Nature conservation should protect biological species and landscapes alike, while shaping a responsible relationship between humans and the environment in which they live. Increasingly, however, it is turning into a clash of ideologies, administrative bans, and decisions detached from on-the-ground reality. The conclusions of the recent CITES CoP20 conference unfortunately confirmed this trend.
In the following text, we look at the conservation of large mammals through the perspective of people who work in the field, travel extensively, and see reality firsthand. This article was written without emotion, but with data, practical experience, and a sense of responsibility toward nature—as a valuable resource that must be protected rigorously, yet above all, meaningfully.
Martin Šimek
and the team at Franc & Zugar Taxidermy
CITES CoP20 and the Hijacking of Nature Conservation
Why the conference conclusions are troubling – and why large mammals, landscapes, and people are paying the price
Nature conservation has increasingly shifted into the realm of political debate in recent years. Key decisions are made at international conferences, often far removed from the places where nature is actually managed—without sufficient attention to practitioners in the field or to local communities that face the real, everyday challenges of protecting habitats, wildlife, and plant species. The conclusions of the most recent Conference of the Parties to CITES (CoP20) have further reinforced this trend: more restrictions, greater uncertainty, and additional administrative barriers, but no clear answer to the fundamental question that should lie at the heart of every conservation decision—does this approach work in practice, and does it truly deliver the intended results?
Africa today offers a unique opportunity to compare fundamentally different approaches to nature conservation. Some countries (such as Kenya) have adopted a model of strict protection, often associated with the complete exclusion of wildlife use, including hunting. Others (such as South Africa or Namibia), by contrast, have long pursued a system of active, regulated, and economically grounded management, in which commercial hunting forms an integral part. After nearly five decades of these parallel approaches, sufficient data are now available to assess their outcomes—not according to ideals, but according to reality on the ground.
The Specifics of Large Mammal Conservation
It is essential to emphasize one fundamental fact from the outset: the conservation of large mammals is governed by fundamentally different principles than the conservation of most other groups of organisms. Yet in current debates, the same approach is often mechanically applied across all species, regardless of their biology, ecology, or mode of existence within the landscape.
In the case of insects, other invertebrates, and many plant species, the protection of the habitat as a whole is paramount. If the environment disappears, the species disappears with it. Conservation efforts therefore naturally focus on the landscape itself—on habitat structure, connectivity, and long-term continuity.
For large mammals—particularly iconic species such as antelopes, elephants, rhinoceroses, and large carnivores—the situation is fundamentally different. These are species that are:
mobile,
adaptable to a wide range of environments,
and whose survival is often limited by direct pressure on individual animals rather than by the immediate loss of suitable habitat.
As a result, the conservation of large mammals inevitably focuses on different priorities, above all:
the protection of individual animals,
the regulation of unnatural mortality,
the control of poaching,
active population management,
and the securing of stable financial resources for long-term, consistent conservation.
It is precisely at this point that active management, economic instruments, and regulated use come into play. Without them, it is not possible to protect individual animals in open landscapes over the long term—and without protecting individuals, a viable population cannot exist.
Large Antelopes as a Litmus Test of Conservation
Sable Antelope (Hippotragus niger): Kenya versus Southern Africa
In Kenya, the sable antelope survives in only a single locality, the Shimba Hills area. From historical estimates in the 1960s and 1970s, when populations numbered several hundred individuals, its numbers have declined to approximately 60–100 animals today. Despite strict legal protection and a long-standing ban on hunting, the population trend remains clearly negative.
At the opposite end of the spectrum stands South Africa. Here, sable antelopes persist not only in national parks, but also on private reserves and farms. The total population numbers in the thousands. Although local fluctuations and declines do occur, the system allows for adaptive responses—through translocations, active population management, habitat stewardship, and, crucially, conservation funding derived from real economic sources, including commercial hunting.
A very similar model operates in Namibia. Here too, sable antelope populations are stable, numbering in the thousands, with a favorable long-term population trend.
The difference, therefore, does not lie in the degree or “strictness” of protection, but in the conservation model itself and in the willingness to actively manage populations.
Roan Antelope (Hippotragus equinus): A Species That Exposes Systemic Weaknesses
An even more revealing example is the roan antelope. In Kenya today, only a single population survives, in Ruma National Park, estimated at a mere 30–50 individuals. Despite decades of absolute protection, a hunting ban, and formal prioritization of the species, the population has continued to decline and its future remains highly uncertain.
In Namibia, roan antelope are less numerous than in South Africa; nevertheless, stable populations numbering in the thousands exist, distributed across state, communal, and private lands. In South Africa, total roan numbers also reach several thousand individuals, with the private sector, long-term planning, and active population management playing a decisive role.
The roan antelope is a species exceptionally sensitive to landscape quality and land management practices. For this very reason, it exposes the weaknesses of conservation systems with unusual clarity. Where protection amounts only to prohibition and a passive approach, the species declines. Where conservation is combined with active landscape management, population regulation, and the economic integration of the species—including regulated commercial hunting—it has a genuine chance of long-term survival.
Bontebok (Damaliscus pygargus pygargus): When Commercialization Saves a Species
For completeness, it is essential to include an opposite example—a species for which commercialization, regulated hunting, and active management have led to long-term success rather than decline. This example is the bontebok, an endemic species of southern Africa.
At the beginning of the 20th century, this species stood on the brink of extinction, with the population reduced to just a few dozen individuals. The turning point did not come through an absolute ban or passive protection, but through the integration of the species into landscape management systems and regulated commercial use.
The bontebok gradually acquired economic value—it became a managed breeding species and later a standard game animal. Private landowners thus gained a clear incentive to protect it, selectively breed it, and maintain suitable habitat over the long term. The population stabilized and expanded to such an extent that today the bontebok is no longer a marginal relic on the edge of survival, but a fully established and common component of the landscape.
The bontebok was not saved despite utilization.
It was saved precisely because of it.
Rhinoceroses: The Most Visible Test of Ideology
White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum)
At the beginning of the 20th century, fewer than one hundred white rhinoceroses survived in the wild. Today, more than 90% of the global population of this species is found in South Africa, where approximately 12,000–14,000 individuals live. A crucial fact is that more than half of these rhinoceroses occur on private land, where their protection is not based on prohibition, but on active management and long-term economic sustainability.
Kenya today records approximately 300–350 white rhinoceroses, largely concentrated in fenced reserves. The protection of these populations is exceptionally costly, spatially constrained, and heavily dependent on external funding, the long-term stability of which is increasingly difficult to maintain. Namibia represents a model positioned between these two approaches—rhinoceroses there live freely in natural landscapes, including communal areas, and their conservation is directly linked to local economic and social interests.
If bans on use and absolute protection alone were an effective solution, Kenya would today host the largest population of white rhinoceroses. The numbers, however, speak unequivocally. It does not.
Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis): Conservation as a Set of Active Measures, Not a Catchy Slogan
The black rhinoceros is a species even more sensitive to the quality of protection and the manner of management than its white relative. In Kenya, a population of approximately 850–900 individuals survives today, concentrated in isolated and fenced reserves. Protecting these populations is extremely costly and, in the long term, unsustainable without continuous financial support from international organizations and governments of the Global North.
Namibia, by contrast, is widely regarded as one of the most successful examples of black rhinoceros conservation worldwide. The population exceeds 2,000 individuals, with an annual growth rate of approximately 4%, and is distributed across open landscapes, including extensive communal lands. Conservation here is built on cooperation with local communities and farmers, clearly defined responsibility, and active species management. South Africa hosts a further approximately 2,500–2,700 individuals, where the private sector, long-term planning, and targeted interventions in population structure also play a decisive role.
The black rhinoceros does not survive because of bans and declarations.
It survives because of management, financial resources generated by legal commercial activities, and the responsibility that active management inevitably requires.
When Caution Replaces the Rule of Law: The Case of Large Cat Trophy Imports
Alongside biological data and population trends, it is necessary to openly address another, often overlooked problem in contemporary nature conservation—the administrative mindset of state authorities, which is gradually drifting away from decision-making based on facts. In practice, we increasingly encounter situations in which scientific evidence, the legality of procedures—such as the import of legally obtained trophies—and the actual conditions on the ground are formally questioned, and on this basis decisions on the legal and regulated use of wildlife are blocked.
Not on the basis of law or genuine expert assessment, but because of an ideological rejection of the very principle of legal and regulated use.
A typical example of this approach is the issue of importing hunting trophies of large African cats. Even in cases where trophies have been obtained fully legally, in compliance with the national legislation of the country of origin, established quotas, and CITES regulations, they are nevertheless detained or subjected to prolonged delays in Europe. This occurs not because of an existing import restriction, a negative scientific opinion, or a breach of the law, but rather with reference to “ongoing consultations,” general precaution, or anticipated political negotiations.
This shift is fundamental. Decision-making is quietly but systematically moving away from the application of clearly defined rules toward preventive obstruction, without a solid legal basis for such action. All economic and practical consequences are borne by those who act in good faith and in full compliance with applicable legislation.
Such an approach does not result in better species protection. On the contrary, it weakens the mechanisms that finance conservation on the ground and gradually erodes trust in the entire system. Nature conservation thus transforms from a managed and predictable process into one of administrative paralysis.
If a European official today believes that banning the import of a legally obtained trophy will ensure the survival of large cats in African landscapes, this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the very principles governing the regulation of large carnivores in open ecosystems. The survival of these species is not determined by a paper ban imposed on the other side of the world, but by the daily reality of people who share space, resources, and risks with them.
A farmer who has no means to finance the protection and management of large cat populations through regulated hunting based on strict quotas derived from the population dynamics of a given species will not tolerate these predators on his land over the long term. And it is difficult to blame him. Why should he bear uncompensated losses of cattle, sheep, or goats—his livelihood—simply to satisfy the moral expectations of an official who bears no responsibility for the consequences of such decisions?
In such a system, the farmer will logically prioritize his own economic survival over the survival of a predator that brings only losses and no legitimate value. At that very moment, an import ban ceases to be a tool of nature conservation and becomes its exact opposite—a mechanism that creates a direct incentive in the landscape to eliminate these species.
Europe and the Czech Republic: Conservation Without Management Leads to Conflict
Central Europe—and the Czech Republic in particular—is not an example of failed nature conservation because species are disappearing. Quite the opposite. Thanks to targeted protection, many species have successfully returned. The failure lies elsewhere: conservation has stopped halfway.
European bison. Beaver. Wolf. Bear. Cormorant.
Each of these species tells essentially the same story: protection worked, populations recovered—but the state failed to assume responsibility for the next, indispensable phase: active population management.
Regulation has gradually become a dirty word, and hunting an ideological target. Intervention is perceived as a failure of conservation rather than as its natural and lawful component. Responsibility for maintaining balance in the landscape fades, and decision-making is postponed until problems grow beyond a tolerable threshold.
The result is not healthy ecosystems or functional coexistence between people and nature, but:
degraded landscapes,
growing economic damage,
escalating conflicts between citizens and the state,
and a gradual loss of public support for nature conservation itself.
As in Africa, nature conservation here is increasingly falling under the influence of loud, media-savvy, yet practically unaccountable actors—people who bear none of the consequences of their positions, yet help shape the rules imposed on those who actually live and work in the landscape and must confront the daily realities of coexisting with wild animals.
This is no longer nature conservation.
This is—without exaggeration—the hijacking of nature conservation.
Hunting as an Integral Part of Human Culture and Nature Conservation
The debate surrounding hunting today is often oversimplified to the point of caricature. Hunting is portrayed either as a relic of the past or as a vulgar pastime of a privileged elite. Such a portrayal is not only inaccurate, but above all dangerous, as it diverts attention from the real role that hunting plays in nature conservation.
Hunting is among the oldest systematic human activities. It is deeply rooted in human culture and, for thousands of years, has shaped humanity’s relationship with the landscape, responsibility for natural resources, and understanding of the balance between use and protection. The paradox of our time is that precisely when we possess more scientific knowledge about ecosystem functioning than ever before, we attempt to replace this accumulated experience with ideology and simplified moral judgments.
Even today, hunting is not an obsolete practice. On the contrary—it is an essential component of active landscape management.
In the Czech Republic, the absence of hunting would, within a relatively short period, lead to serious destabilization of populations of certain species, particularly wild boar and other ungulates. The consequences would be immediate and measurable:
massive damage to agriculture and forest ecosystems,
a significant increase in risks to road safety,
economic losses amounting to billions of Czech crowns,
and ultimately, the degradation of the landscape itself.
Here, hunting is neither entertainment nor a hobby. It is a regulatory, professional, and responsible tool, without which nature conservation could not be sustained over the long term.
The same principle applies in Africa—only on a different scale and under different ecological and social conditions. Hunting there is not the opposite of nature conservation.
It is one of its essential foundations.
Final Warning: The Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni)
In conclusion, let us recall a story that should resonate behind every new ban, restriction, or well-intentioned yet poorly thought-out regulation.
For decades, the northern subspecies of the white rhinoceros was placed under strict protection. Hunting was banned, and no form of legal use existed. From an ethical perspective, its protection appeared flawless—clean, absolute, and morally unquestionable.
And yet today, this subspecies effectively no longer exists.
Only two individuals remain—both females—guarded by armed rangers and surrounded by scientists, technology, and laboratory protocols. Not as part of a living landscape, but as a last experimental hope. A species removed from its natural environment, maintained in a kind of artificial survival state simply because conservation failed to create a functional system that accounted for on-the-ground realities and the economic interests of local communities.
Its extinction was not a failure of nature.
It was not the result of hunting.
It was not the consequence of commercial use.
It was exclusively a failure of ideology—an ideology that refused to accept responsibility for management, financing, and the long-term sustainability of conservation.
Nature Conservation in Europe: Be Strict With Ourselves, but Also Be Realistic
The conclusions drawn from Africa are not a distant exotic curiosity. They are both a warning and an inspiration for Europe—including the Czech Republic. Here too, we face the same fundamental question: should nature conservation be built on bans, or on management and responsibility?
Europe is a cultural landscape. The Czech Republic especially so. This is not a “wilderness without people,” but a space where agriculture, hunting, forestry, and nature conservation have been intertwined for centuries. Attempts at absolute protection without active management repeatedly collide with reality: overabundant wildlife, the collapse of certain habitats, growing conflicts with the public, and a gradual loss of trust among local communities.
Strict nature protection is essential.
But it must also be intelligent.
In this context, hunting is not a failure of conservation. It is an integral part of it. It is a tool of regulation, responsibility, and a long-term human relationship with the landscape. Where hunting is conducted professionally, under control, and with respect for biological limits, it contributes to ecosystem stability. Where it is ideologically suppressed without replacement, problems arise—both ecological and social.
Europe should take one key lesson from Africa: conservation without people does not work. And conservation imposed against people works even worse.
If we want to protect nature in the long term, we must:
protect landscapes in cooperation with local communities, never against them,
use all functional tools, including hunting and other forms of regulated commercial use,
make decisions based on hard data, not emotions or the voices of loud but irresponsible agitators,
and accept responsibility for the consequences of our decisions.
True nature conservation is not about symbols.
It is about results.