Anti-abortion sentiments are unfortunately all too common within the trophy hunting community. The multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign funded by the likes of Safari Club International posted anti-abortion memes and spread hateful rhetoric through fake social media profiles.
But we need to take a deeper look at the issue of abortion as it relates to wildlife conservation now that the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
This was a strictly undemocratic decision financed by America’s wealthiest elites — such as the Koch family. The same Koch family that funds sustainable use groups promoting trophy hunting as a conservation tool.
The Kochs have been waging a war on women for decades. And the Charles Koch Foundation was a large donor to Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization responsible for the court case overturning abortion rights.
[ADF is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.]
Fighting abortion access isn’t the only thing on the agenda for the Charles Koch Foundation though. The foundation is also one of the largest donors to right wing think tank and sustainable use group Property and Environment Research Center. Records indicate that PERC has received $590,000 from the Charles Koch Foundation since 2013 (this figure does not include the amount PERC likely received from the Kochs through other dark money interest groups).
[PERC is classified as a “Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group” by Greenpeace.]
Why would American oligarchs want to restrict abortion access and promote trophy hunting? Because both issues suit the capitalist agenda.
Women move from the public sphere to the domestic sphere when they have children. This shift reduces the amount of people who are willing and able to organize against the capitalist system and its oligarch benefactors.
Trophy hunting privatizes natural resources and creates new international commodity markets. It expands capitalism into developing countries under the guise of wildlife conservation.
Trophy hunting, like forced birth, is a tool wealthy elites use to maintain an economic system that gives them power over others.
This opposes the narrative promoted by sustainable use activists that trophy hunting is a tool for conservation.
PERC lists more than four sustainable use activists as part of its ‘People,’ including: Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes, Catherine Semcer, Adam Hart, and Amy Dickman.
These four are members of the IUCN Sustainable Use and Livelihoods group, an organization that claims to “address the urgent challenges of overexploitation of wild species and support robust, equitable models of sustainable use that meet human needs and priorities.”
It is a terrifying reality that the conservationists working to “meet human needs and priorities” are associated with an organization funded by American oligarchs waging war on women’s rights.
The fact that very few people know about these connections shows that we need to reframe how we think about trophy hunting.
Wildlife conservation has been viewed through a very narrow lens for too long. Opening our eyes to all the factors influencing conservation policies is key to solving the biodiversity crisis and building a better world for all living beings - human and nonhuman, rich and poor.
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