No, I'm not talking about myself, though I might as well be. This is is the name of a great new bookshop I discovered recently. In fact, I discovered a whole new old arcade, which
isn’t bad after thirty years in the same smallish city.If you’ve ever watched Black Books, then
you’ll know the kind of bookshop I mean, except that this one is perhaps a bit
more customer friendly and hygienic than said establishment.Eclectic is an overused word, let’s just say
there are books and oddities of every description – new and used, piled high in
every direction.
Did I mention that I loved the smell of bookshops? It must be in the blood
Their blurb says they specialise in Sci Fi, Fantasy, Horror,
Tasmaniana, Philosophy, Classics, Popular Culture and the unusual, so I suppose
that covers everything, except perhaps the stuffed crow that sits above the
horror section. They will also source out -of -print books for you. The Imperial Arcade, off Collins
Street and
opposite the Cat and Fiddle, is a treasure in itself. It’s good to see
the
coffee shops buzzing again and there is an Asian restaurant and a Nepali
restaurant there as well which I'm hoping to explore further soon.
Hobart does have a number of other interesting bookshops,
though I‘m not sure if all of them are operating at present due to COVID and the absence of tourists. Fullers, just up
the road on the corner of Victoria Street certainly is. Established in the 1920’s,
it’s Hobart’s oldest bookshop, though it has moved once or twice. It specialises in home grown literature and as well as having all the latest books it also has its own café. Renown antiquarian bookshop Astrolabe, late of
Salamanca Place, has now moved into Scotty’s Antiques on Argyle Street. It
specialises in maritime, Antarctica, Australian and Tasmanian books and all its
stock can be found online. Others in the
area include Déjà Vu Books in Salamanca Place, The Hobart Bookshop – new and
second hand, on Salamanca Square and just up the hill in Battery Point on the corner of Montpelier Retreat and Hampton Road, there’s
Kookaburra Books. A stroll up Elizabeth Street will reward you
with a fine haul of second hand books and if Sci Fi is your thing, check out
Area 52 which also has games and comics. I'll also add in Voyager here though it seems to exist online only, because it specialises in early maps and Tasmanian prints. There are probably lots of other interesting bookshops.These are just some of the ones I have enjoyed over the years. Feel free to add to the list!
Happy browsing and happy reading and don't forget to maintain social distancing.
Killing animals for fun is an activity which
divides opinion. It can also be a highly emotive issue, with high profile cases
like the death of Cecil
the lion sparking global media coverage and outcry. There were even
calls
for the American dentist who admitted killing Cecil to be charged with illegal
hunting.
But despite the strong feelings it occasionally
provokes, many people may be unaware just how common trophy hunting is. The
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) reports
that between 2004 and 2014, a total of 107 countries participated in the trophy
hunting business. In that time, it is thought over 200,000 hunting trophies
from threatened species were traded (plus a further 1.7m from non-threatened
animals).
Trophy hunters themselves pay vast sums of money to
do what they do (IFAW claims upwards of $US100,000 for a 21-day big game
hunting trip). But reliable data on the economic benefits this brings to the
countries visited remains limited
and contested.
Now the UK government has announced
it is considering banning the trade of hunting trophies from endangered species
– making it a crime to bring them back into the country.
Advocates of trophy hunting – including major
conservation organisations such as the International
Union for Conservation of Nature and the World
Wide Fund for Nature – argue that hunting wild animals can have major
ecological benefits. Along with some governments,
they claim that “well-managed” trophy hunting is an effective conservation
tool, which can also help local communities.
This argument depends in part on the generation of
significant income from the trophy hunters, which, it is claimed, can then be
reinvested into conservation activities.
The broad idea is that a few (often endangered)
animals are sacrificed for the greater good of species survival and
biodiversity. Local human communities also benefit financially from protecting
animal populations (rather than seeing them as a threat) and may reap
the rewards of employment by hunting operations, providing lodgings
or selling goods.
But it remains unclear
in exactly what circumstances trophy hunting produces a valuable conservation
benefit. We cannot assume a scheme that works in one country, targeting one
species, under a specific set of circumstances, is applicable to all other
species and locations.
Also, the purported benefits of trophy hunting rely
on sustainable management, investment of profits, and local community
involvement. But given the levels of perceived
corruption and lack of effective
governance in some of the countries where trophy hunting is carried
out, one wonders how likely it is these conditions
can be met.
And if trophy hunting is really so lucrative, there
is every chance the profits will instead be used to line the pockets of rich
(possibly foreign) operators
and officials.
Death and suffering
This brings us to the question of ethics. Just
because an intervention has the potential to produce a social benefit, does not
mean the approach is ethical. And if it is not ethical, should it be considered
a crime?
This is something of regular concern for social
policy. If the evil that a programme introduces is greater than the evil it
purports to reduce, then it is unethical to implement it.
I would argue that even if convincing evidence does
exist that trophy hunting can produce conservation benefits, it is unethical to
cause the death and suffering of individual animals to save a species.
In common with many green criminologists, I take a
critical approach to the study of environmental and animal-related crime. This
means that I am interested in behaviour that can be thought of as harmful, and
may
be worthy of the label “crime”, even if it has not been formally
criminalised.
When considering global harms and those that impact
heavily on the most powerless in society, this approach is particularly
important.
Conservation is concerned with biodiversity and
animal populations. Contrast this with an animal rights or species
justice perspective, where instead of focusing on rights that benefit
humans over all other species, the interests and intrinsic rights of individual
and groups of animals are considered.
From this viewpoint, trophy hunting undoubtedly
causes harm. It brings pain, fear, suffering and death. Add to this the grief,
mourning and fracturing of familial or social groups that is experienced
by animals such as elephants, whales, primates and giraffes. In light of these
harms, trophy hunting is surely worthy of the label “crime”.
Allowing trophy hunting also perpetuates the notion
that animals are lesser than humans. It turns wildlife into a commodity, rather
than living, feeling, autonomous beings – beings that I have argued
should be viewed as victims
of crime.
Anthropocentric
views also facilitate and normalise the exploitation, death and mistreatment of
animals. The harmful effects can be seen in intensive
farming, marine
parks and “canned
hunting”, where (usually lions) are bred in captivity (and sometimes
drugged) as part of trophy hunting operations. Where money can be made from
animals, exploitation, and wildlife crime, seem likely to follow.
Instead, local communities must be involved in
decisions about conservation and land management, but not at the expense of
endangered species, or of individual animals hunted for sport. Alternative
conservation approaches like photo tourism, and schemes to reduce human-animal
conflict must be embraced.
Banning trophy hunting would provide a much needed
incentive to develop creative conservation approaches to wildlife protection
and human-animal co-existence. And there is still substantial
conservation income to be earned without resorting to trophy hunting.
So governments around the world should introduce
bans on trophy imports – alongside providing support for alternative, ethical
developments that benefit both wild animals and local communities. Anything
less is complicit support of a crime against some of the world’s most
vulnerable wildlife.
Coincidentally the subject of “canned hunting” featured on television here this week, with Louis Theroux’s “African
Hunting Holiday”outlining some of the
pros and cons. If the full video doesn’t
work where you are, link to it directly at Daily Motion by clicking here.
Melanie Flynn’s article for The Conversation follows next
The tide is also turning against the Great White Hunter. Trophy
hunting has been banned in Costa Rica, Kenya and Malawi and leopards may no
longer be hunted in South Africa. True there are some forms of hunting which
may still be necessary – for food, for protection against predators, getting
rid of introduced pests and so forth, so I won’t quarrel with those for the
moment, though it would be good to see more humane ways of dealing with such
issues too – for example, birth control is being proposed for our wild horses
(brumbies) rather than having to cull them in our highlands where large numbers
may damage fragile lands. One should also consider that one reason why species
are becoming ‘pests’ in some areas is because humans have encroached on more
and more of their habitat.
However, as many species are in decline globally, there are
strong ethical reasons to reconsider our relationship with wild animals and
to desist from killing for fun and profit, as outlined in the next post by Melanie
Flynn, especially as many of the economic and conservation arguments being put
forward by hunters do not stack up.
The reliability of the data used to justify such activities is questionable.
With rare exceptions, hunting safaris as conducted in much of Africa, do not
necessarily produce the desired rewards for communities unless well managed to
ensure that funds do go back to communities, towards genuine conservation and ensuring
that quotas are adhered to. In Tanzania for example, 40% of hunting grounds
were depleted of animals and legitimisation of ‘canned,’ hunting i.e. on game
ranches and the like, and export of trophies in South Africa, have encouraged poaching of
wild lions leaving only 200,000 in the entire continent. Trophy hunting is also
believed to be behind the ‘silent decline’ of giraffes.
According to a 2019 article in the New York Times much of the money goes towards private
operators or the pockets of corrupt governments, while local people are
effectively marginalised. In the end tourism for wildlife viewing and
photography brings in far more than trophy hunting does. This applies as much to domestic wildlife as it does to that in more
remote locations.
As for trophy hunting being good for the species, as some
hunters claim, the opposite is true. By
taking the largest and best specimens out of the gene pool, the species becomes weaker and often less prolific. By way of
example, animal welfare organisation Peta reports that the horn lengths of Canada’s
bighorn sheep declined by 25% over the past 40 years due to hunting pressures,
but the genetic impact on species most likely runs much deeper, especially under conditions of climate change.
While we should not dictate to other countries
about what they should and should not do with their wildlife, we can
discourage the import of trophies into our own countries and reject the glorification of killing on social media. I'm not sure how to do this. At least one Norwegian firm has terminated one of its executives after publicity over his involvement in a trophy hunt. Several other countries including the Netherlands, Australia and the UK are also seeking to introduce bans.
See the Peta pages or The Humane Society of the USA pages for other actions
you could take if you want to help stop this cruel and completely unnecessary activity.