Banning trophy hunting can put wildlife at risk: a case study from Botswana

Before the trophy hunting ban, Botswana specialised in big game such as elephants, buffalos and leopards.
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Peet Van Der Merwe, North-West University and Lelokwane Lockie Mokgalo, Botswana Accountancy College

Wildlife tourism is an important segment of Botswana’s tourism industry, representing 80% of the total annual revenue of trips to Botswana. Key to this are protected areas which have led to the growth of the country’s wildlife tourism.

Wildlife tourism can take place either in the animals’ natural environments such as national parks, game reserves or other protected areas or in captivity, such as zoos or rehabilitation centres. Activities during these tours can be classified into two main groups; non-consumptive (viewing and photographing of wild animals) and consumptive which refers to activities such as trophy hunting and fishing.

Since the start of trophy hunting operations in 1996 in Botswana, trophy hunting has grown steadily. The industry employed an estimated 1,000 people, received 350 hunters annually and sold more then 5,500 hunting days per year. In 2011, a year before the trophy hunting ban was announced in the country, the industry netted Botswana US$20 million in revenue annually from 2,500 animals sold to trophy hunters. Botswana specialised in big game such as elephants, buffalo and leopard which generated higher hunting fees from few animals.

The main reason given by the Botswana government for the trophy hunting ban was the decline in the number of wildlife due to trophy hunting – a reason that was widely questioned by trophy hunting operators.

The ban on trophy hunting had an adverse impact as highlighted by various data sources. We therefore set out in 2018 to study the impact of the ban of trophy hunting on local communities. We chose two communities, Sankuyo (400 inhabitants in Northern Botswana) and Mmadinare (12,000 inhabitants in Eastern Botswana). The two communities that were selected for the study, had prior involvement in hunting.

We collected data through interviews with community members and leaders of the community-based organisations trusts. These are legal entities established to represent interests of communities and are often made up of multiple villages of close geographical proximity.

We also interviewed former employees from the hunting sector and small business owners. Some of the questions asked were: how did hunting tourism benefit the community? Was hunting seen as a positive impact on the community? What are the current challenges that the community face since the ban of trophy hunting? Have attitudes toward wildlife changed from the times of trophy hunting?

Human-wildflife conflict

Participants said they’d lost income as a result of the trophy hunting ban. The study didn’t focus on determining how much or what percentage was lost. Participants said the ban also led to more instances of human-wildlife conflict.

In addition, community members said wild animals were a risk to their livelihoods as they were a danger to livestock and crop production. The 2016 Review of Community Based Natural Resources Management in Botswana, indicated that the top three most important livelihood sources for communities were livestock, social welfare and crops. This can undermine conservation efforts, especially if the benefits of co-existing with wildlife are minimal.

Another finding was that both communities were outraged that they weren’t consulted on the trophy hunting ban in 2014. One of the participants, a business owner, said:

Aah, I don’t know I just heard them saying it will be the last hunting season and they didn’t explain why.

Another participant, former hunting employee, reiterated the business owner’s sentiments:

What I remember is them informing us that hunting is being stopped. As for asking for our opinions, I don’t remember them coming to do that.

The results of the study also showed that the two communities experienced the benefits of trophy hunting differently. Community tourism benefits from trophy hunting are more pronounced in smaller communities.

In Sankuyo community members, former hunting employees and small business operators all said that they benefited through employment contribution, the sale of meat, as well as financial contribution to community development. But in Mmadinare, the larger community, the members felt they didn’t benefit that much from trophy hunting. Although some former hunting employees did mention benefits such as sale of meat, employment and skills development.

The study found that both communities experienced challenges as a result of the ban on trophy hunting. The participants decry an increase in the number of wildlife in the areas and expressed that this has led to an escalation of human-wildlife conflict. This conflict involve mostly elephants, kudus, antelopes and buffaloes which invaded people’s farms.

A former hunting employee in Sankuyo said:

In the past because of trophy hunting it was not easy to see animals around. Nowadays, they are everywhere, sometimes we see them in our yards.

The result was that almost half of the participants (47.8%) of in both communities expressed that their attitudes were negative towards wildlife as a result of escalation in such conflicts. This puts the sustainability of wildlife resources in jeopardy.

Last year Botswana’s parliament passed a motion to lift a ban on elephant hunting, which had been in place since 2014. This will only allow the hunting of elephants and hunting licenses were auctioned in February 2020 as elephants were seen as the main contributors to animal and conflicts with in certain areas.

Our research supports this, and further recommends the lifting of the ban on the remaining animals listed under the ban. This can help to alleviate challenges experienced by households in communities like Sankuyo, where trophy hunting was a key source of income. The lifting of the ban will also reverse the negative attitudes within communities that threaten conservation efforts.

Peet Van Der Merwe, Professor in Tourism, North-West University and Lelokwane Lockie Mokgalo, Lecturer, Botswana Accountancy College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Hundreds of elephants are mysteriously dying in Botswana – a conservationist explains what we know

Vicky Boult, University of Reading

Worrying news has recently come to light: hundreds of elephants have been found dead in Botswana, and as yet, there is no clear cause of death. But as an expert in elephants and their conservation, I believe we can at least rule out a few possible answers.

Here’s what we do know: the first deaths were reported in March, but significant numbers were only recorded from May onwards. To date, it’s thought that the death toll stands at nearly 400 elephants of both sexes and all ages. Most of the deaths have occurred near the village of Seronga on the northern fringes of the Okavango Delta, a vast swampy inland region that hosts huge wildlife populations. Many of the carcasses have been found near to water.

Of those discovered so far, some lay on their knees and faces (rather than on their side), suggesting sudden death, although there are also reports of elephants looking disoriented and even walking in circles. The tusks of the dead elephants are still in place and, as yet, no other species have died under similar circumstances.

Botswana’s elephant politics

Botswana has long been a stronghold for Africa’s remaining 400,000 elephants, boasting a third of the continent’s population. While elephant numbers have widely declined in recent decades, largely due to poaching, Botswana’s population has grown.

However, this growth has been outpaced by the ever-increasing human population. With more elephants and more people, competition for space has escalated and increasingly, elephants and people find themselves at odds. Some communities see elephants as pests, as they feed on and trample crops, cause damage to infrastructure and threaten the lives of people and livestock. In return, people retaliate by killing and injuring offending elephants.

With large rural communities struggling to coexist with elephants, the issue has become highly politicised. In 2019, in a controversial move, president Mokgweetsi Masisi lifted a ban on the hunting of elephants in Botswana, reasoning that hunting could both reduce their numbers and generate income for struggling rural communities. This, against a backdrop of rising poaching, suggests that times are changing for Botswana’s elephants.

The elephants lived on the fringes of the Okavango Delta, a unique ‘desert wetland’.
evenfh / shutterstock

Speculation

This has sparked speculation about the recent deaths. However, given what we know, we can address some of the rumours.

Firstly, it seems unlikely that poachers are to blame, since the tusks of the dead elephants have not been removed. It’s estimated that illegal black-market ivory trade is responsible for the deaths of 20,000 elephants annually.

The elephants could have been killed by frustrated local people, typically by shooting or spearing. In this case however, the sheer number of dead elephants and the lack of reports of gunshot or spearing wounds, does not support this hypothesis.

Poisoning could be used instead, either by poachers or in retaliation by locals. A few years ago hundreds of elephants in Zimbabwe died after drinking from watering holes laced with cyanide, and the proximity of many of the recent deaths to water has given the idea some foundation.

However, in the event of poisoning, we would expect to see other species dying as well, either because they drank from the same poisoned water source or because they fed on the poisoned carcass of the elephant, and this has not been reported.

A natural cause of death?

If the evidence currently available doesn’t support foul play, that leads us to consider natural causes.

Drought can cause significant deaths. In 2009, a drought killed around 400 elephants in Amboseli, Kenya, a quarter of the local population. But drought tends to kill the very young and old, while the deaths recently reported in Botswana show elephants of all ages are affected. Moreover, rainfall in recent months has been near normal, ruling out the influence of drought.

Mount Kilimanjaro looms over Amboseli National Park.
Graeme Shannon / shutterstock

Perhaps because wildlife disease has gained much attention in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the remaining possibility that has been widely suggested is disease. While COVID-19 itself is unlikely, elephants, like humans, are affected by a range of diseases.

For instance, over 100 were suspected to have died from an anthrax outbreak in Botswana in 2019. Those elephants that seemed disoriented and to be walking in circles might suggest a disease causing a neurological condition.

Still, the information currently available is inconclusive. The Botswana government has released a statement explaining that investigations are ongoing and that laboratories had been identified to process samples taken from the carcasses of dead elephants.

To avoid further speculation and prevent the deaths of more elephants in their last remaining stronghold, it’s vital that investigations are expedited so that the cause of death can be determined and suitable action taken.

Vicky Boult, Postdoctoral Researcher in Conservation Biology, University of Reading

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Botswana’s Elephants Under Threat From Poaching

The link below is to an article that takes a look at the threats to Botswana’s elephants from poaching.

For more visit:
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/trouble-in-botswanas-elephant-paradise-as-poaching-said-to-rise/

Botswana set to weigh in on whether ban on elephant hunting should be lifted

Elephants at the Okavango Delta, Botswana.
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Keith Somerville, University of Kent

The government of President Mokgweetsi Masisi in Botswana has announced that it will hold a two-month nationwide consultation to review the ban on hunting, notably of elephants. The ban, introduced by Masisi’s predecessor, Ian Khama in 2014, has come under increasing criticism from people living in areas with significant wildlife populations as well as impoverished communities previously reliant on hunting income.

The announcement of the consultation followed a vote in the country’s parliament calling for the government to consider lifting the hunting ban on elephants. The motion was put before parliament by Konstantinos Markus, a member of the governing Botswana Democratic Party of President Masisi. The consultation will be run by the minister of local government and rural development.

Markus, who got support of a majority of MPs from all parties, argued that there were several factors necessitating the lifting of the ban. These included the increase in Botswana’s elephant population, the growing conflict between people and elephants (such as crops being destroyed and people’s lives being endangered) and the loss to local communities of income from hunting. He also argued that the ban contradicted the aims of one of the country’s key conservation efforts designed to contribute to rural development.

It’s significant that the environment and tourism ministry isn’t running the process. Given that it’s the local government and rural development ministry in charge the focus is likely to be on rural livelihoods rather than environmental protection.

The history of the ban

Hunting was banned by President Ian Khama in January 2014. The decision followed a survey on Botswana’s wildlife. It suggested that a number of species were declining in northern Botswana, where most sports and commercial hunting occurred. It found that ostrich numbers had fallen by 95%, wildebeest 90%, tsessebe 84%, warthog and kudu 81% and giraffes (66%)between 1966 and 2011.

A weakness of the survey was that it only looked at the numbers and failed to take into account what had caused declines, or what the long-term trends or seasonal factors were.

Khama and his brother Tshekedi, who was minister of the environment and natural resources, blamed the decline on hunting. With urging from animal rights NGOs as well as some wildlife filmmakers they opted to ban sports and most forms of commercial hunting, blaming them for species decline.

But a study carried out by Joseph Mbaiwa of the Okavango Research Unit at the University of Botswana, found that the ban was

not supported by any scientific evidence, and there was no involvement of local communities in the decision-making process.

Mbaiwa found that the ban was opposed in local communities where there had been hunting. This was because it had contributed significantly to incomes which they’d lost. In addition, wildlife was increasingly damaging crops while increased livestock farming in the wake of ban was affecting water resources.

Elephant damage to the Mopane woodlands in Linyanti, northern Botswana.
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Mbaiwa also found that rural communities had lost an important source of meat which provided vital protein.

Why MPs oppose the ban

The combination of lost income, increased conflict with wildlife and increased poaching all weighed on MPs minds when they voted overwhelmingly to call on the government to reconsider the ban. Markus tabled his motion as a matter of “urgent public importance. He said the urgency was partly due to the latest figures showing a national elephant population of 237,000, compared with a carrying capacity of 50,000.

He also argued that the

expansion of the elephant population in Botswana has impoverished communities, especially those in Boteti, Ngamiland, Chobe or northern Botswana where crop damage and lack of harvest due to elephants is prevalent.

The size of the elephant population is hard to pin down accurately as huge numbers migrate between Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Angola. The Great Elephant Census survey carried out in 2014 put the population at 130,451, but the 2012 dry season survey showed 207,545.

Possible explanations for the fluctuation in numbers could include migration as well as seasonal factors rather than an outright decline.

What happens next?

The consultation process is due to start when the current parliamentary session ends in the first week of August. It will involve a series of traditional kgotla meetings – public meetings at which everyone is allowed to have their say before leaders come to a decision.

It’s significant that the chair process is being chaired by the minister responsible for rural livelihoods rather than Tshekedi Khama, the environment minister, who was one of the chief proponents of the ban.

One reason for this decision may be that the new president, who replaced Ian Khama on 1 April 2018, wants to placate an increasing number of BDP MPs, local councillors and chiefs who say the ban is damaging the livelihoods of people in rural areas and having a bad effect on rural development. If these issues aren’t resolved the party risks losing rural votes in Ngamiland in elections next year.

There are likely to be very heated debates in the coming months as the government weighs up whether to lift the ban to meet popular demand and economic reality, or whether the Khama factor will still weigh heavily on the decision.

Keith Somerville, Visiting Professor, University of Kent

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Botswana: Gcwihaba Caverns

The link below is to an article that takes a look at Botswana’s Gcwihaba Caverns.

For more visit:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/gcwihaba-caverns

Article: King of Spain Hunts Elephants While Honorary President of WWF Spain

The link below is to an article reporting on an incredible situation within WWF. The honorary president of WWF Spain, the King of Spain, hunting elephants in Botswana. Clearly not the right person for the role.

For more, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/16/us-spain-king-idUSBRE83F12S20120416

Africa: Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area

The link below is to an article on the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), established in 2011 by Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is a huge conservation area the size of Italy.

For more visit:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/travelnews/2012/03/pictures/120327-africa-parks-conservation/