Thread by @ecoevoenviro

Western but more importantly #African #conservation biologists and #communities have clearly evidenced the well managed hunting - inc trophy hunting - is a valid utilitarian conservation tool that is need to protect land from converting to agriculture or development /1

https://twitter.com/CommonsEFRA/status/1410886400233328643

This is because the real and present danger for large and charismatic wildlife in #Africa is habitat loss and quality - including human-wildlife conflict - where #people are effected or killed by such #wildlife and retaliation on wildlife occurs - e.g. /2

https://twitter.com/46_billy/status/1410590014300377099?s=20

While stories of #human hardship in living with #wildlife - and the same dynamics of wanting to develop and use land never reaches UK news - what does is dangerous mis-information from a range of sources but mainly western and #celebrity backed #NGOs /3 conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

These NGOs are dangerously (for wildlife) close to Government - particularly Eduardo Goncalves who has been linked to serious mis-information in the UK press and his self published books (aka unreviewed) and high profile @Conservatives & #celebrities /4

https://twitter.com/AdamHartScience/status/1410527499239440387?s=20

While our focus is rightly on the strange and effective lobbying that big pharma and business undertakes to win PPE and health contracts with the current Government (e.g. Hancock)- there is also similar methods applied to #environmental policy /5

https://twitter.com/domdyer70/status/1163149896255455232?s=20

Here (above) Eduardo and others manage to get the prime ministers' wife to speak publicly on the much debunked "Trophy hunting" of puffins by UK residents - but it doesn't matter as mis-info or not the voters buy it and it is undermining #conservation /6 theguardian.com/environment/20…

Some of you may be asking why me - an #ecologist who works in #conservation (but also with a self recognised bias towards utilitarian conservation values) would speak out against others who say they are conservationists - well its because they are not /7 peanc.org/whats-differen…

There is a danger we view the world through the lens of a single animal or event - what matters for #conservation are thriving populations living in stable habitats - so prevention of death of say 50 male Lions next year - could assign several lion populations to extinction /8

And that's what I want to avoid - recognise that utilitarian #conservation has a proven track record (when well managed) to deliver population and habitat gains and use this track record to avoid increased extinction risks and reduced Human- #Wildlife conflict /ends

@threadreaderapp please unroll