Jeannie Magill
Milking the Rhino
Explore new conservation strategies.
DISCUSSION
Conservation
Does community-based conservation have a better chance of succeeding than others that have come before it?
Steve Gluck
07/12 at 08:40 PM from Cambridge, Ma. USA
The Campfire programs in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia depend almost entirely upon trophy-hunting revenues. Dismissing trophy-hunting as the “white man’s approach” without acknowledging the tremendous contribution that it has made to the rural peoples of Africa is entirely disingenuous. If you’re going to tell a story, tell the whole story.
The single greatest success story involving African wildlife has been the sustainable-use approach - and when in it comes to African wildlife, sustainable-use means trophy hunting.
Additionally, Africans have always considered wildlife a nuisance. Always. The wildlife destroys their crops, kills their cattle and, not infrequently, kills their people. Blaming the rural African attitude about wildlife on the white man is absurd, reverse racism in its most virulent form.
Kenya’s wildlife went into steep decline after in banned hunting and has never really recovered. Tanzania, following Kenya’s lead, banned hunting in in 1973, only to see poaching increase substantially as a result of the ban. Fortunately, trophy-hunting was reintroduced in Tanzania in 1978 and wildlife populations have thrived ever since.
Either you are purposefully misinforming the public - or you yourself are misinformed. Please tell the real story. If it’s too late for the film, at least tell it in your interviews. You owe it to the people and wildlife of Africa.
Sincerely,
Steve Gluck
Cambridge
ABOUT THE EPISODE
How can conservation benefit both wildlife and humans? Jeannie Magill, originator and co-producer of the documentary Milking the Rhino, discusses how community-based conservation is working for two tribes in Africa.
For a captioned version of this interview, go to YouTube.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Jeannie Magill owned and operated Westwind Safaris and Tours, a company specializing in educational safaris to Kenya. She was a visiting scholar with the African Studies programs at Northwestern University, and she served as a consultant to the renovation of the African wing of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.
Magill has chaired panel discussions for the African Trade Association Congress, presented numerous educational talks, and published many articles for travel trade newspapers and magazines.
More about Magill
Conservation Solutions from Penn State Students
- Lion Trophy Hunting for Community Development
- Penn State/ Nairobi/ Maasai Collaboration on Lion Lodge
- Used Bottles for Simple Water Harvesting System
- Maasai Business Institute
PENN STATE CONNECTION
- Institutional Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge
- Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management
WHERE TO WATCH
WPSU
Thursday, May 20 at 9pm
Big Ten Network
Monday, July 5 at 12pm and 3am
Tuesday, May 25 at 9pm
ABOUT THE HOST
Veteran interviewer Patty Satalia hosts in-depth conversations with a broad range of remarkable people.
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