Trophy hunting

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife Department has done a commendable job by initiating the ‘Trophy Hunting’ programme in Chitral and Kohistan districts. This programme has been put in place since 2004 in which only a few hunting permits of Markhor and Ibex are issued annually through an international auction. The hunting permit fee for a single Markhor goes as far as $10,000. The money earned through the hunting permit is distributed among local communities and the government in the ratio 80:20. The local communities’ share is deposited into the bank account of the Village Conservation Fund (VCF), which is maintained by a village conservation committee (VCC). The government’s share is spent on the salaries of local communities’ wildlife watchers and paying honorarium to them for protecting the precious wildlife species.

Moreover, the trophy hunting programme is also proving beneficial for the protection and conservation of precious wildlife species. Local communities take extreme care of wildlife species and do not permit anyone to hunt them illegally because they provide them economic benefits. It is due to this reason that the population of near extinct Markhor has significantly increased from a few hundred to thousands now. The government should extend this programme to other areas of the country and include other wildlife species like the Houbara bustard in it.

M Sayyad Alam Khan

Peshawar