How Western “Green” Activists Are Harming African Wildlife
What if the Western “green” activists you trust are actually destroying African wildlife? A frontline anti-poaching ranger reveals the harsh reality behind trophy bans and misguided campaigns, and how “saving” animals abroad is silently killing them at home.
Zandré Lambrechts
Jul 14, 2025 - 1:25 PM
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As an anti-poaching ranger working deep in South Africa’s game reserves, I spend countless hours in the bush: tracking poachers, removing snares, and protecting animals like rhinos, elephants, and leopards. My colleagues and I risk our lives daily, often with little gear, limited funding, and no global spotlight. But increasingly, our toughest battles aren’t just against criminal syndicates - they’re against certain environmentalists from Europe and North America.
From my viewpoint on the ground, some of the loudest "Green" voices in the West, particularly those campaigning against regulated hunting, are unintentionally harming conservation efforts. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t listen.
The Hunting Hypocrisy
Take hunting, for example - a red-flag issue for many activists abroad. Foreign campaigns have successfully pressured governments and airlines to ban the transport of hunting trophies, shutting down legal, tightly regulated hunting industries that have funded conservation for decades.
What these activists often miss is this: when done responsibly, selective hunting actually saves more animals than it kills. Wild animals are beautiful, but if they don’t feed families, protect land, or generate income, they quickly become liabilities. That’s the hard truth.
In Africa, where wildlife shares the land with rural poverty, hunting is often the economic engine driving conservation. A single trophy hunt can fund ranger salaries, anti-poaching patrols, boreholes, clinics, and schools. It gives wildlife value and communities a reason to protect animals rather than poach them.
Eco-tourism works in some places but not everywhere. Some regions are too remote, too dangerous, or lack the infrastructure for luxury lodges and camera safaris. In these areas, ethical hunting is often the only viable source of conservation funding.
When that income disappears, as it has in parts of Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe following Western trophy bans, wild animals stop being assets and start being seen as threats, pests, or easy food. Land once managed for wildlife is sold, fenced off, or converted to farms. Elephants are poisoned. Lions are shot. Communities that once depended on legal, controlled hunting lose their livelihoods.
We’ve already seen this happen. In parts of southern Africa, trophy hunting funds a large portion of conservation budgets. Remove that income, and rangers are laid off, fences fall into disrepair, poachers move in, and wildlife vanishes. We all lose.
The Dangers of Overpopulation
There is also a harsh ecological truth that most urban environmentalists do not grasp. Having too many animals can be just as dangerous as having too few.
In fenced reserves or game farms, where predators are absent and migration is blocked, animal populations explode. Overgrazed antelope strip the land bare, soil turns to dust, biodiversity collapses, and when food runs out, animals endure slow, painful starvation. We’ve witnessed it firsthand, wildlife wasting away in once-thriving bushveld, all because someone far away signed a petition to “save them.”
This is where selective, science-based hunting plays a critical role. Removing older, non-breeding males prevents inbreeding, keeps populations balanced, and protects the land for future generations. It may not be pretty. But it’s necessary.
Luxury of Ideals
Worse still, some Western NGOs with deep pockets and a saviour complex try to dictate how we should "protect nature" without understanding the terrain, the people, or the war we are fighting. They rally online campaigns against local conservancies, block permits, and flood the internet with misinformation. Meanwhile, we are out here collecting the carcasses of snared antelopes and mutilated rhinos.
They have the luxury of ideals. We live with the consequences.
Standard practices, permits, and oversight are essential, but a bureaucratic approach to saving lives — whether of animals or humans — often leads to delays, miscommunication, and policy failures. We operate in a vastly different world, with a distinct culture and a higher rate of criminality than what foreign activists are accustomed to.
Their activism may win likes. Ours must save lives.
Not All Green is Good
There’s a real difference between genuine conservation and superficial activism. True conservation is grounded in reality. It embraces tough trade-offs and works with local communities, not against them. In Africa, the survival of wildlife depends on its value to the people who live alongside it.
Many Western environmentalists don’t get this. They see hunting and assume cruelty. They hear “management” and think exploitation. But pushing for bans without understanding the full picture risks turning them into the very threat they claim to fight. Their hearts may be in the right place. But from where I stand, their actions are setting conservation back.
So next time you see a Western “greenie” waving a placard in Berlin, London or Paris to “ban the hunt,” ask yourself: what are they really saving? And who pays the price?Out here on the ground, we already know the answer.
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Zandré Lambrechts
Conservationist | Anti-Poaching Ranger