Botswana President Mokweetsi Masisi has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany. This is how he responded to the proposal of the German authorities to limit the import of hunting trophies.
After the German Ministry of the Environment and Nature Conservation proposed restrictions on the import of such trophies, President Masisi, in an interview with the German publication Bild, recalled that as a result of measures taken to protect the elephant population, there were so many of them that hunting was the only way to curb their numbers .
If the export of trophies is prohibited, the president explained, then there will be no hunting, and as a result, the population of Botswana will lose a significant part of their income, and the elephants will breed even more. “The Germans should try to live with animals themselves the way they are trying to convince us to do, and this is not a joke,” Masisi said.
About a third of the world’s elephant population lives in Botswana – over 130 thousand. Elephants eat crops, trample fields, destroy private property, and sometimes kill people. Botswana is a large country, about the size of Ukraine, but two-thirds of its territory is desert, and the remainder is home to just 2.5 million people.
Botswana has already donated 8,000 elephants to neighboring Angola and has offered several hundred more to Mozambique in an attempt to somehow control their numbers. “We would like to offer this kind of gift to Germany,” Masisi said, adding that he would not tolerate refusal. Earlier, a similar proposal was made by Botswana’s Minister of Wildlife, Dumezweni Mthimkhulu, who threatened to send 10 thousand elephants to London’s Hyde Park so that the British could “experience first-hand all the delights of close cohabitation with these animals.”
The fact is that in March British parliamentarians voted for a bill not even on restrictions, but on a complete ban on the import of hunting trophies. This, however, is only the very beginning of the process of discussion and possible revision of this document.
The promise to ban the import of hunting trophies was included in the election program of the ruling Conservative Party back in 2019. Botswana and several other southern African countries make good money by selling licenses to rich Western hunters to shoot wild animals and take their heads or skins home as trophies. The authorities of these countries claim that the funds received from this are used to protect nature and help the local population, who, as a result, are no longer so profitable from poaching.
Animal rights activists insist this is a cruel practice that must end. “In some areas these animals already outnumber people,” said Minister Mthimkhulu, “they kill children who get in their way, trample and eat crops, leaving Africans themselves hungry.”
In 2021, Germany was the EU’s largest importer of African elephant trophies and hunting trophies in general, according to Humane Society International, a non-profit organization that advocates for the humane treatment of animals.
Botswana banned elephant hunting in 2014, but the restrictions were lifted in 2019 following pressure from local communities. There are now annual elephant shooting quotas and the number of hunting licenses is said to be limited and strictly controlled. The German environment ministry says Botswana has not told them anything about its problems, but talks with countries that could potentially be affected by a ban on imports of hunting trophies are ongoing. Such bans have already been introduced in Australia, France, Belgium and a number of other countries. Meanwhile, Botswana, as well as its neighbors Zimbabwe and Namibia, are pushing to be allowed to sell their ivory reserves. However, East African countries as well as animal rights activists oppose the move, arguing that lifting the ban would encourage poaching.
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2024-04-06 07:43:34