By KARI MUTU

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The wildlife documentary Trophy is an expose of attitudes towards conservation, hunting and poaching in Africa.

It follows the journey of big-game hunting, from conventions in the US to the killing of wildlife in a system of canned hunting in South Africa. Trophy hunters justify their sport as supporting conservation and local communities.

After a film screening in Nairobi hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Association of East Africa this past Tuesday, there was a panel discussion with Bea Karanja, the communications director at the Northern Rangelands Trust, and environmentalist Mordecai Ogada, author of The Big Conservation Lie.

Ogada took issue with the elitism of sport hunting in Africa that primarily serves wealthy Western patrons, and also with the Kenyan tourism industry whom he says are not doing enough to empower neighbouring communities.

Karanja noted that Trophy failed to capture the voices of the locals. It also did not outline how exactly sports hunting revenues are channelled to local communities that remain poor.

The documentary follows game ranchers like entrepreneur and conservationist John Hume who operates a private breeding farm for rhinos in eastern South Africa. He safely cuts off their horns and sells them, using the funds to pay for the huge costs of managing more than 1,300 rhinos.

Hume and other ranchers hold the view that legal farming and trade in wildlife products economically benefits communities, counters illegal trade and prevents species like the rhino from becoming extinct.

Poaching of rhinos for their horn is driven by the commercial demand mainly in Asia. Between 2009 and 2017 the number of rhinos poached in South Africa rose from 122 to 1028.

Zimbabwean wildlife official Chris Moore says the country is fighting poachers from impoverished local communities. A rhino horn can fetch up to $250,000 on the black market. Moore acknowledges that funds from sports hunting support their anti-poaching efforts.

However, the commodification of wildlife faces opposition from traditional conservationists for whom any type animal captivity is unacceptable.

Yet, as conservationist Craig Parker points out, privately-owned wildlife sanctuaries have helped to revamp the populations of declining animals.

With such varied values among stakeholders, the film does not offers a single solution to stop the decimation of wildlife.

The debate rages on.