ways that the GAC can go about getting
funding to get results for all of us.
Let’s just also be clear that the GAC is
made up of all stakeholders, including
recreational hunters. Yes, there are
commercial interests in there having a
say, but collectively we need to stand
up and take ownership of our own
resource and its future. Freshwater
anglers and gamebird hunters have
done it and fund their management
through a license fee independent of the
government.
The GAC legislation allows for the
commercial sector to provide some
funding via a trophy export levy targeting
international hunters, but this is yet to
be implemented and the majority of
work the GAC has been doing benefits
kiwi recreational hunters most. So, we
need a funding system that is fair for the
whole hunting sector and gives hunters
independence from government as much
as possible. We simply can’t expect a
well-managed hunting resource if
the government is doing the paying,
and therefore the saying.
The world is learning what a world
class resource we have here, but the NZ
government is still completely blind to
this. So, when it comes time to pay your
part in protecting what we have for our
future generations, let’s not get hungup on the aged rhetoric of “bugger that,
hunting is free”
Quite simply we all know that recreational
hunting is the best form of managing our
big game populations. It’s been shown
time and time again that we harvest more
animals per year than the commercial
guys. So, it’s about time we had as
much say, if not more than these otherinterests do. There’s only one way this will
happen and it involves you spending the
equivalent of maybe a weekend’s beers
a year to help maintain hunting as we
know it.
We have seen it all before, if we
snooze we will lose. How’s
that 8 shot Benelli going for
you guys?AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY AT POINTSSOUTH.CO.NZ
INDUSTRY
LEADING
APPAREL
This is what Fish and Game's expenses looked like last year. As you can
see, licencing allows for expenditure on a huge range of activity, almost
all of which would translate to big game hunting.62 NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE ~August / September 2019ways that the GAC can go about getting
funding to get results for all of us.
Let’s just also be clear that the GAC is
made up of all stakeholders, including
recreational hunters. Yes, there are
commercial interests in there having a
say, but collectively we need to stand
up and take ownership of our own
resource and its future. Freshwater
anglers and gamebird hunters have
done it and fund their management
through a license fee independent of the
government.
The GAC legislation allows for the
commercial sector to provide some
funding via a trophy export levy targeting
international hunters, but this is yet to
be implemented and the majority of
work the GAC has been doing benefits
kiwi recreational hunters most. So, we
need a funding system that is fair for the
whole hunting sector and gives hunters
independence from government as much
as possible. We simply can’t expect a
well-managed hunting resource if
the government is doing the paying,
and therefore the saying.
The world is learning what a world
class resource we have here, but the NZ
government is still completely blind to
this. So, when it comes time to pay your
part in protecting what we have for our
future generations, let’s not get hungup on the aged rhetoric of “bugger that,
hunting is free”
Quite simply we all know that recreational
hunting is the best form of managing our
big game populations. It’s been shown
time and time again that we harvest more
animals per year than the commercial
guys. So, it’s about time we had as
much say, if not more than these otherinterests do. There’s only one way this will
happen and it involves you spending the
equivalent of maybe a weekend’s beers
a year to help maintain hunting as we
know it.
We have seen it all before, if we
snooze we will lose. How’s
that 8 shot Benelli going for
you guys?AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY AT POINTSSOUTH.CO.NZ
INDUSTRY
LEADING
APPAREL
This is what Fish and Game's expenses looked like last year. As you can
see, licencing allows for expenditure on a huge range of activity, almost
all of which would translate to big game hunting.62 NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE ~August / September 2019