Ziyah News Network
BOTSWANA’s government authorised the killing of 23 elephants for its independence day celebrations last week, drawing criticism from conservationists and one of its former presidents.
The licenses to hunt the elephants were issued in districts across the country, with each receiving a portion of the overall quota.
The elephants would provide meat for needy rural communities, authorities said Friday in defence of the move.
While African savanna elephants are listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the southern African nation of Botswana has a large elephant population estimated at around 130,000, more than any other country.
Its controlled annual elephant hunting quotas have sparked criticism before, but the government has defended them as necessary to manage elephant numbers and try and limit human-elephant conflict.
Botswana lifted a ban on hunting elephants in 2019, largely because of their burgeoning numbers.
Botswana has issued annual quotas to hunt between 200 and more than 400 elephants recently, depending on the year.
The Independence Day of Botswana, commonly called Boipuso in Setswana, is a national holiday observed in Botswana on September 30 of every year.
Former Botswa Khama criticised the government’s decision of the killing of 23 elephants saying the move creates a dangerous “expectation” that elephants will be hunted for future national events.
Khama—who served as president from 2008 to 2018 and introduced a trophy hunting ban in 2014 before it was later lifted—disagreed with the cull, warning it sets a troubling precedent for future national holidays.
Human-elephant conflict (HEC) in Southern Africa is a growing crisis driven by expanding human populations, agricultural encroachment, and a dense regional elephant population of over 290,000 African savanna elephants—representing about 70% of the continent’s total.
In Zimbabwe the conflict is a critical public safety and conservation challenge driven by an elephant population exceeding 80,000 to 100,000, shrinking habitats, climate change, and human population encroachment into wildlife corridors.
In Beitbridge the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) programme faces a critical balancing act as it addresses escalating human-elephant conflict (HEC) driven by a growing elephant population.
Recent incidents and research shows that as elephant herds in Zimbabwe expand far beyond historical carrying capacities, communities along Beitbridge district’s major water bodies such as the Mzingwane, Limpopo, and Bubi rivers bear the severe economic and safety costs of living alongside these animals.
Elephants have also been cause for concern in the Malala, Mtetengwe, Tongwe, Matshiloni areas and some in Beitbridge East where human/elephant conflicts have regularly arisen when the jumbos raid their fields. Ziyah News Network/BBC/AP