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IWMC
World Conservation Trust |
The perennial struggle to demonstrate control of public
policy on the environment has once again been expressed through an "animal
rights" contest in Great Britain. It was reported in the press that late
on March 18th, the Labor Party-dominated House of Commons, joined by
Labor leader Prime Minister Blair, voted 386 to 175 in favor of a complete ban
on hunting game with dogs. On March 19th, the House of Lords
rejected that move, with its own vote of 831 to 74 in favor of licensing, an
alternative not considered worthy by the Commons. Both houses had had the
options of a ban, a licensing compromise, or of taking no action on the matter.
 The UK administration's pattern of action is to consider the political
importance to itself of both these vote demonstrations, and to then construct
and propose a formal piece of legislation that it hopes will be passed in
further action. The voting ritual by both houses of Parliament is carried out
as a demonstration of the relative strength of the proposals, which functions
as a legislators' opinion poll in the process of law development. No one wants
to be on the ultimate losing side of such a matter that reflects actual opinion
of the British public on control of traditional practices.
Country citizens view fox hunting with horses and hounds as a revered
tradition, and one that contributes strongly both to cultural identity and to
local economies. Britain's urban citizens and the ruling Labor Party tend to
criticize any hunting, taking note of activist claims that it is "cruel
and barbaric" and "unseemly" for an advanced nation to endorse.
Political analysts see the struggle as another way for radical NGOs such as the
International Fund For Animal Welfare to increasingly control public policy
through political threats, and to demonstrate their own growing political
influence through these animal issue measures. Red foxes are overtaking the
English countryside, and are finding suitable habitat in England's cities, even
London, where they are a novelty, a menace, and eaters of rats, handouts, and
garbage. So far, the UK has taken every precaution to prevent spread of fox
rabies from entering the UK through the Chunnel, from France, where rabies is
endemic, and where thousands of people are treated every year after contact
with the diseased foxes there.
IWMC notes that the UK stand on the whaling issue parallels this recent
NGO-Labor Party-coalition power demonstration on fox hunting. Similarities are
reluctance or outright refusal to consider compromises in wildlife management
instead of outright bans on hunting. Home politics has become a priority over
the common welfare.
IWMC considers the process in the UK a sad reflection of a global process of
increasing power by green NGOs to control policy more by contrived public
preferences than by use of science, or compassion for people. Governments, even
constitutional monarchies, are supposed to function for the good of their
constituents, not just for the crass reasons of perpetuating their own power
bases through a process of least public criticism. IWMC endorses and hopes to
see develop, a legislative and administrative process that will support both
rural cultural tradition and practical control of Britain's wildlife. 
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