“It’s not a joke,” President Mokgweetsi Masisi claimed in the newspaper on Tuesday Image. He is irritated by the plans of German environment minister Steffi Lemke (Greens). ‘It is very easy to have an opinion from Berlin about how we do things in Botswana. But we pay the price for protecting the elephant. The Germans themselves should try to live with elephants as they tell us we should do.’
Botswana is home to the largest population of African elephants in the world: more than 130 thousand individuals, one-third of all African elephants worldwide. The number of animals grew explosively after hunting was banned in 2014. Human-animal conflicts are therefore increasing: the pachyderms, often confined in overcrowded wildlife parks, increasingly eat agricultural crops and sometimes attack people, according to Masisi.
At the insistence of local communities, Botswana decided to restrict hunting again in 2019, to the anger of international conservationists. Since then, wealthy Western tourists have been allowed to shoot a quota of elephants and export hunting trophies (such as taxidermy heads) every year for a fee. Botswana uses this to partly finance its wildlife parks. The income also benefits the population.
Ivory poaching
However, according to the German Environment Ministry, trophy hunting of elephants encourages illegal ivory poaching. It therefore wants to restrict the import of hunting trophies, following the example of countries such as Australia, France and the Netherlands (since 2016). Germany also wants to extend this tightening of import rules within the European Union to other protected species, such as lions, giraffes and buffalos.
Germany is the EU’s largest importer of hunting trophies, according to a 2021 report from Humane Society International. In light of the “alarming loss of biodiversity”, the country therefore has a “special responsibility” to make the import of hunting trophies as sustainable as possible, a spokesperson for the German environment ministry explained to the French news agency AFP on Tuesday.
Other gifts
Meanwhile, President Masisi insists that he would like to give the twenty thousand elephants to Germany as a gift. He says ‘he will not accept a refusal’. Botswana previously donated eight thousand elephants to neighboring country Angola. Mozambique was also offered 500. Last month, Botswana threatened to send 10,000 elephants to the United Kingdom, which, like Germany, is considering an import ban on hunting trophies. The fact that it is an election year in Botswana undoubtedly plays a role in all of this.
The German environment ministry said Botswana has not yet made official contact about Masisi’s alleged ‘gift’, nor about any Botswanan concerns about German criticism of trophy hunting.
Tags: Botswana threatens Germany gift elephants due ban import hunting trophies
