4 minute read
CHASA CEO - STEPHEN PALOS
Forty Years of Preparation for the Hour to Come
Aperfect storm began brewing in what had been a rather bland period around the start of May this year. On Sunday, 2nd May I attended a function in Pretoria where Environment Minister Barbra Creecy released the findings of a High-Level Panel which had been established in late 2019 to look into the Management, Breeding, Hunting, Trade and Handling of Elephant, Lion, Leopard and Rhinoceros. Concerns immediately began as it became clear that the majority view of the panel was to be implemented, if the Minister and her team were to have their way, and this notwithstanding the fact that the minority who held a more pro-utilisation view were the only panellists actually representing real, on the ground, investment in and utilisation of these species.
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More concerning was a clear bias against general ranching practices and private ownership of wildlife even though this model has proven phenomenally successful for both the conservation of wildlife as well as the benefits derived by people involved in this sector. For me, this is a real and worrying threat against the very model, and the people, who provide the majority of hunting available in South Africa! The report itself numbers 568 pages, with many dreamy platitudes about wilding and open spaces. It almost imagines a country where the lion and leopard roam among the folk in a Disney-like fairy tale! The scary part however, is that the department has thrown a decade’s good work on developing the proper National Biodiversity Economy Strategy aside, wherein we and all other invested stakeholders were proactive and diligent participants, and is trying to steamroller this pie-in-the-sky through. Fortunately, much work (lead initially and strongly by Chasa) has recently seen the formal creation of the Sustainable Use Coalition, Southern Africa (SUCoSA) where a number of major stakeholders who are philosophically aligned, but far more importantly, bonded in friendship and trust, have come together to pool resources and develop single-minded strategies to ensure the defence of our hunting, wildlife and sustainable use heritage long into the future. This, we believe, has been a stich in time. We are working tirelessly in a concerted and cohesive manner to defeat this newfound threat.
We’d hardly started digesting this problem when another bombshell in the form of the Draft Bill on Firearms Control was released by the Secretary of Police for a short public comment period. Every pro-firearm organisation reacted and began attacks against a potential law which would all but totally disarm us! The outstanding issue was the total removal of self-defence as a reason for firearm ownership, but the entire concept damaged and destroyed proper ownership, use and trade in firearms. An effective six gun limit, no firearm collecting, no reloading, limitations on types of firearms in the security sector and much more were proposed. Most readers here would, or at least should, be fully familiar with the issues by now. Chasa were already totally prepared from a strategic and approach perspective. Certainly, this threat needed multi-pronged approaches and all of the many existing firearm organisations (and a few brandnew faces in this space) kicked into gear. We were fortunate to find a good alignment to our strategy and preferred approach in the South African Arms & Ammunition Dealers Association (SAAADA) and through our joint legal advisor, Martin Hood, began to do two key things. The first was a court action designed to extend the comment period and ensure that key queries we’d sent to SAPS and The Minister/Secretariat in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act were duly answered in time for us to respond with solid submissions. The other action was, through Martin, to identify a top-notch senior advocate who could do core legal research and give solid legal opinion on a number of the key aspects of the legislative processes and how the firearm ownership regime is affected and what our strengths and weaknesses are. Those familiar with legal practice will understand the profound nature of major legal briefs to top senior council. It is the stuff that “big guns” are made of in the legal world (pun intended). To this end, Martin suggested Mr Kevin Hopkins and an appropriate brief was prepared on behalf of Chasa & SAAADA. This brief should be with us by time of publication.
We were fortunate in our court bid in that the Secretary of Police saw the merit and strength of our urgent application, and declined to defend the matter, opting rather to settle on terms we believed were very fair and amicable and which were made an order of court. Chasa, again on brief to Martin, submitted a substantial response to the draft bill totalled 218 pages including annexures with the core document being 37 pages long. I can unequivocally state that in our Fortieth Year, we have certainly done, and continue to do, EXACTLY what we exist to do!
