The Orbán government has cut the red tape around the ownership of guns, and passed "the best hunting legislation in the world," Deputy PM Semjén said.Continue reading
The “One with Nature” World of Hunting and Nature Exhibition will be a large-scale event that is worthy of Hungary’s hunting culture, which originates from its eastern heritage, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén said at the opening ceremony of the event in Budapest on Saturday.
The full range of the programmes on offer includes everything related to hunting from science through gastronomy and sports activities to arts, Semjén said.
In Hungary, there are 70,000 hunters, 700,000 anglers, and many thousands more sports shooters, archers, riders and people with hunting dogs so, including their families, about a quarter of the nation belong to this community, the deputy prime minister said.
Man has always hunted and today the diversity of nature, agriculture and wildlife can no longer be maintained without game management, Semjén said. If it is abandoned anywhere in the world, experience has shown that wildlife begins to perish, where, in turn, it is developed, wild game starts to thrive both in numbers and in quality.
According to the Bible, it is just as wrong to leave the environment to its fate as it is to exploit it, and just as a gardener takes care of the garden entrusted to him, the hunter takes care of the forest, the field, the game, he said.
In line with the principle of sustainability, all elements of the exhibition will be preserved and moved to a worthy place after the event, Semjén said.
Fifty exhibitors from more than one hundred countries will show at the event on a total of 75,000 square metres, which will be accompanied by six international conferences and meetings, Zoltan Kovács, government commissioner in charge of the hunting expo said on public news television channel M1.
The exhibition is expected to attract at least 1 million visitors until October 14.
The government considers environment protection a priority, also ensuring the growth of the economy in a sustainable way, Minister of Innovation and Technology László Palkovics said at the opening ceremony of the international hall of the exhibition on Saturday.
Palkovics said that innovation does not exclude environmental considerations as it gives an impetus to adaptation, which is required by the constant change of the world.
Hungary has found the answer to the latest challenges, as its economic performance exceeded pre-crisis levels already in the first half of this year while the global economy is estimated to reach that level only by the end of 2022, the minister added.
Philipp Harmer, Deputy President of the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC), called the world hunting exhibition impressive. He praised the fact that the event presents hunting not in itself but as an important tool of nature conservation that contributes to the preservation of wildlife.
Featured photo by György Varga/MTI