Vienna, 17 April 2026
At the 72nd CIC General Assembly in Vienna, Shane P. Mahoney, President of the CIC Policy and Law Division, delivered one of the most significant addresses in recent CIC history — a wide-ranging intellectual case for why Europe, and the CIC, are uniquely positioned to lead the global defence of hunting and conservation.
Drawing on 500 years of European intellectual achievement — from the Renaissance and the Reformation to the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Darwinian revolution — Shane argued that Europe has an unparalleled history of generating thought revolutions that have changed the world. That capacity, he contended, must now be directed towards the most urgent challenge facing the hunting and conservation community: convincing a dissociated civilisation that hunting remains relevant, influential, and irreplaceable.
“It is critically important that we recognise that hunting is not a sideshow. It is not just a habit. It is not just a pastime. If we continue to represent this activity in that way, we can expect only more challenge and difficulty.”
Shane called on the CIC to move from reactive to strategic — to embrace the large conceptual frameworks of the Wildlife Economy and One Health, to bring social sciences to bear alongside biological sciences, and to demonstrate a breadth of care for all of nature, not only hunted species. He termed this vision Full Spectrum Conservation.
“We must bring not only biological sciences to bear. We must bring the social sciences to bear. We must cross boundaries, build bridges, and replace isolation with an attempt to reach across the aisle.”
He closed with a call to courage — citing Winston Churchill’s words from the darkest days of the Second World War as a framework for the challenge ahead:
“Success is not final and failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”
Shane’s address set the intellectual tone for a two-day programme that brought together government ministers, scientists, conservation leaders, and hunters from 42 countries under the theme of the Wildlife Economy — the largest CIC General Assembly in the organisation’s history.
Media Contact:
Tristan Breijer MBA FRGS FRSA MCIJ
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
CIC – International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation
Email: tristan.breijer@cic-wildlife.org
Mobile: +44 781 408 7423
Website: www.cic-wildlife.org
