WFSA Dr. Vito Genco Shooting Ambassador Award
The WFSA believes that the general public needs to gain a better understanding of the larger benefits of shooting sports.
Every year, on the occasion of the IWA & Outdoors Classics, the WFSA holds its Plenary Session. It is an event, open to all the sector’s stakeholders and press, where different topics are addressed and debated through panel discussions chaired by outstanding experts.
The WFSA Dr. Vito Genco Shooting Ambassador Award is given during this ceremony. This Award seeks to improve the public perception of shooting sports by recognizing the extraordinary contributions made by key influencers in the hunting/sport shooting community.
WFSA Ambassadors
Luciano Rossi
2024
Luciano Rossi is the President of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF).
He started practicing clay pigeon shooting at a very young age and in 1969 he took part in the Italian national team that won a bronze medal at the Junior World Championships. In 1973, he won the European Champion of Trap and Junior team titles; in 1985, he conquered the National Trap Championship title.
In 1988, Luciano Rossi abandoned competitions and started his managerial career as Councillor of the Italian Clay Pigeon Shooting Federation (FITAV), a position he held until he was elected President in 1993. A long career, awarded with the Gold Star for Sporting Merit by the President of the Italian Olympic Committee. Luciano Rossi has also been a member of the Italian Parliament for many years.
At the international level, 1994 Luciano Rossi was elected Vice President of FITASC and 4 years later he became Vice President of the ISSF, a role reconfirmed for several years until 2018. In 2022 he was elected as President of ISSF.
Steven Rinella
2023
Steven Rinella is the host of the long-running television show MeatEater and the top-ranked MeatEater podcast. He is the New York Times bestselling author of ten books dealing with wildlife, hunting, fishing, and wild game cooking, most recently Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature and the audio original, MeatEater’s Campfire Stories: Narrow Escapes and More Close Calls. He is the recipient of the Conservation Achievement Award from The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
Mike Robinson
2022
Mike Robinson is the UK’s most prominent game chef and champion of game cooking. As a chef, restaurateur, hunter-gatherer and conservationist he is obsessed with wild, sustainable ingredients.
Mr. Robinson is the proud part owner of the Michelin-starred Harwood Arms in Fulham, London which is renowned for its use of game and wild food. He premieres in a new television series entitled Farming the Wild on the Outdoor Channel in the US in January 2019 and on MyOutdoorTV.com internationally. Mr. Robinson’s TV work also includes presenting ITV’s Countrywise Kitchen in the UK and he owns and runs the highly acclaimed ‘Mike Robinson Game Cookery School’.
Mr. Robinson is a strong advocate for sustainability, a philosophy he’s embodied for more than 25 years. He instills this vision in his Robinson Wild Foods business where sustainability and wild go together hand in hand. He works with nature, keeping the balance between man, the environment, and nature.
Mark Keith Robinson
2019
Mark Keith Robinson is a conservative social and political commentator whose main venue is social media.
Mr. Robinson was born and raised in Greensboro, NC. He is a graduate of Grimsley High School, and a proud United States Army veteran. He is currently the Executive Director of Majority Matters USA, a non-profit organization he founded in 2018. Mr. Robinson was also recently appointed to the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission. He has been nominated for the National Rifle Association’s Board of Directors.
Using live video, written commentary, and memes Mr. Robinson spreads a fearless and to-the-point message that supports patriotism, family values, and U.S. Constitution. Mark has always been a staunch supporter of freedom and fairness as indicated by his recent comments at the Greensboro City Council. That speech has led to most people referring to him as “Mr. I’m the Majority.” Since then, Mark has been traveling the country and speaking to conservative groups and organizations.
Tom Gresham
2018
Tom Gresham has been shooting since the age of 6, deer hunting since 11, and at the age of 13 he was taking photographs for the best-selling book The Complete Book of Bass Fishing, written by his father, Grits Gresham. By the time he was 18, Tom was co-author (with his famous father) of a syndicated newspaper column. At 23, he was the editor of Southern Outdoors Magazine. Other outdoor magazines he has edited include American Hunter, Alaska, Handloader, and Rifle.
Tom also has written several books, including Weatherby: The Man, The Gun, The Legend. He currently hosts Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk radio show weekly, and also co-hosts Guns & Gear TV and Gun Talk Television.
Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk, the first nationally-syndicated radio talk show about guns and gun rights, first aired in March of 1995, and has grown 220+ radio stations and four million downloads of the show annually. It also was the first, to our knowledge, “podcast”.
Kim Rhode
2017
Kimberly “Kim” Susan Rhode is an American double trap and skeet shooter. A California native, she is a six-time Olympic medal winner, including three gold medals, and six-time national champion in double trap. She is the most successful female shooter at the Olympics as the only triple Olympic Champion and the only woman to have won two Olympic gold medals for Double Trap. She won a gold medal in skeet shooting at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, equaling the world record of 99 out of 100 clays. Most recently, she won the bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics making her the first Olympian to win a medal on five different continents and the first Summer Olympian to win an individual medal at six consecutive summer games.
Olegario Vázquez Raña
2016
During the Plenary Session held in Nuremberg, Germany, on March 3, 2016, the WFSA presented the recipient of its prestigious Vito Genco Shooting Ambassador Award: Mr. Olegario Vázquez Raña. Olegario Vázquez Raña is the President of the International Shooting Sports Federation, in charge since 1980 and the founder in 1981, of the African Shooting Confederation. He is also the Chairman of the Board and Principal Shareholder of Grupo Empresarial Angeles, a holding company that employs 26,000 people and includes several divisions.
Olegario Vázquez Raña attended higher studies in business administration and several seminars in financial matters. He holds a degree of Doctor Honoris Causa granted by the LaSalle University of Mexico for his contributions to the development of science, art and well-being of humanity, and a Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration presented by the University of Kyungnam (KOR) for his outstanding contributions to Korean-Mexican business relations and education.
Olegario Vázquez Raña began his shooting career in 1956, and joined the Olympic sport in 1960. He was a member of the Mexican National team and participated in all the summer Olympic Games editions from 1964 and 1976.
Véronique Mathieu-Houillon
2015
During the Plenary Session held in Nuremberg, Germany, on March 5, 2015, the WFSA presented the recipient of its prestigious Vito Genco Shooting Ambassador Award: Ms. Véronique Mathieu-Houillon. Véronique Mathieu served as Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014. During these years she joined the group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities and the group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) but she also took part in several committees, such as the Committee on Petitions, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Internal Market, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Special Committee on Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering. See has been President of the Sustainable Hunting Intergroup. At national level, she was secretary general of the CPNT before joining UMP in 2004 where she became the secretary of the Hunting Commission. In 2006 she became member of the valoisien Radical Party and President of the European Commission of the valoisien Radical Party. She is a hunter, and her favourite type of hunting is tracking and blind hunting.
Theresa Vail
2014
During the Plenary Session held in Nuremberg, Germany, on March 6, 2014, the WFSA presented the recipient of its prestigious Vito Genco Shooting Ambassador Award: Ms. Theresa Vail from USA. Theresa Vail is Miss Kansas 2013. She graduated from Leavenworth High School in 2009 and is currently a senior at Kansas State University majoring in Chemistry and Chinese (though she has taken a year off to complete her duties as Miss Kansas). Ms. Vail plans to obtain a Doctor of Dental Surgery Degree and become a prosthodontist for the army. She is the recipient of the “Georganne Howler Chemistry Scholarship,” and is a Distinguished Honor Graduate at the Army School of Ordinance and a Distinguished Honor Graduate at the Army School of Health Sciences. She is also a section leader in the Kansas Army National Guard Medical Detachment where she received the Army physical fitness award and excels in archery, marksmanship, skydiving, and boxing. In the Miss America 2014 contest she placed into the Top 10 and won the “America’s Choice” award. The platform with which she took part to this contest was “Empowering Women: Overcoming Stereotypes and Breaking Barriers.” This platform was inspired by the way that outdoor sports with her father helped her to overcome being bullied as a child.
Ole Einar Bjørndalen
2013
The WFSA at its annual general meeting in Nuremberg, Germany, on March 7, 2013, presented its prestigious Vito Genco Shooting Ambassador Award to Ole Einar Bjørndalen from Norway. Ole Einar Bjørndalen is a professional biathlete, often regarded as one of the greatest athletes of all time. In 1992, he won his first career medal at the junior world championships. A year later In 1993, after winning a record three junior world championship titles, Bjørndalen made his Biathlon World Cup debut. His breakthrough came in 1994 when he featured on his first World Cup podium in a Sprint race held in Bad Gastein, Austria. Bjørndalen’s first participation at the Olympic Games was during the Lillehammer 1994 Winter Olympics, which were held in his home country of Norway. At the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics he won 4 gold medals, becoming the only biathlete to win every event during the same Winter Olympic Games. This makes him one of only three Olympians to win four gold medals during the same Winter Games. At the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Bjørndalen became the most successful biathlete in Winter Olympic history by surpassing the previous record of 9 career Olympic medals. With 48 medals he is the most decorated World Championship athlete of all time, and one of only two athletes to win 11 medals at the Winter Olympics.
Stephen Hunter
2012
The WFSA at its annual general meeting in Nuremberg, Germany, on March 8, 2012, presented its prestigious Shooting Ambassador Award to Stephen Hunter from USA. Stephen Hunter is an American novelist, essayist, and film critic. He graduated in 1968 at the Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. Later on he served in the United States Army for two years as a ceremonial soldier, and as a journalist for a military paper, the Pentagon News. Then he worked as film critic for the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post, receiving many awards. In the meantime he started the novelist career, writing many novels and non-fiction books. Among Hunter’s most famous works are Point of Impact (filmed as Shooter), Black Light and Time to Hunt, which form a trilogy featuring Bob “the Nailer” Swagger, a Vietnam War veteran and sniper. He is also author of Hot Springs, Pale Horse Coming, and Havana, another trilogy centered on Bob Swagger’s father, Earl. Stephen Hunter fires handguns as a hobby, saying “many people don’t understand, shooting a firearm is a sensual pleasure that’s rewarding in and of itself.”
Lamprecht / Nandi-Ndaitwah
2011
The WFSA at its annual general meeting in Nuremberg, Germany, on March 10, 2011, presented its prestigious Shooting Ambassador Award to two important representatives of Namibia: Hon. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, MP, Minister of Environment and Tourism and Marina Lamprecht, Game Farmer and Trophy Hunting Operator.
The Honourable Nandi-Ndaitwah has been a Member of Parliament of the Republic of Namibia since 1990 and is currently Minister of Environment and Tourism. She has a Master’s in Diplomatic Studies from Keele University in the United Kingdom. Further educated in International Relations and Public Administration and Management, she has wide experience in world-level conference work, such as being Rapporteur General of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in China in 1995. She has acted as primary negotiator for her African cohort and served as a delegation leader to levels as high as the United Nations.
The Honourable Nandi-Ndaitwah served as a Minister of Women’s Affairs and Child Welfare from 2000 to 2005, and Minister of Information and Broadcasting from 2005 to 2008. As President of the Namibian National Women’s Organization she worked with the Law Reform Commission on national legislation. She initiated the discussion in the UN Security Council on women and peace that led to the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.
Marina Lamprecht, and her husband and son, Professional Hunters Joof and Jofie Lamprecht, own and personally run the safari company Hunters Namibia Safaris, which is based on the family’s private wildlife property in the Camelthorn Kalahari, near Windhoek.
Marina Lamprecht is currently serving a third two-year term on the Executive Committee of the Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA), and she chaired NAPHA’s Education Committee for ten years. She has served on the boards of the Khomas Regional Education Forum and the Namibian National Advisory Council on Education. She currently also serves on the Namibian Tourism Board’s Marketing Committee and as Trustee of the LSI Foundation.
Initiator of the prestigious WHS Scholarship Programme, she continues to mentor the recipients.
She is also a founding member of the Hunters Namibia Safaris Education Foundation, which strives to improve the quality of education at marginalized rural schools throughout Namibia by providing books and other essential equipment. Marina Lamprecht annually presents seminars on hunting in Namibia at the Safari Club International Convention, and regularly addresses workshops on trophy hunting as a lucrative form of land utilization. She holds a degree in political science.
Chiara Cainero
2010
Olympic gold medallist Italian Chiara Cainero became the latest recipient of the WFSA Shooting Ambassador Award on March 12, 2010 in Nuremberg, Germany, at the WFSA’s annual meeting. A shooter of skeet, Chiara Cainero entered her first shotgun-shooting competition in 1996 at the age of eighteen. She has been a member of Italy’s National Women’s Skeet Team since 1998, and has competed all over the world. The multi-lingual graduate in Public Relations has worked in publishing and remains on the register of free-lance journalists. She gave up full-time work in 2003 in order to devote her time to shooting. With five individual gold medals accumulated just from Italian national championships alone, to the present she has accumulated a total of thirteen gold, eight silver and eleven bronze medals in both team and individual events. She has shot in World Cup Tests, World Cup Finals, European Championships and World Championships. Her Olympic Gold Medal was earned in Peking in 2008. Chiara Cainero describes her first Olympiad in Athens, in 2004, as “an unforgettable experience both from a sporting and human point of view,” and sees it as a determining influence in her shooting career. “From 2005,” she said, “I tested myself from a sporting point of view, changing many aspects of my technical preparation and focusing more on physical preparation. Day by day I began to believe in what I was doing more and more.” To continue to perform at her present level of expertise she says she has had to make many sacrifices. She acknowledges her husband’s support and belief in her, as she practised and trained along the path to the gold medal in Peking. She also credits her upbringing in a family of shooters and hunters with giving her the background for what it takes to win a gold medal in international competition. Her father entered clay target shooting competitions all over the world, and he took her with him to many. In her early life, each weekend the family travelled around Italy, following his competitions. She was encouraged to try all sorts of sports, including tennis, swimming, skating and volleyball, but from the age of 14 clay target competition took her interest entirely.
Colin Greenwood
2009
The WFSA at its annual general meeting in Nuremberg, Germany, on March 12, 2009, presented its prestigious Shooting Ambassador Award to Colin Greenwood of the United Kingdom. A former Coldstream Guardsman who spent five years in the army, Colin Greenwood went on to serve as a policeman in West Yorkshire, England, and retired as a Superintendent after 25 years’ service. While a Chief Inspector, he won a research fellowship at Cambridge University Institute of Criminology where he studied the development of firearms legislation in Britain, on which was based his well-known book ‘Firearms Control’ (1972). Its penetrating critique of the origins and inadequacies of British firearms legislation was groundbreaking and remains a key reference in the discussion of firearms ownership and the shooting sports in Britain. He wrote ‘Police Firearms Training’ in 1966 and ‘Police Tactics in the Use of Firearms’ in 1969. Following his strong interest in antiquarian arms and collecting, his most recent publication is ‘The Classic British Rook & Rabbit Rifle’ (2006). He has been a consultant to the Shooting Sports Trust and the Gun Trade Association, and through these two bodies a contributor to the work of the British Shooting Sports Council. He has had wide interest in and experience of shooting since childhood, including target rifle, clay target and pistol, and he represented the British Police in the European Police Pistol Championships. He has shot large and small game and is a keen deer stalker and handloader. He has worked as a forensic firearms expert and court expert witness. After retirement from the police, he edited the British shooting and firearms magazine ‘Guns Review’ for many years. With his strong background in research, he continues to write today. The shooting community of the UK and the Commonwealth owes Colin Greenwood a huge debt of gratitude. His knowledge, research and his often-published forthright insistence on the truth have been deployed time and again in defence of lawful civilian firearms owners. In receiving this WFSA Ambassador Award, he joins African novelist Wilbur Smith, Sir Jackie Stewart (UK), Torben Espensen (Denmark), Garry Breitkreuz, MP (Canada), and Ugo Gussalli Beretta (Italy).
Torben Espensen
2008
At the March, 2008 AGM of the World Forum at IWA in Nuremberg, Germany, the Ambassador Award was presented to Danish gun collector and hunter Torben Espensen.
A longstanding defender of the shooting sports in all their forms, Torben Espensen has a high profile in Scandinavia, promoting ethical hunting. A student of firearms, he has an extensive business background acquired after the completion of military service in which he gained experience as a shooting instructor. He also owns an exceptional museum-quality firearms collection, covering military and police arms from 1600 to 1953.
Other recipients include Canadian Member of Parliament Garry Breitkreuz, Scottish racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart and Italian gunmaker Ugo Gussalli Beretta.
This presentation is made to individuals selected for their contribution to the shooting sports.
The award is presented in Nuremberg, Germany, at IWA, the International Trade Fair for Hunting and Sporting Arms, Outdoor Articles and Accessories, where the WFSA has its Annual General Meeting. The World Forum’s Sport Shooting Ambassador Award consists of a solid silver reproduction of a Sixteenth Century pistol with its powder flask.
Antonin Scalia
2007
Antonin Gregory Scalia was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative wing. For catalyzing an originalist and textualist movement in American law, he has been described as one of the most influential jurists of the twentieth century, and one of the most important justices in the history of the Supreme Court. Scalia was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018 by President Donald Trump, and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University was named in his honor.
Ugo Gussalli Beretta
2006
On March 9, 2006, the WFSA presented the Shooting Ambassador Award to Ugo Gussalli Beretta, the head of the world-famous Italian gunmaking company. At the presentation in Nuremberg, at the World Forum’s AGM, he said:
“I am particularly proud of joining the superb list of my predecessors who have received the Ambassador Award in past years – writers, sportsmen, politicians, people among whom excellence has been the rule”.
“The Beretta family, my family, has carried over, uninterrupted, this tradition of gun makers for almost 500 years. Today, it is my passion, and my son’s passion too”.
“Fortified by this long history, I strongly believe in the future, in the foundation and in the potential of our sector. I am sure that working together, sticking together, we will overcome the difficulties and the numerous challenges we are facing”.
“We have to acknowledge that the WFSA, in these past 10 years, has made possible what appeared to be impossible: an invaluable accomplishment in activating and coordinating all our existing resources worldwide. The information gathering, first of all, and then the protection the WFSA offers worldwide, combine together. They are of absolute importance for the appreciation and the presentation of our reality and our beliefs”.
“The company which I am honoured to represent is grateful to the World Forum for the steady care which aims to support, with ideas and actions, the legitimate rights of about one hundred million sport shooters, hunters – passionate, law abiding citizens”.
“Thank you again for this prestigious award. I express my warmest wishes for the future of WFSA and for the continued success of this great tradition, part of our culture, a central part of our world”.
Garry Breitkreuz MP
2005
The World Forum’s most recent Shooting Ambassador Award was presented to Canadian Member of Parliament Garry Breitkreuz. The World Forum on March 7th, 2002, granted the Inaugural Sport Shooting Ambassador Award to the best-selling African author Wilbur Smith.
Other recipients include Scottish racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart and Italian gunmaker Ugo Gussalli Beretta.
In his acceptance speech in Nuremberg, Germany, in March 2005, Garry Breitkreuz described his entry into the struggle to keep lawful firearm ownership afloat in Canada:
“I’d hunted all my life but I never understood that my pastime was under attack until one March evening in 1994. It was 40 degrees below and two thousand people filled an arena in Preeceville, Saskatchewan, to protest a 1991 gun control bill”.
“At first I saw that democratic rights were being infringed but the more I dug, the more I realized that fundamental rights and freedoms were being trampled, too.”
With a farming background coupled with his own interest in hunting, Garry Breitkreuz has devoted enormous energy to the defence of the right of the law-abiding civilian to own firearms. His website shows the evidence of the very considerable amount of research that has come out of his office regarding all aspects of gun legislation.
This presentation is made to individuals selected for their contribution to the shooting sports. The award is presented each year in Nuremberg, Germany, at IWA, the International Trade Fair for Hunting and Sporting Arms, Outdoor Articles and Accessories, where the WFSA has its Annual General Meeting. The World Forum’s Sport Shooting Ambassador Award consists of a solid silver reproduction of a Sixteenth Century pistol with its powder flask.
Larry Wilson
2004
Robert L. “Larry” Wilson, is a noted firearms author, researcher, scholar, historian and literary powerhouse..
Almost anyone who has collected a few books about guns and gun companies, or engravers owns at least one, if not many, of the books written by Wilson in his long career. Among them are several on such storied manufacturers as Colt, Ruger, Winchester, Beretta, gun types such as the Peacemakers and Derringers, and historical figures like Buffalo Bill Cody and his guns as well as President Theodore Roosevelt.
In addition to authoring or coauthoring more than 50 books, Wilson also penned 325 articles for a variety of magazines and periodicals, plus he wrote countless gun descriptions for firearms auction catalogs. Keenly interested in museums and historic houses/landmarks since childhood, Wilson visited more than 800 such institutions over the years.
Sir Jackie Stewart
2003
The World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities made another presentation of the Sport Shooting Ambassador Award in March, 2003.
The award went to Sir Jackie Stewart of Scotland, the world-famous racing driver.
The Award goes to an outstanding individual whose efforts have promoted the shooting sports internationally (see below). It was presented by British Member of Parliament Kate Hoey, who spoke of the three major benefits of shooting – discipline, enjoyment and economic stimulus.
The three-time Formula One world champion was knighted in 2001. He has honorary doctorates from four universities and holds a place on the board of Jaguar Racing.
Linking shooting with progress in business, Sir Jackie conceived his annual Celebrity Shooting Competition at the Jackie Stewart Shooting School in Scotland. Through these endeavours, he has been able to raise sums of up to a million US dollars for charity in a single day.
In his acceptance speech, he said: “Shooting has played such an important part in my life. I’m the grandson of a gamekeeper. I was brought up with a gun and a fishing rod in my hand. I think it was one of the best character-building exercises. I could ever have had when I started to shoot clay pigeons competitively at the age of 14½.
“I shot until I was 23 years of age when I retired from shooting to take up motor racing. But in that time I had some of the highest moments of my life in sport”.
Sir Jackie, known for his continuing involvement in motor racing, went on to say that the biggest disappointment in his life was failing to gain a place by one lost target in the Rome Olympics of 1964.
He said: “But I think as I went through motor racing, I realized how important it was that my shooting had played such a formative role in my mindset, and my way of working, and my responsibility.
“I find it very disappointing today that there are so many people negative against shooting and against country life. If my wee country, Scotland, didn’t have deer stalking, grouse shooting, pheasant shooting, some partridge shooting, the economy of our country would be seriously upset. The hotels, the restaurants, all of the community who are ghillies or gamekeepers looking after the land would be lost, because there would be no income. And that would be the same in the North of England…” He went on to describe European countries equally dependent.
His acceptance speech included a plea to policymakers: “So whether it’s clay pigeon shooting such as I specialized in, or whether it’s game shooting which I still enjoy to this day, I hope that we can communicate not just to the politicians, but to the media, to be sure that they understand what we’re doing, understand the responsibilities that we have and the manner in which we carry them out. I’m still very much in love with the countryside and all it represents”.
Other recipients include Canadian Member of Parliament Garry Breitkreuz, Italian gunmaker Ugo Gussalli Beretta, and inaugural recipient, best-selling African author, Wilbur Smith.
This presentation is made to individuals selected for their contribution to the shooting sports.
The award is presented in Nuremberg, Germany, at IWA, the International Trade Fair for Hunting and Sporting Arms, Outdoor Articles and Accessories, where the WFSA has its Annual General Meeting. The World Forum’s Sport Shooting Ambassador Award consists of a solid silver reproduction of a Sixteenth Century pistol with its powder flask.
Wilbur Smith
2002
The World Forum on March 7th, 2002, granted the Inaugural Sport Shooting Ambassador Award to the best-selling African author Wilbur Smith. The presentation was made by Keith Tidswell, the chairman of the WFSA’s Image Sub-Committee and the first Vice President of the WFSA. Each year in Nuremberg, Germany, at IWA, the International Trade Fair for Hunting and Sporting Arms, Outdoor Articles and Accessories, the WFSA has its Annual General Meeting. In this international environment of hunters, target shooters, associations and manufacturers, Wilbur Smith happily accepted the World Forum’s award of a solid silver replica of a Sixteenth Century pistol and powder flask. Wilbur Smith has had a lifelong connection with guns, and today he owns and uses a variety by different makers. He happily speaks in favour of managed, seasonal hunting, and believes, in the interests of effective conservation, that using hunters’ money to buy and maintain animal habitat is the best possible practice. Mr. Smith, accompanied by his wife Mokhiniso, recounted to an attentive meeting his African childhood filled with dogs, guns and hunting. His words displayed an obvious love and respect for animals and the outdoors. His belief in sustainable utilization of wildlife resources struck a responsive chord, and he was given a standing ovation. The World Forum, now representing more than thirty associations, aims to raise global community awareness of the case for legitimate gun ownership. International governmental groups as well as institutions such as the United Nations have increasingly turned to the WFSA as it puts forward the views of the global gun owner. Wilbur Smith, as a high-profile and worthy recipient of the Ambassador for the Shooting Sports Award, is lending international and high-profile support to gun owners in places as diverse as Australia and New Zealand, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Scandinavia. Other recipients include Canadian Member of Parliament Garry Breitkreuz, Scottish racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart and Italian gunmaker Ugo Gussalli Beretta. This presentation is made to individuals selected for their contribution to the shooting sports. The award is presented in Nuremberg, Germany, at IWA, the International Trade Fair for Hunting and Sporting Arms, Outdoor Articles and Accessories, where the WFSA has its Annual General Meeting. The World Forum’s Sport Shooting Ambassador Award consists of a solid silver reproduction of a Sixteenth Century pistol with its powder flask.
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