AFRICAN WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

On 19th June 2019, an opinion piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal arguing for Africans to be able to govern themselves with regard to their wildlife management. Unusual in itself, it was made remarkable in that it was penned by a sitting President of an African nation.

BAN LIFTED

In May 2019 President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s government took the decision to lift a suspension on hunting in Botswana that had been in place since 2014. The resulting emotional outburst in the western press and on social media prompted President Masisi to try to explain his government’s reasoning to conservationists and animal rights activists directly.

It is a symptom of the age of social media and 24-hour rolling news that few people take the time to research properly the facts and reasons behind such decisions. It is comfortable to express outrage rather than to challenge one’s assumptions. Nowhere is this more true than when discussing African elephant conservation.

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE

Even though the lifting of the temporary suspension on hunting applied to more species than elephants, it is telling that the world’s media focussed on one species to try to harness this overtly emotional response.

Experts debate the ecological carrying capacity of elephants sustainable in Botswana. What is not contested is the fact that Botswana has the largest population of elephants in Africa. President Masisi reported that the population stood at “roughly 50,000 in the mid-1990’s”. Today estimates put it at 130,000. Some commentators have suggested that the temporary suspension of hunting imposed in 2014 is the reason behind the increase but this is a simplistic response to a complex issue. If that logic were applied across Africa then Kenya , where hunting was banned completely in 1977, would be leading the continent in African game animal conservation. Far from it. Kenya’s wildlife population outside protected parks has dropped by 80 per cent since their ban was imposed.

RELATIVE CORRUPTION

It is more instructive to look at the relative positions of the governments of Botswana and Kenya in Transparency International’s league table of government corruption. Botswana is tied with Israel and ranked as the 34th least corrupt government in the world, ahead of Italy, Spain, and the Czech Republic. Kenya is ranked 144th out of 180.

Despite this President Masisi’s government was accused of greed, corruption, and political pandering when they announced the decision. Opponents of the decision saw it as the government shoring up a rural vote and they pointed to elections due in October as evidence. There were veiled threats from influential media voices that the decision would ‘damage Botswana’s image’ neatly illustrating the main difference between those who live cheek by jowl with large dangerous animals and those who do not. Western objections to consumptive use of African wildlife are often founded in a toxic combination of idealism and ignorance.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to the management of Africa’s wildlife. Photographic tourism often cited by preservationists as the silver bullet becomes unviable in remote, inaccessible areas with little infrastructure. For farmers and rural communities in Botswana the problem is not that the elephants are hard to get to - quite the opposite.

BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE

When a moratorium on hunting was imposed in Botswana in 2014 elephant behaviour changed. Dr Mmadi Reuben, Principal Vetinary Officer of Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) outlines the problem: “[since 2014] we have seen elephants coming in closer and closer to human settlement and increased contact between people and elephants in their daily lives.”

RESPONSE TIMES

This situation has been exacerbated by a combination of other factors. Drought and the high density of elephants have caused them to move further south in search of food and water. Their dispersal has brought them into contact with rural populations unused to elephant behaviour with tragic consequences - at least 23 deaths in the last three years with many more people being maimed and injured. The normal channels for dealing with problem animals are simply not able to cope. With increased crop raiding that can destroy villagers livelihoods in a single night. Response times from the DWNP are too long for them to be an effective solution.

It is often forgotten by campaigners that lethal control is one of a range of options employed by the government of Botswana. This is far from open season. Only two or three dozen licences will be granted annually. Over half of those will be given to Community Based Organisations. There are efforts to push elephants back to their normal range and the government is drilling more bore holes to make those areas attractive for elephants again.

SAFARI HUNTING

President Masisi has stated that “Botswana does not seek to shoot our way to a manageable elephant population through trophy hunting or, even worse, mass culling. Both practices are off the table.” The lifting of restricitons does allow local people to protect themselves. The government has also publicly stated that a legal framework for the growth of the safari hunting industry will be developed.”

African wildlife faces an uncertain future. Loss of habitat and increasing human populations both add to the indiscriminate poaching carried out to satisfy both foreign and domestic demand for illicit ivory and bushmeat. The key to successful wildlife conservation according to President Masisi is “community based resource management”

The aim is to turn the elephant from a burden into a benefit for the people of rural Botswana - “communities that have come to resent the elephant will gain a strong incentive to value them - and what you value, you take care of”.


© Simon Reinhold 2020

First published in Fieldsports Journal Aug, 2019