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Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (LEAT) leat@mediapost.co.tz |
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4.2 Professionalism and the Hunting IndustryThe regulation of the hunting industry is governed by the principle of professionalism. That’s is to say, hunters, just like the authorities vested with the power to regulate the industry are required to conduct their hunting business in accordance with some professional code of ethics. In fact, persons issued with hunting permits or licenses in Tanzania are usually accompanied by a government game scout whose duty is, among others, to ensure that the rules and professional ethics are abided to. Most of the rules governing the hunting industry are clear. They provide, among other things, that the hunting period is to run for about 6 months, starting from July to December of every year. They also provide that the costs of hunting of animals is determined by the Wildlife Division but on average, it varies from 2,000 to 4500 US$ depending on the age and species of a wild animal. It is also a general rule that a hunter is required to pay double the amount if he/she wants to hunt a young animal. The rules also generally prohibit hunting of specified species of wild game due to their endangered species status. Of course, the authorities are vested with powers to exempt the application of some of the restrictions. It is, however, not expected that hunters devise ways to influence the exemption process at the detriment of the hunting industry and risk the continued survival of wild animal species. For example, it would be going against professional hunting norms for a hunter to solicit for exemption to hunt endangered species of wild animal, merely for personal gain, without taking into account that such animal species may be extinct if all hunters acted like he/she did.40 Hunting companies have the responsibility of ensuring that the laid down rules, laws and regulations are followed. One would therefore expect to see some element of professionalism in the hunting industry by the hunters. There are, however, cases where professional norms have been violated with the steady increase in the number of hunting companies that have joined the industry. There were initially only nine hunting companies when the government allowed them to commence business in 1984. The number had increased to thirty-three twelve years later.41 Tanzania’s professional hunters welcomed this trend as indicating a growth in the economy. As the number of hunting companies increases, hunting business has continued to thrive and more hunting blocks have been allocated. This implies that the allocation process of hunting blocks has to continually be revised in order to meet the increasing demand of the market. At the same time the hunting quota allocated to each company per block remains the same. This scenario has led to a number of traitorous practices in the hunting industry leading to wild animal populations being depleted at alarming rates. This is a fact that is well known to officials of the government charged with regulating the industry, local community members and the hunters. However, the country’s professional hunters have done little to alleviate the situation. On the contrary, the professional body, TAHOA, is noted to have encouraged the government to increase the number of hunting companies. In other instances, professional hunters have used dubious ways, the loopholes in the legislation and the arbitrary clauses in the law to exceed their hunting quotas and shoot more animals than the licenses permit. Other hunting companies have opted for playing along with the existing bureaucracy, with its persistent problems that operate to their advantage, but at the disadvantage of wild animal populations and the industry as a whole. It is also on record that during the five-year tax-free holiday system that gave a grace period to new investors, some hunting companies, again employing dubious means, changed registrations and ownership in order to qualify for the tax break. These companies were all out to maximize profits at whatever costs, irrespective of professionalism. Others secretly approached wildlife authorities and solicited, through bribery, for the de registration of their competitors or cancellation of their hunting permits and licenses for no reasonable cause. This practice still exists and has led to sharp rivalry and mistrust amongst some of the private hunting companies in the northern circuit. This is a violation of the ethical standards for hunting specified in the rules and regulations. Evasion of tax by some professional hunting companies is also done by way of the professional hunters who have been allocated a hunting bloc, acting as middlemen and sub-leasing the bloc to another hunting company. The parties then enter into a contract whereby the company that leases pays the professional hunting company reaping non-taxable profits of over US$1500 per day! Another show of lack of adherence to professionalism by the hunters was witnessed when the government’s invited the TAHOA at a round-table discussion to deliberate modalities of reforming the industry by removing unwanted vices. The Association surprised the government itself as it openly sought to maintain the existing framework, which is riled by corruption, arbitrary issuance of licenses and obscurity in general.42 The wildlife division is now working towards reviewing the wildlife law with a view to taking on board the developments brought into the wildlife conservation and management arena by the promulgation of the Wildlife Policy in 1998. Hopefully the new law will also focus on the pertinent issues relating, including but of course not limited, to those relating to controlling the powers vested in the authorities that regulate the hunting industry. The demise of professionalism and ethics in the industry should also be addressed in any meaningful revision of the hunting law.
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