DALLAS, TX — In a bold and optimistic moment at the Inaugural DSC Summer Expo, Rob McCanna, Chief Executive Officer of Dallas Safari Club (DSC) and DSC Foundation, joined a high-level delegation from Angola along with partners from Conservation Force, to announce the reopening of Angola to legal, regulated hunting. The two hunter-led conservation organizations also signed a memorandum of understanding with their Angolan counterparts, forming the basis of cooperation to build the African country’s hunting industry.
Speaking before an enthusiastic and supportive gathering of international hunter-conservationists and outfitters, McCanna emphasized the significance of Angola’s move—not merely as a geographic reopening, but as a strategic, science-based return to sustainable use. “This is a door reopening,” he stated, “a door to wild country, to real adventure, and to conservation that actually works.”
Once a premier African hunting destination, Angola’s wildlife sector was devastated by decades of war, leaving wildlife populations unmanaged and vulnerable. McCanna praised the Angolan leadership, their people and passionate conservationists for their determined efforts to rebuild natural resource governance, restore habitats, and reintroduce regulated hunting as a tool for conservation and community development.
“Angola is not following a script written by activists or donor-driven agendas,” McCanna noted. “This is Angola’s decision. The Angolan people are standing up for science and recognizing that hunting is the surest way to conserve wildlife.”
McCanna urged the hunting community and conservation stakeholders to support Angola in building a gold-standard hunting framework centered on sound ethics, local benefit-sharing, and ecological integrity. He called on seasoned hunters to add Angola to their future plans and conservation supporters to “back this effort.”
The Director of the National Institute of Forestry Development (IDF), the competent authority on hunting in Angola, Dr. Simao Zau said, ”I would like to thank Conservation Force for the intense technical assistance they started to guide the Angolan authorities in implementing the Hunting Regulations with the support of DSC, and we are determined to overcome the immense challenges ahead of us, conscious of the outstanding value that well-regulated hunting can bring to wildlife conservation and communities livelihoods.”
To support the rebirth of hunting in Angola, a 14-day plains game hunt was auctioned off during the DSC Life Member Breakfast and a 5-day blue marlin fishing adventure sold at the Smoke & Spurs kickoff event, held during the Inaugural DSC Summer Expo in Grapevine, Texas July 17-19. These auctions, along with other fundraising events held during the 3-day event, helped raise ~$3.5M in support of the DSC mission.
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