A colonial attitude remains pervasive among those who defend the trophy hunting of elephants. They argue that ‘the west’ must stop lecturing Africans about how to manage their elephants.

But it was Western hunters who shot elephants out to the point where they had to establish reserves, dispossessing and crowding out local communities in the process.

Fortress conservation and green militarisation are direct functions of these past colonial activities that created a ‘white hunter/black poacher’ narrative.

Imperial saviours

A major part of the reason that local communities are so upset at being excluded from national parks has much to do with how they were established in the first place – largely by colonial authorities creating hunting playgrounds.

Public relations efforts to paint western trophy hunters as the imperial saviours of poor African communities are…