Elephant culling debate is about governance, not activism

Few words in conservation evoke stronger emotions than culling. The reaction intensifies further when the term “hunting trophy” is added. The very mention of it is enough to ignite public outrage, mobilise advocacy campaigns and generate headlines that frame conservation managers as executioners rather than custodians. 

It is therefore unsurprising that Don Pinnock’s Op-Ed on 6 July 2026, “Let’s talk ‘lethal control’ – Ezemvelo wants to cull 1,220 elephants”, and Adam Cruise’s 8 July Op-Ed, “The 951 dead elephants in the Kruger Park and a question everyone should be asking”, have become another flashpoint in South Africa’s increasingly polarised conservation debate.

Yet beneath the emotionally charged language lies a more important question, one that extends far beyond elephants.

Who is entrusted to manage conservation areas? The answer should be straightforward: The management authority. Not the loudest advocacy group. Not the most persuasive opinion writer. Not whichever organisation is most successful at shaping public sentiment through media campaigns.

And how should it be managed? By balancing ecological, economic and social needs. It is not by surrendering to whoever feels most strongly in the conservation conflict trifecta. A management authority exists because someone must ultimately accept responsibility for the ecological condition of protected areas. That responsibility is neither symbolic nor optional. It carries legal obligations, financial accountability and ecological consequences that extend decades beyond the lifespan of a news cycle.

Institutional transparency

For that reason alone, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife deserves recognition for something that is becoming increasingly uncommon: institutional transparency.

Rather than quietly implementing a controversial decision or allowing speculation to fill an information vacuum, Ezemvelo placed an extraordinarily difficult management issue into the public domain. It acknowledged the scale of its elephant management challenges, explained that alternatives such as translocation are still pursued where feasible, and openly accepted the inevitable scrutiny that accompanies any discussion of lethal control.

Transparency should be the foundation upon which constructive debate is built. Instead, transparency is increasingly treated as an invitation for prosecution.

Rather than approaching the issue as one of competing ecological realities requiring difficult judgement, sometimes the narrative that journalism leans towards is casting doubt on the legitimacy of the management authority itself. The underlying suggestion is that if management reaches conclusions not shared by advocacy organisations or external commentators, those conclusions require exceptional justification before they deserve public acceptance. In this framing, the debate is no longer primarily about ecological impact, the long-term survival of the species and habitat, or the broader needs of society. The debate has now become a contest over who has the right to decide.

That expectation fundamentally misunderstands how conservation is governed. Science is indispensable. It informs decisions. It does not make them.

There is a growing tendency within conservation discourse to elevate scientific opinion above management authority, as though publishing a paper or interpreting ecological data automatically confers responsibility for managing an entire protected area. It does not.

Moreover, science itself is not immune to bias. Research questions can be framed in leading ways that steer findings toward predetermined outcomes, and methodologies frequently overlook critical social, economic or operational realities. Professional managers are trained and have experience to recognise these limitations and to weigh scientific inputs against the broader set of considerations required for sound decisions.

Decision-making is multifaceted

Scientific evidence is one component of decision-making. So too are legislative obligations, ecosystem resilience, operational realities, budget constraints, human safety, infrastructure protection, neighbouring communities’ wellbeing, biodiversity objectives and institutional capacity.

Someone must weigh all of these simultaneously. That person is not the journalist. Nor the activist. Nor the NGO.

It is the manager appointed to carry both the authority and the accountability for those decisions.

One of the more troubling aspects of the article is its criticism of Ezemvelo’s head of scientific services, implying that recommendations supporting culling lack an adequate scientific basis. Scientific debate is entirely legitimate. Robust disagreement is healthy. No professional should be insulated from scrutiny.

But there is a profound difference between questioning scientific interpretation and implying that professional judgement is somehow illegitimate because it does not align with a preferred narrative. Professional managers are neither obligated nor expected to seek permission from NGOs or opinion writers before exercising their statutory authority. 

They are entitled to consult whoever they believe will best inform their decision. They are equally entitled to reject advice that they judge inappropriate, incomplete or impractical. Consultation is an essential management tool. Consensus is not. 

Confusing those two concepts has become one of the defining weaknesses of contemporary conservation governance. 

Public relations pressures

Increasingly, conservation professionals find themselves navigating not only ecosystems, but an expanding landscape of ideological expectations, procedural hurdles and public relations pressures. Decisions are too often assessed according to whether they satisfy external constituencies rather than whether they fulfil the ecological, social and economic mandate entrusted to the management authority and governed by biodiversity management legal frameworks such as the National Biodiversity Economy Strategy. 

The result is predictable. Managers become reluctant to manage. Scientists become reluctant to recommend. Institutions become reluctant to lead. 

Conservation becomes reluctant to act. This is not accountability. It is institutional hesitation. Ecosystems rarely benefit from hesitation, institutional paralysis or accountability chill.

There is an uncomfortable reality deserving acknowledgement. Many modern conservation debates are no longer centred solely on ecology, social and economic needs or people and nature. They have become contests of ideology, identity and influence. Media platforms increasingly function as arenas in which competing organisations seek public endorsement, often framing disagreements as moral struggles between enlightened advocacy and outdated management.

That adversarial model produces headlines. It seldom produces better conservation.

Conservation has never advanced because institutions spent their energy defeating one another. It has advanced because managers, scientists, communities, landowners, NGOs and policymakers recognised biodiversity is the common denominator around which legitimate disagreement should occur.

When that shared purpose is replaced by institutional rivalry, everyone loses. Most importantly, habitat and wildlife lose. Healthy conservation institutions require scrutiny. They require transparency. They require accountability.

They also need confidence that their legal authority won’t be undermined whenever difficult decisions upset political or vested interests.

A management authority cannot function effectively if every operational decision becomes subject to a public referendum orchestrated through media campaigns. Nor should it.

There is a distinction between holding institutions accountable and attempting to govern them from the outside. One strengthens conservation. The other weakens it.

An immense responsibility

The responsibility entrusted to conservation managers is immense. They are expected to balance ecological integrity with social realities, financial limitations with legal obligations, and scientific advice with practical implementation. Their decisions will never satisfy everyone because conservation itself is an exercise in managing competing values under imperfect conditions. Leadership was never intended to be comfortable. Nor was stewardship.

South Africa’s conservation future will not be secured by replacing management with activism or governance with editorial influence. It will be secured by building institutions that are transparent enough to invite scrutiny, confident enough to make difficult decisions, and respected enough to exercise the authority that Parliament has entrusted to them.

Those who disagree with a management decision should challenge it vigorously, respectfully and with evidence.

But they should also recognise an essential principle upon which all successful conservation depends: Responsibility and authority must remain inseparable.

The moment we expect managers to carry responsibility without allowing them the authority to lead, we cease to practise conservation management. We begin practising conservation by committee. History suggests ecosystems rarely flourish under committees. DM