1. Yeswehunt is an independent multilingual portal, providing a discussion and contact platform to a global community of several million hunters. Its ambition is to become a true Network for many thousands of them: hunters - men and women, young and less young, from different socio-economic, traditional and cultural backgrounds but sharing a common interest in, and even passion for, nature, wildlife and ethical hunting, in their home country as well as in other parts of the world. They are happy and proud to be hunters and want to share these feelings with other likeminded hunters but also demonstrate that the pleasure and satisfaction they derive from hunting is very well compatible with the multiple benefits of sustainable hunting for society, the environment, biodiversity, etc.

2. Yeswehunt offers to all who join this particular Hunters’ Network the opportunity to exchange their hunting experiences, ideas, objects, photos, memories and other testimonies of their commitment to sustainable hunting as a tool for personal well-being, nature conservation and rural development. At the same time, Yeswehunt wants to offer to this Hunters’ Network selected up-to-date information on hunting opportunities, on legislation, facts and data about hunting – at home and abroad, on quality products and services that may be of interest to hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts, and on a wide range of topics likely to be relevant to hunting and wildlife management.

3. Yeswehunt commits itself to promote sustainable hunting as well as international hunters’ solidarity, and to help preserving hunting for future generations.

“Yes, we hunt!” And we’re proud to do so.

Hunting is a traditional legitimate activity practiced by many millions of people, men and women, worldwide. To hunt is good for biodiversity, for wildlife management and for rural economy and we hunt in a responsible and ethical way. Why should we then have to justify what we love to do, what we consider to be an essential element of our personal well-being? Hunting is in our genes; it is our passion. We enjoy being in touch with the natural world, being out in the open with our friends and our dogs. We respect nature, the game we hunt and the traditions of hunting, we enjoy a well-taken shot and a good bag at the end of the day. We like eating game and enjoy a glass of something good to go with it.

Yes, we hunt! And we want to share this feeling with likeminded people wherever they are – “Hunters speak one language”. This is precisely the message which Yeswehunt wants to spread and promote.

Arnout Vandevyvere

Director 'more'

Belgium

Born in 1974, Arnout Vandevyvere developed a love of hunting from his family at an early age. After graduating as a Civil Engineer, he embarked as an entrepreneur on several profitable and successful business ventures, including a considerable turnaround and management buy-out.

As a dedicated ethical hunter, Arnout Vandevyvere is keen to bring his entrepreneurship to the hunting community with a focus on sustainability, professionalism and reliability.

Profile of Arnout

Heiko Schwartz

Director 'more'

Germany

Geboren 1975 ist der gelernte Kaufmann schon bald in die Fußstapfen seiner Vorfahren getreten und hat die Leitung des seit 1872 in Familienbesitz befindlichen Jagdverlag Neumann-Neudamm übernommen. Als Jäger ist ihm das Gefühl von Freiheit und Abenteuer wichtig. Seine Passion ist neben der Falknerei die Pirsch in unberührten Landschaften rund um den Globus.
Heiko ist unter anderem Herausgeber der Zeitschrift Jagdzeit.

Profile of Heiko

Graham Downing

Counsellor UK

United Kingdom

Graham Downing is a lifelong field sportsman. A keen rough-shooter since his early teens, he is both an active game shooter and a passionate wildfowler and deer stalker. Graham hunts waterfowl throughout Britain and manages muntjac, fallow and roe deer in the East of England, travelling to Scotland to stalk red deer on the hill.

A Vice President of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, an officer of the British Shooting Sports Council and Shooting Consultant to the Countryside Alliance, he has been involved with the representation of shooting sports in the UK for nearly 30 years. He writes regularly for The Field, Shooting Times and other shooting magazines, is editor of the British Deer Society’s journal, Deer and has written a number of books on shooting and deer stalking.

Graham is married with three children and lives on his own small farm in Suffolk which he manages for wildlife and conservation.

Profile of Graham

Juha-Pekka Ripatti

Counsellor Finland, Norway & Iceland

Finnland

Juha-Pekka Ripatti (1959) is a 4^th generation Finnish hunter. He has extensive professional experience in the hunting industry. He worked for 13 years for the Finnish Hunters’ Central Organisation, the last five years of which as Managing Director and Editor In Chief of the hunting magazine Metsästäjä, published by the organisation.

Juha-Pekka Ripatti is an active contributor to Jahtimailla, the Finnish hunting encyclopedia, and is the author of numerous articles, editorials and communications.

Profile of Juha-Pekka

Belén Pinilla Romeo

Counsellor Spain

Spain

Belén had the great fortune to be born in a family of hunters. From a very early age she has had a close and constant relationship with hunting. Good advice from her father and great maestro helped her to learn how to enjoy the countryside and appreciate a good day’s hunting.

She acknowledges that it was hard at first, as her father was always preaching patience, prudence, seriousness, doing things well and at the right time – a hard lesson to learn for such a young girl who was very enthusiastic- but experience has shown her that things indeed turn out when they should, and that all the patience and enthusiasm shown in her learning phase earns its due reward.

Later on, her hobby became her profession, and she enjoyed her years at the head of HUNTERS magazine enormously. It was an unforgettable phase in her personal and professional life which, when the time was right, she left behind to manage an interesting project that, as a hunter, she considered necessary for the hunting sector in Spain: the Oficina Nacional de la Caza (National Hunting Office). She is currently Secretary of the Real Club de Monteros, advisor to the Game Hunting Trophy Homologation Commission of the region of Madrid and regularly appears in specialist media on the hunting sector (magazines, radio and TV).

She is a great defender of authentic hunting in the company of her family and friends. She openly admits that she loves the monteria espagnola – a modality she practises whenever she can – and all the hunting expeditions organised by her husband.

Profile of Belén

Eric Tournier

Counsellor France

France

From his early teens, Eric Tournier (born in 1963) shows passion for hunting and for nature in general. Still very young, he gets involved in the wildlife management on the family’s estate in the French Brenne region, considered as one of the richest in game. This passion will become his profession, always in combination with the will to communicate, to explain to the public at large what hunting really is and to make it more acceptable in the eyes of an increasingly urbanised society…

For more than ten years, Eric Tournier works for the Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage, in charge of the communication policy of this governmental agency towards the hunters and the general public. After this experience, full of contacts with wildlife enthusiasts, he will stay for the next three years at the hunters’ and anglers’ TV Channel Seasons, where he runs the channel’s website and contributes to the weekly programme Naturellement vôtre. In 2004, he joins the Publisher Gerfaut, running the communication department of this company, specialised in hunting, angling and nature. He also closely follows-up several editions of books.

Eric Tournier has excellent contacts with the hunters’ community in France. He is the author of the book Étangs et marais, published by Gerfaut, and of many articles that appeared in the hunting press.

He favours all hunting disciplines as long as they are practiced under natural conditions and are rich in emotions. For him, hunting without a dog is out of the question...

Profile of Eric

Frank Brophy

Counsellor Ireland

Ireland

Frank Brophy (1944) commenced hunting as an 8-year old. He spent his entire working life in the Dublin newspaper industry and is currently Ireland’s longest serving shooting sports writer.  A competitive rifle target shooter at top level for 25 years, he still competes in rifle and pistol events.  Frank is a former National Chairman of the Irish Deer Society, and a founder member and present Vice-Chairman of the St. Hubert Club of Ireland. A veteran of 25 African Hunting Safaris he is one of Ireland’s most experienced big game hunters and has hunted in the USA and Europe.  In 2004, in Dublin’s High Court and with NARGC backing, Frank successfully challenged the Irish Government’s policy of refusing to issue pistol licences and in June of that year became the first Irish citizen to receive a pistol licence for over 32 years.  In 2008, following a 6 year legal battle he won a second High Court challenge against the State’s refusal to licence a large calibre rifle for use in Africa.  Today he is to the forefront in an ongoing series of NARGC court challenges to Irish Government firearms licensing policy.

Profile of Frank

Paolo Molinari

Counsellor Italy

Italy

Born in 1967 into a hunting family from the Alps, his passion for hunting brings Paolo Molinari to study Forest Sciences, specialising in zoology (forest ecosystems). Currently he works as a game biologist. As an expert on game management, ungulates and large carnivores, he works as consultant for several organisations, such as currently for the Alpine Convention. He is also member of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group. For many years now, he endeavours to contribute to improve and “emancipate” hunting.

Profile of Paolo

Peter Friedrich Sieben

Counsellor

Germany, Austria & Switzerland

Born 1954, Peter Friedrich Sieben got his first hunting permit in 1977 after having become interested in hunting while studying in Göttingen national economics and journalism. Having started his career as journalist for newspapers, he was for several years Head of the Press service at the German hunters’ federation DJV in Bonn before becoming Editor at the “Pirsch” hunting magazine in Munich, with special responsibility for hunting politics and international hunting. In that capacity he accompanied many readers’ trips to hunting destinations abroad but also undertook several hunting tours himself in Europe, Africa and North America. He contributed significantly to several books by Dr. E. Lechner on international hunting before joining the Bavarian hunters’ association BJV as Director and Editor-in-chief of its magazine “Jagd in Bayern”. Since 2002, Peter Friedrich Sieben is in charge of communication for a savings bank near his home in Tegernsee south of Munich but he continues to write for the “Deutsche Jagdzeitung” as correspondent for Bavaria.

Profile of Peter

Jan Urban

Counsellor

Czech Republic & Slovakia

Jan was born and raised in the former Czechoslovakia and comes from a bi-lingual family. His educational path started in Hungarian school, then went on to study in Slovakian school. In 1997 moved to England were he completed his university business degree in accountancy.   The majority of his work history has been in Estate management, managing from luxurious country estates to large office buildings for individual and private funds both in The United Kingdom and Czech Republic.

His love for bird hunting and bird dogs began at an early age. He honed his hunting and bird dog training skills as a young boy while spending all his spare time with his Granddad in the field.

Jan started Shooting Enterprise Ltd because he was constantly being asked to report on hunting and wing shooting from Czech and Slovakia. Experiencing fine British hunting and shooting events, Jan has decided to combine his knowledge from the British guns to “bring seven hundred years of hunting traditions to the guns from all over the world”. 

Jan was formerly a semi professional football player. He is constantly in lookout for new challenges and nowadays he enters several triathlon competitions. 

Jan lives in Prague with his girfriend and best friend Zuzana. They have a wonderful  Weimaraner hunting  dog called Milo.

And, last but not least, Jan speaks fluently four languages.

Profile of Jan

Sten Christoffersson

Counsellor Sweden

Originally a biologist by profession and education Sten for the last few decades has been a free lancing hunting journalist, author and wildlife/hunting photographer. He mainly works for Svensk Jakt, the largest hunting magazine in Sweden, but also for magazines in the other Scandinavian countries, the Continent and the USA.

Sten has written several books on hunting in Scandinavia, gun dog training and even a game cooking book. Some of these are translated into Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and one into German. He has recently finished a new textbook for the compulsory Swedish hunter's education, commissioned from him by Svenska Jägareförbundet (The Swedish Hunters' Association).

He has hunted since young age, mostly in Sweden and other European countries, but also in Africa and USA. Sten is a dedicated rough shooter who loves to hunt small game with his own dogs, mostly spaniels. Pigeon shooting, wildfowling, stalking and driven wild boar are other favourites. He often says that he hunts as happily with the camera as with a gun or a rifle and he appreciates a good picture even more than a fine trophy.

Profile of Sten

Poul Hartmann

Counsellor Denmark

Born in1944 Poul Hartmann has been a hunter ever since he could walk. Educated forest engineer, and afterwards employed at the National Environmental Research Institute Department of Wildlife Ecology and Biodiversity Kalo. His primary research areas were: 1: Cripling of game. 2: Shotgun ammunition and alternatives to lead shot. 3: Safety during hunting, with both shotgun and rifle. 4: One of the masterminds behind three educational DVDs about hunting with rifle and shotgun. The DVD ´s were distributed to all Danish hunters. Author of numerous articles on the use of shotgun and rifle for hunting, and an expert on the functioning of various ammunition types. Beyond these areas of work, he has worked scientifically with: hares, deer, doves and ducks. Expert advisor for the Consumer Agency on weapon disputes and has participated in a number of TV pogrammes and DVDs about hunting.

Profile of Poul

Marc Nijhuis

Counsellor Hungary

Born in Belgium in 1982, Marc was raised in the Netherlands and also lived in Wales and Spain for several years.
Since 2005 Marc has been living in Hungary. He owns a successful real estate agency and a construction company in the South West of the country.  His knowledge of the country and its culture is excellent. He feels more at home in Hungary than ever.

Marc fell in love with hunting at a young age while living in Southern Wales and going hunting with his grandfather in the early mornings and evenings. However because of his age and the move back to Holland, he was never really able to properly start his hunting career. All changed when he decided to move from Spain to Hungary. He finally got his chance to commence the lifestyle he had dreamed of for so long – living, working, hunting and fishing in one of the most beautiful countries in Europe. He also enjoys traveling to other countries for an interesting hunt.

Marc is a keen competition rifle and clay shooter, often competing throughout the country.

He has written several articles for foreign media about hunting and fishing in Hungary.

Marc speaks 6 languages and is fluent in four of these.

Profile of Marc