Land Rover supports anti-hunters

JabaliHunter

Well-Known Member
from the African Indaba (newsletter on conservation issues and hunting in Africa, sponsored by CIC)
Landrover Supports Anti-Hunters | African Indaba

AFRICAN INDABA » EDITORIAL » LANDROVER SUPPORTS ANTI-HUNTERS DECEMBER 2014, VOLUME 12-6
For decades Landrover has been an extremely popular vehicle with wildlife conservation agencies, hunters and PH’s in Africa. These organizations and people are therefore an important target group for the company. In some countries Landrover dealers organize special events for hunters or offer vehicles that are specially equipped for hunting.

Interesting enough the Landrover Company has selected the “Born Free Foundation”, a pronounced British anti-hunting NGO as its “primary global conservation partner”. According to the company’s website “Landrover is committed to provide the Foundation with practical help by supplying vehicles as well as financial backing for the next five years, reflecting its integrated approach to building global sustainability.” Another animal rights’ campaigner, the “Environmental Investigation Agency”, which concentrates on undercover work against real and perceived wildlife crime and wildlife use, is also privileged to traverse London in a posh Range Rover Evoque.

Like most animal welfare groups, Born Free does only limited practical conservation work. It concentrates on animal welfare activities and also lobbies for its welfare objectives including denouncing hunting. In its own words the Foundation “fights to end this glorified ‘sport’”.

As an example for its animal welfare work six landrovers from the UK were used to transport a circus lion from a resort in Belgium to Schiphol airport. The poor animal was flown to Lusaka and then driven 800 kilometers by an escort of a landrover fleet led by a silver Discovery to Lilongwe in Malawi. There it is living now, again behind fences in a kind of zoo. Lion Simba (a very inventive name for a lion), as it was called, shares now this new confinement with a lion from Romania. It is unknown whether these two European lions find African fences more pleasant than European bars. It is also unknown whether this type of moving misused creatures around the world is only a publicity stunt to collect donations for Born Free or whether this is the “integrated approach to building global sustainability” Landrover speaks of on its website.

The little that Born Free does around the globe for conservation is at the same time used as a door opener for its anti-hunting propaganda and its efforts to close hunting. Also on CITES meetings, the Foundation is active to rally support against pro-wildlife-use decisions and to organize by different means votes for this cause.

On its website the Foundation agitates against hunting in Africa and killing game in “cold blood” and taking “grotesque trophies” home. Born Free concludes „that the ethical, social and biological problems associated with trophy hunting far outweigh any positive contribution the industry can possibly make.“ The Foundation is also active to put pressures on Governments to ban trophy imports. In 1993 the Foundation was instrumental to establish the so-called „Species Survival Network“, a coalition of animal welfare organizations, which works against wildlife utilization including hunting. Born Free’s President is also the President of the network.

Hunting is controversially discussed in the public. We as hunters know this. We are therefore all the time stipulated to evaluate what we are doing and to secure that our hunting is sustainable, ethical and positive for biodiversity in line with the relevant international conventions. African Indaba is a good example how hunters do not hesitate to criticize occurrences, which do not come up to accepted international hunting standards. We do not expect from a company like Landrover to agree with hunting as a way of sustainably utilizing natural resources and thereby contributing to species conservation and rural livelihoods alike. However, it is difficult to accept that an equally controversial anti-sustainable-use pressure group that tries to destroy hunting gets financed from the revenues of the landrovers, which also we hunters buy.

If you drive a landrover or plan to buy one, you may have a few questions to your local dealer.

Author: Rolf D Baldus

 
Any motor manufacturer that can come up with some of the idiocy I encountered on my Freelander (mild steel window regulator cables, that stupid tailgate, the position of the air filter, amongst many other stupid design 'features') or sanctions the release of the criminally stupid 'Evoke' is demonstrably moronic anyway, in my view
 
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This is fantastic news. I hope LR supply all the vehicles to all the various "anti" type organisations as the repair costs and being constantly broken down at the side of the road will take them right out of the game. They will need to double their donations just to keep them mobile.
 
It is sad to see the way they have gone, I was a massive advocate of Landrover and even worked for them as a mechanic, I have owned or driven pretty much every model they have had from Series 1's to Forward Controls, even the Judge Dredd city cab.


I owned a D3 that was nothing but trouble and constantly having expensive faults, although a great vehicle when it was going, you just need to look at all the exposed wiring underneath to see it'll be a disaster as it ages - I will say the freelander 1 and 2 I owned were fantastic vehicles and a friend has a defender that has had a fair bit of abuse but overall thier products are no longer known for rugged, solid build - they are known for breakdowns and unreliability....


They need to go back to thier roots and stop letting the beckams design thier products - although most likely this is where the majority of thier revenue stream is from now so I guess maybe its the right thing for the brand...

a great shame to the people who supported the original Landy's...

I for one cannot see myself buying any of thier future products unless changes are made and I will most likely be buying German or American (VW Amorak or Ford Ranger) in the future....

Regards,

Gixer
 
This is fantastic news. I hope LR supply all the vehicles to all the various "anti" type organisations as the repair costs and being constantly broken down at the side of the road will take them right out of the game. They will need to double their donations just to keep them mobile.

I owned Landrover once, 34000 miles on the clock and a worn out gear box!

atb Tim
 
I owned Landrover once, 34000 miles on the clock and a worn out gear box!

With excellent performance like that they will be asking you to appear in their adverts.

One person I know assured me that her D3 was wonderful and that nothing had ever gone wrong with it. When I pushed her she did then remember that it had 2 complete replacement suspensions and a new gear box and that it seemed to be in the garage a lot. Given this I'm very skeptical of you getting 34000 without a major problem, I bet there are other things you are just not mentioning :)
 
I could deal with minor niggles but Landrover seem very unsympathetic to major issues! it was Mainshaft wear on the D1's and 2's, Inlet manifold gaskets on the 3.9 V8's (both Rangie and discovery), Viscous coupling and head gaskets on the FL1's, Bottom suspension arms, EPB's, wheelbearings, and EGR's on the DIII's - to list a few - none of these are little inexpensive faults and for what is supposed to be a rugged brand it is ridiculous!

One of the best engines they put in was the BMW diesel unit!

I recently bought a Dodge here in the USA and they give a 100,000 mile warranty on the power train and 30,000 miles on everything else on the vehicle - landrover wouldn't sell thier car with that in a million years as they know it would cost them a fortune!


Regards,

gixer
 
Thats good news as LR sorry !( TATA) are't worth the dosh anyway they are't a patch on the old ones for reliability cheap tin cans with silly wheels and rubbish running gear they are about as rugged as a rice pudding .
 
I love the look of the Landrover Defender, but if truth be told, the amount of time that Landrover has had to develop the car you would think that it would have bullet proof reliability by now to say the least.

From what I have read it's too much of a compromise in many people's eyes. Yes it has excellent off road capabilities but it is badly let down by unreliability and poor on road performance and handling.... Perhaps that's why all the profit comes comes from other models in the range... Though these too seem to have been tainted with unreliability!
 
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I believe that in SA the Dicoyery is known as the recovery due to it's reliability issues, the upshot is that you get better MPG on the back of a tow truck.
 
With excellent performance like that they will be asking you to appear in their adverts.

One person I know assured me that her D3 was wonderful and that nothing had ever gone wrong with it. When I pushed her she did then remember that it had 2 complete replacement suspensions and a new gear box and that it seemed to be in the garage a lot. Given this I'm very skeptical of you getting 34000 without a major problem, I bet there are other things you are just not mentioning :)

You misunderstand me, I bought it with 34,000 miles on the clock and yes I was dumb enough to believe the salesman's excuse about the gearbox still needing "running in". It's a long time ago now but another persistent fault was the exhaust pipe burning through at the manifold due to an apparently incurable air leak, I'm sure that if I think about it some of the more minor niggles like leaking door seals, oil leaks and issues with windscreen wipers and indicators might come to mind.

Suffice to say that ever since I have bought Suzuki and more latterly Nissan 4 x 4s and had none of these problems, perhaps it's because they are cheaper than buying a Landrover.

atb Tim
 
You misunderstand me, I bought it with 34,000 miles on the clock and yes I was dumb enough to believe the salesman's excuse about the gearbox still needing "running in". It's a long time ago now but another persistent fault was the exhaust pipe burning through at the manifold due to an apparently incurable air leak, I'm sure that if I think about it some of the more minor niggles like leaking door seals, oil leaks and issues with windscreen wipers and indicators might come to mind.

Suffice to say that ever since I have bought Suzuki and more latterly Nissan 4 x 4s and had none of these problems, perhaps it's because they are cheaper than buying a Landrover.

atb Tim

love it tim,

we have 2 lr's at work and the money we have spent on them this year on mot's and running costs I could have had a fleet of vitara's outside.

happy with my vitara and its getting there with respect to being my shooting wagon,

just need a few more bits

job done.

bob.

can't wait until the last lr rolls of the production line...TATA

bob.
 
Apart from having established they are unreliable cars, I can't believe how their marketing department could figure that ****ing on shooting in this way is or can ever be a good idea.
 
FACT... Land Rovers since Mr TATA took over are more reliable and cheaper to run than Toyota 4X4's. Who says so... the owner of SHB Hire, he should know as he runs and pays the bills for nearly three thousand of each and depreciation is less on Defenders than any other 4X4 on sale today.
As for "a fleet of Vitaras" give SHB a call and tell them they have been doing it wrong for 40 years?

Jaguar Is Number One And Land Rover Named Star Performer In J.D. Power And Associates / What Car? 2013 Survey
 
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FACT... Land Rovers since Mr TATA took over are more reliable and cheaper to run than Toyota 4X4's. Who says so... the owner of SHB Hire, he should know as he runs and pays the bills for nearly three thousand of each and depreciation is less on Defenders than any other 4X4 on sale today.
As for "a fleet of Vitaras" give SHB a call and tell them they have been doing it wrong for 40 years?

Jaguar Is Number One And Land Rover Named Star Performer In J.D. Power And Associates / What Car? 2013 Survey

:stir:
 
Whatever Mr SHB says, he is not "a consumer" in the sense that the rest of us are. The price he pays for the car, the service he receives, all are very different to the rest of us and may influence what he says publicly. He is not stupid and looking out for his £££. If he said the cars were crap his depreciation figures would look a bit more dire. I am sure that some fleet manager who buys lots of cars of Toyota will tell you that they are the bees knees. As far as th JD Power survey is concerned, it shows that the company is moving in the right direction with its current batch of new cars. It does not deny or refute the claims of people on here - who might have had cars made in <2014 - that the built quality is shoddy. What all this does show is that once you tarnished your reputation it is difficult to persuade the buying public that you mended your ways. If I had ever envisaged buying one of their cars, I would certainly not do so now when they blatantly support an organization which seeks to actively ban a sporting activity I value. Neither should you.
 
It would be interesting to hear what Land Rover said about this.

Tata are of course an Indian company and many fieldsports activities that used to be indulged in during the days of Empire I understand are now illegal there. Possibly has a bearing on it. But to eschew those who indulge in shooting in this country would potentially alienate a good wedge of their customer base.

All I can say is that my particular Land Rover supports my fieldsports activities.
 
Indeed, you're much less likely to die sat in a stationary, broken car at the side of the road than you are driving on it...
 
Seriously.....? How blinkered you are.
Is that why mountain rescue, coastguard, fire, police and ambulance use little else for getting to remote areas...?
 
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