Global outcry as Botswana govt’s report in favour of lifting ban on elephant hunting

Recently, the government of Botswana has released a report that recommended lifting of four-year old elephant hunting ban. The report seems to be in favour of the reintroduction of elephant culling.

While many conservationists around the world are criticizing this soon-to-be adopted move in Botswana, there are other groups of people who are in favour of ending the country’s ban on elephant hunting. The country also has a plan to commence culling programme in the near future to manage its extremely large elephant population. The government believes that if nothing is done to control the size of these herds, there is a fear of massive elephant deaths and the loss of other wildlife as the entire ecosystem collapses.

“I welcome Botswana’s move. The lifting of the ban on hunting will help local rural communities benefit from hunting just as neighbouring communities in Namibia have enjoyed the benefits of hunting,” opined Dr Morrison Mutsambiwa, a renowned ecologist and former ZimParks director-general and CEO of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe share the same border, as reported by Chronicle.

Here’re the conditions mentioned by The Southern Times in favour of lifting the ban on elephant poaching in Botswana:

• Developing a legal framework to manage culling within its historic range.
• For the Department of Wildlife and National Parks to conduct an effective community outreach programme to facilitate peaceful coexistence between humans and elephants, including strategically placed fences in key hotspot elephant activity areas inhabited by humans.
• Compensation be paid for property and crops etc. damaged by elephants.
• Certain migratory routes not beneficial to the country’s conservation efforts be closed.
• Regular but limited elephant culling be introduced and establishment of elephant meat canning, including production of pet food and processing into other by products.

On the other hand, there has been a global petition and an outcry to prevent the government of Botswana from withdrawing the ban. It is believed that lifting the ban would ‘promote and fund a series of measures to drastically and aggressively reduce the elephant population across all the nationally protected areas of the country, which alone are hosting 37 percent of the African elephant population.’

Also Read: Botswana records loss of over 11 rhinos by poachers in less than a year