For the second time, the German Delegation of the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation organized a conference at the “Jagd&Hund” trade fair in Dortmund under the theme “International Species Protection and Hunting.”

Dr. Dietrich Jelden, CIC expert and longtime, now retired, Head of the German CITES enforcement authority drew an unequivocal conclusion: “It remains a problem in the German-speaking world: we do a lot of good, but, unlike other nations, we have some inhibitions in talking about it!” His advice was that in order to improve the public’s acceptance of hunters, “flagship projects” should be made more visible, not only in Africa but worldwide. The Federal Ministry for the Environment, which has political leadership in international species protection in Germany, has been influenced by “specific non-governmental organizations” for many decades, criticized Jelden. In this case, hunting tourists would hardly be noticed if they were in violation of species protection.

CIC President George Aman focused on the role of hunters in biodiversity conservation. The main task of the CIC, representing the interests of more than 30 million hunters worldwide, is to maintain the sustainable use of nature and, thus, hunting as a means of nature and species conservation. With the One Euro Initiative, where one euro is collected from each hunter every year, European hunters could raise €7 million annually for the global work of the CIC and FACE. The President of FACE, the “boss” of European hunters, had previously mentioned the close cooperation between the CIC and FACE in achieving common goals in Brussels.

The Jagd & Hund is Europe’s most important hunting fair. In 2017, 70,000 visitors and 800 companies from 38 nations came to Dortmund.