Removing the Elephant Hunting Ban in Botswana

by Mimi de Trafford

Recently, Botswana elected a new president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, who after  consultation with members of his government and other interested parties decided to lift the ban on elephant hunting in Botswana. Prior to this he revoked the law which allowed armed officers the legal right to shoot to kill poachers. Botswana homes the largest population of elephants in Africa, with over 130,000 currently estimated to live there - although it’s hard to pin down exactly as elephants are free to cross borders. Since the ban was introduced in 2014 Botswana has been considered a safe haven for elephants who are hunted and poached in other Southern African countries.

The argument for lifting the ban centres around resolving the conflict between humans and elephants - as populations grow and human inhabited land becomes contested, especially rural farm land, where elephants have the ability to destroy an entire year’s worth of crops in just one night. According to the World Wildlife Foundation, ‘between 1979 and 2007 alone, the species range shrank from 3 million square miles to just one million.’.  Furthermore there has been an increase in people being trampled to death by elephants, especially after dark. There are also significant financial incentives to the removal of the ban, on average a legal elephant hunt in neighboring countries costs $45,000 comparatively a night in a safari lodge costs approximately $355.

However, in reality, the type of elephant causing trouble for farmers is not the same as those that the hunters go after. Hunters are almost exclusively after Bulls with big tusks; these animals are known to be more isolated, deeper in the bush and therefore are much less likely to come into contact with humans accidentally.  If hunters kill elephants that are not causing the damage then are they helping to alleviate the problem? Furthermore, from a conservationist point of view, by targeting the mature Bulls a significant impact is had on future elephant populations. An elephant with the desirable sized tusks for a hunter, has to be a mature bull. Reaching maturity takes approximately 35 years for an elephant, before this they are not fertile. Although there’ll only be a licence for 400 elephants to be killed, By killing 400 of the fertile males every year, wildlife, conservationists predict, the government will cause a massive drop in the population numbers of African elephants. These predictions are based on elephants being poached in other countries fitting the same requirements. 

Finally, the question of whether the farmers and people of Botswana will be the ones benefiting from the money paid by hunters, or if it will make its way to unscrupulous hands where the money adds no benefit to local communities who are the unfortunate victims. I believe there  are much easier and more humane ways to remove the problem of the destruction of crops such as building electric fences around farms and villages in Botswana.

I feel that this decision to end the ban after only five years has been taken for short term political gains at the expense of the future preservation of elephants in southern Africa. We should be concerned that this is just the first step in the eventual removal of the ban on ivory trade which would compound the threat to the elephant population.