Catherine Semcer penned an article for Property and Environment Research Center that has been shared and celebrated by other sustainable use activists and members of the trophy hunting industry. The article comes across as pro-trophy hunting propaganda due to its misrepresentation of research but that’s only one aspect that I found concerning.
I am much more concerned that Semcer used trophy hunting misinformation to promote US access to African countries’ mineral deposits. As concerning as it is, it shouldn’t come as a surprise given that Semcer’s job at PERC is to promote the business interests of the organization’s American oligarch donors.
PERC is a known denial organization that that published climate change denial pieces like The Case Against the Hockey Stick.
“Of course, there is other evidence for global warming, but none of it proves that the recent warming is unprecedented. Indeed, quite the reverse: surface temperatures, sea levels, tree lines, glacier retreats, summer sea ice extent in the Arctic, early spring flowers, bird migration, droughts, floods, storms—they all show change that is no different in speed or magnitude from other periods, like 1910–1940, at least as far as can be measured. There may be something unprecedented going on in temperature, but the only piece of empirical evidence that actually says so—yes, the only one—is the hockey stick. […] And the hockey stick is wrong.”
Two things to note with that piece of climate change denial:
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It was published in 2010 – decades after unprecedented global warming was a well-established fact.
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It was written by Matt Ridley, a man described as “a powerhouse of climate science denial in Britain.”
PERC is funded by American oligarchs, many of which are sources of dark money for climate denial campaigns. One of the oligarchs that fund the denial organization is Charles Koch of Koch Industries which has earned PERC the label of “Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group.”
Koch Industries, for all of their work in the fossil fuel industry, have invested heavily in EV batteries, particularly Lithium-ion batteries, over the last few years. But the recent investment into alternative energy has had some hurdles that the American corporation must overcome.
Mexico recently nationalized its lithium industry and Chile nearly did the same in an attempt to discard the neoliberal policies that have plagued the country over the past decades.
“The proposal, known as article 27, would have given the state exclusive mining rights over lithium, rare metals and hydrocarbons and a majority stake in copper mines. But it faced fierce opposition from the mining sector and was voted down last week in a defeat for progressive hopes of redistributing wealth in the world’s top copper producing nation.”
The nationalization of lithium prevents access to private corporations and could be a severe blow to Koch Industries’s investment strategy. But there are other important metals that need to be mined for Lithium-ion batteries, like manganese.
When Semcer wrote that reducing friction between the US and African nations “may prove important to the ability of the Biden administration to improve access to African mineral deposits” and that “Southern African nations contain large deposits of the minerals, such as manganese,” neither she nor PERC were concerned about battling climate change.
Manganese mining comes with disastrous ecological and public health consequences. Adults working in mines suffer from exposure while children living near mines suffer from chronic toxicity. Child labor is another unfortunate consequence of manganese mining - three children in Zambia died working in a manganese mine.
Ask yourself, why would anyone involved with conservation, or even trophy hunting for that matter, write about improving US access to mineral deposits in African countries? This should have been a huge red flag for anyone reading Semcer’s article.
And it should be obvious to everyone now that Semcer is using the issue of trophy hunting to call for policies that benefit the business interests of PERC’s oligarch donors.
One of the ways Semcer argued for more access to African countries’ mineral deposits was by highlighting the success of trophy hunting (or rather the failure of a lack of trophy hunting). She said that “research shows that the absence of trophy hunting can produce severe, negative impacts on endangered species, such as the African lion, as economic incentives for habitat conservation and wildlife law enforcement disappear.”
There’s only one problem with that argument – the research that Semcer cited did not show that the absence of trophy hunting produced negative impacts on species like lions. The research only showed that Tanzania’s abandoned trophy hunting blocks lacked large carnivores, it did not show that the decline of large carnivores was caused by the absence of the trophy hunting blocks.
As I previously discussed, the idea that strict regulations killed the trophy hunting industry and led to declines in wildlife is pure propaganda. Past research showed that trophy hunting was responsible for the dramatic declines of lions in Tanzania and the trophy hunting industry’s Strategic Plan for Africa even admitted that trophy hunting was to blame for Tanzania’s declining wildlife.
What Semcer said about the trophy hunting research coming out of Tanzania was false. It was trophy hunting misinformation – and it was used to benefit the business interests of American oligarchs.
Semcer’s article represents a perfect example of why Koch and other oligarchs pump so much money into denial organizations like PERC.
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