The Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs welcomes the adoption of the report of the colloquium on captive lion breeding for hunting and lion bone trade by the National Assembly yesterday.
The committee conducted a highly successful two-day colloquium on Captive Breeding of Lions for Hunting and for Lion Bone Trade on 21 and 22 of August 2018. There was an overwhelming consensus from the local and the international stakeholders participating in the colloquium that South Africa must bring an end to this controversial practice that is threatening to harm the proud conservation image of the country, and the Brand South Africa. This practice has indeed attracted a considerable degree of international outcry against it, from both the pro-sustainable use group, comprising mainly the hunting associations and the anti-sustainable use group, consisting of animal welfare non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Having heard both sides of the story, including the voices of the Captive Lion Breeding (CLB) Industry, the committee unanimously made certain pertinent observations and resolutions to restore our image as a pioneering conservation nation, with positive socio-economic spin offs for our people that far outweighs what the CLB Industry generates. It is therefore in this respect that the committee appreciates the strategic, bold and decisive leadership that the former Acting Minister of Environmental Affairs, Minister Derek Hanekom and the newly appointed Minister Nomvula Mokonyanye had exercised in operationalising some of the resolutions of the committee contained in the colloquium report by announcing that a high level panel would be appointed to conduct a policy review on Captive Breeding of Lions for Hunting and For Lion Bone Trade as well as reduction in the lion bone quota trade from 1 500 to the 800 that was initially set, respectively. In so doing, the committee takes this opportunity to reassure South Africans that theirs is a caring and listening government, now that the National Assembly has adopted the colloquium report, which fundamentally reflects their views.
Media enquiries:
Faith Ndenze
Tel: (021) 403 8062
Cell: 081 377 0686
Email: fndenze@parliament.gov.za
