Hunting, a passion worth gold: almost a billion dirhams per year in Morocco

«Hunting in Morocco is a sector in full restructuring. It has more than 68,000 active hunters, grouped within more than 1,600 structured associations.», immediately indicates Abderrahim Houmy, director general of the National Agency for Water and Forests (ANEF). These thousands of practitioners have different “playgrounds” across Morocco, spread over a total area exceeding 4 million hectares.

The sector also benefits from the dynamism of some 124 tourist hunting companies, “the number of which has increased rapidly in recent years, for the benefit of tourism in general, and the rural world,” explains our interlocutor. “Every year, hunting generates nearly a billion dirhams for the national economy», he adds.

And to evoke, with undisguised enthusiasm, the preparations for the new hunting season. These will begin with the population of the hunting areas, with the release into the wild, on October 6, “more than 100,000 partridges».

In this context, ANEF’s partners include the Ministry of the Interior, the Royal Gendarmerie, National Security and a number of local, regional and national associations, including the Royal Moroccan Hunting Federation.who plays a supervisory role», Details Abderrahim Houmy. The theme of the 2024-2025 hunting season is the fight against poaching, a way of indicating that the Agency and its partners, including the Department of Justice, will continue their efforts to “stem this real scourge“, he says.

Read also: Earthquake: for the new season, hunting encouraged in affected areas

In addition to poaching, the general director of ANEF regrets seeing hunters not respecting hunting schedules, recalling that this is an offense severely punished by law. Along the same lines, he notes the violation of the ban on hunting certain animal species, citing gazelles, mouflons and various families of birds as examples. “We will step up awareness campaigns, and ensure that there is more rigor and severity in the application of the law“, he warns.

Abderrahim Houmy concludes by discussing the various actions undertaken by ANEF for the development of the hunting sector. He cites above all the establishment of a platform which will allow hunters to communicate and interact with the Agency around everything relating to the practice of this activity, including the regularization of their situation and their involvement in training courses. training.