. In the UK, global wildlife falls into three categories. Briefly:

1. Endangered species. Trade in these is only allowed under exceptional circumstance and requires both import and export permits. 
2. Not endangered species but need trade controls to prevent over-trading. They require an export permit. 
3. Species subject to control in at least one country with whom all other countries are asked to cooperate. These are treated as personal and private property. 

Permits are generally only granted where it can be shown that the import would not have a harmful effect on the conservation status of the species, or the extent of the territory occupied by the species. 

That is the situation right now, without any brainless, retrograde new laws. Remember, too, that hunters work under the supervision of qualified professionals and require hunting, transport and export permits in the countries of Southern Africa before their trophies even leave Africa. It’s the Africans’ wildlife – they look after it – they don’t need amateur stickybeaks like Smith interfering. 

Isn’t Colonialism – imposing the will of Britishers on Africa – seen as passé these days?

Then there are captive-bred animals. Here, a UK import permit is not generally required for trophies from captive-bred animals. This is because they are separate from the species “in the wild”. Captive bred doesn’t mean “in a cage”. It means “owned by someone as property” – like deer are the property of the land owner in the UK. In Southern Africa, wildlife on high-fenced private hunting reserves and in tribal areas is legally the property of the land owner, to use as they see fit (or even remove entirely and replace with cattle). The wild animals are subsequently tolerated, watched over and raised for hunting and meat, on properties that often cover hundreds of thousands of acres. In South Africa alone, private hunting reserves, where more than 10 million of these “privately owned” wild animals are hunted in natural habitat, cover more than 40 million acres. That’s why they don’t need permits. It’s not a “loophole”. It’s African farming, good land use and doesn’t affect the endangered populations.

And that is as simple as I can explain it, Dear Reader. Its all under close control but it’s complicated. How much easier it is for rubber-heads and charlatans just to say “evil trophy hunter murderers are killing Africa’s endangered wildlife”. That is the deceptive message put out by crooked eco-chuggers, the Mirror and dishonest MPs in the UK. That is the deceptive message that the public has swallowed hook, line and sinker. 

In reality, trophy hunting is not killing off a single species anywhere in the world, and is responsible for protecting over a million square kilometres of habitat across Southern Africa. In Southern Africa, trophy hunting is referred to as “conservation hunting” because of this habitat protection.

So, why are we not told the truth?

Well, in a world of woke, hunters are the last group of people who can be legally subjected to hate-speech in the UK, as the disgusting episode of Mr Rizwan proved. With nobody else allowed to be hated – by law – the public are easily guided to dump all of their frustrations on hunters. Without any legal protection, law-abiding hunters are vulnerable, an ironic situation for the only people in the UK qualified to own powerful weapons. 

You might think that there are statutes and regulations to protect law abiding UK hunters, but no. You might think that our MPs or DEFRA would be the last bastion of protection, but no – some of them, like Smith, Sir Roger Gale, Baroness Hayman, Pauline Latham and others are the worst and most deluded shit-flingers in the whole sorry bunch. Notice they never, ever ask African field conservation experts, utilisation scientists and ecologists or Qualified Professional Hunters for the actual facts. Why?  As Mark Twain wrote, “A lie can travel halfway round the world while truth is putting its shoes on”.

OK, you say, but that’s because they are politicians – they only lie when they move their lips – but what about charities? Sadly, charities like the Born Free Foundation seem more interested in harvesting their  £6.1 million annually than doing what’s best for wildlife. That much heavy gold has a nasty habit of crushing ethics – money is a good servant but a terrible master.

If they can’t be trusted, at least the charity commission keeps an eye on fundraising, doesn’t it?  Well, dream on…when pushed, their ombudsman becomes as evasive as Al Capone’s tax accountant and bends the truth like illusionist Uri Geller bends spoons.

When you look at the blatant hate-mongering and injustice of the Mirror, that of the All Party Parliamentary Group to Ban Trophy Hunting, that of the kangaroo hearings of EFRA and DEFRA, that of MP’s or that flowing from the lips of celebrities and misled old farts like Sir Ranulph Fiennes, there is only one commonality. When you lift this particular rock, all of the cockroaches of hate emerge from just one nest – that of the shyster Eduardo Gonçalves, ex-CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports, puppet master and UK’s most brazen and pernicious donor farmer, whose ecological and scientific qualifications spring without foundation from his BA (Hons) in Politics and Parliamentary Studies from Leeds University. 

His own deceitful website actually begins with delicious, pure cockroach hate-food, “Trophy hunting is killing off endangered species”. It is not. Compare this,  “…trophy hunting is not a major threat to any hunted species at the global level” from the IUCN, the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.

You judge.

It’s time for some urgent pest control and you can start by asking your MP to stamp on Smith’s dishonest Private Member’s Bill on the 25th.

John Nash grew up in West Cornwall and was a £10 pom to Johannesburg in the early 1960’s. He started well in construction project management, mainly high-rise buildings but it wasn’t really Africa, so he went bush, prospecting and trading around the murkier bits of the bottom half of the continent. Now retired back in Cornwall among all the other evil old pirates. His interests are still sustainable resources, wildlife management and the utilitarian needs of rural Africa.