ON Tuesday at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) at the Hague, Uganda was given permission to restart trophy hunting of leopards. According to reports from the function the decision was justified on the strength of 20-year-old data.

CITES is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
Trade in endangered species and their trophies grosses $12b a year, a figure only bested by drug trafficking and the arms trade.

Under the current arrangement Uganda can export 28 leopard skins a year.
This decision is hard to justify.
Often times after trade in endangered species is prohibited for some time and animal populations grow an easing on hunting restrictions can be allowed to regulate the species numbers.

If that is the case, Ugandans will not be blamed for wondering where this ballooning population of leopards is that needs culling. They probably will be even more shocked that we can afford to lose 28 leopards a year. Are there 28 leopards in Uganda today?

An enquiry should be made to find out who is responsible and what is our justification for requesting that leopard trophy hunting be recommenced.

Not only because the scarcity of leopards in Uganda is a cause for concern in and of itself, but more importantly it points to insidious workings by some shadowy characters set on undermining government processes.

It is shocking to note that the players behind these underhand manoeuvres are now operating in broad daylight using established official and diplomatic channels to achieve their own ends. Today it is our miserly population of the leopards, God knows what it will be tomorrow.

Government needs to nip this impunity in the bud before it becomes pervasive and paralyses government’s legitimate mission to improve the collective welfare of Ugandans.