David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Amendment to Lists of CITES Species, Declaration of a stricter domestic measure, made under subsection 303CB(1) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, be disallowed [F2015L00277].

This motion would prevent the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, from moving African lions from appendix II to appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as the CITES treaty. Mr Hunt's decision to move African lions to appendix I is made under provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It will have the effect of banning the importation of all African lion specimens into Australia, including those legally and sustainably harvested under fair chase conditions. This is ministerial overreach in a most authoritarian manner. It seeks to curtail activities in a foreign country based on the minister finding them distasteful. This is not the kind of governance Australians need. Disapproval is not a basis for government policy, and governments have to accept the fact that people do not want them interfering in their lives.

Supposedly, the minister's decision was motivated by a genuine attempt to help reduce the unethical practice of 'canned hunting' by not allowing the import into Australia of lion specimens obtained in this manner. The problem is that the ban will bring to an end the substantial financial support that Australian hunters provide to poor African villagers via hunting fees paid in the course of legally harvested free-range fair chase hunting. The regulation that this motion seeks to disallow does not distinguish between lion trophies gained through such hunting and trophies gained through canned hunting. But this is not the full explanation. Greg Hunt's decision was motivated by an intense personal dislike of hunting per se, promoted by animal rights activists who had been lobbying Liberal Party MPs. 'Canned hunting' was just a convenient shroud to mask a ban on the importation of all lion hunting trophies.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information reveal multiple errors by the Department of the Environment in its advice to the minister. This advice was a mass of misinformation and obfuscation, as I shall show with three examples. First, the ministerial brief stated that canned hunting is allowed in South Africa. This is simply not true. Canned hunting was explicitly prohibited by South Africa's Threatened or Protected Species Regulations in February 2007. Second, the ministerial brief stated that African lions meet the criteria for listing on CITES appendix I. This also is not true. A comprehensive report prepared for the CITES Animals Committee meeting in May 2014 expressly stated that the African lion does not meet any of the three biological criteria required for listing on appendix I and is appropriately listed in appendix II. Third, the ministerial brief stated that a 'precautionary' approach in relation to lion conservation decisions was warranted due to uncertainty regarding the lion's population size and distribution. This is also not true.

The report to the CITES Animals Committee again expressly stated that precautionary measures are unnecessary because adequate information to assess the status of African lion and the impact of trade already existed. The report, a product of systematic analysis of the most recent scientific data available, stated that the population of African lions is not small, according to the accepted CITES definition; the species does not have a restricted area of distribution; and there has not been a 'marked decline' in the population, according to the accepted CITES criteria.

Jason Wood, the Liberal MP for La Trobe who lobbied Minister Hunt to implement the ban, is an outspoken opponent of canned hunting. Unfortunately, Mr Wood has, either by design or ignorance, failed to differentiate canned hunting from hunting wild lions. If Mr Wood read the Biodiversity Management Plan for the African Lion, recently released by the South African government for public comment, he would see that canned hunting of lions is in no way comparable to hunting wild lions. It is curious that Mr Wood steadfastly refuses to accept the collective professional expertise of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the IUCN but instead accepts anti-hunting dogma from animal rights activists.

Well-managed trophy hunting is fully supported and endorsed by the IUCN, the CITES treaty and the Convention on Biological Diversity, the CBD. Australia is a signatory to all three agencies. These respected organisations all recognise that well-managed trophy hunting is sustainable, generates much-needed funds for wildlife conservation and anti-poaching programs and provides employment and an income for thousands of low-income people living in rural Africa. Just recently—in the last few days, in fact—Zimbabwe lifted restrictions on big game hunting imposed after the killing of Cecil the lion, no doubt recognising that the ban was counterproductive to furthering the conservation of big game and deprived local communities of much-needed income. Minister Hunt's decision to ban the importation of the African lion is not only an act of cultural imperialism but also a suppression of sustainable use, a central tenet of effective conservation held dear by the IUCN, CITES and the Convention on Biological Diversity. If Mr Hunt is so affronted by the concept of sustainable use, then perhaps he should withdraw Australia as a signatory to these organisations.

Finally, I want to read a few comments about Minister Hunt's ban from two of Australia's internationally recognised professional wildlife management experts. Professor Michael Archer, at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales, commenting on Hunt's announcement, said:

While all his prayers and ill-informed comments are probably well-intentioned, he clearly has no idea that IUCN advocates Conservation through Sustainable Use strategies as demonstrably among the most important compatible conservation strategies ...

In stopping sustainable hunting many vital programs that would continue to have positive conservation outcomes, with wildlife being valued and hence cared for by local communities, will collapse.

At some point this wisdom, which is in fact promoted by IUCN, must sink in to people like the Minister who appear to have no understanding about the importance of Conservation through Sustainable Use …

Professor Grahame Webb, founder of Wildlife Management International in Darwin said:

Mike Archer is 100% correct in his assessment. The real question is whether Minister Hunt is aware of the reality and chose to ignore it, or whether he is not aware of the reality and simply waded into the issue in ignorance. Another dark day for science-based and evidence-based conservation.

Today I have outlined the ill-informed basis on which this decision has been made and how Minister Hunt has turned his back on scientific evidence and fact. Science and evidence must prevail over the misleading emotive rhetoric which has served conservation matters so poorly in the past. For the sake of lions and their survival, I urge senators to support the disallowance motion.