Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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Botswana shoots itself in the foot

BY IAN MICHLER - 5 JUNE 2019 - THE SOUTH AFRICAN

After Barack Obama came Donald Trump, a bigoted populist prone to crass outpourings and some peculiar legislative ideas. His time in office has reminded the world how prone humans are to gullibility and acts of shameful regression.

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In a relapse of similar measures, President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his Botswana government have somehow contrived a justification to take the country backwards with the recently announced reintroduction of trophy hunting.

The formal declaration ends months of public discussion and rumour, often fired by an astonishingly ill-informed and partisan local press, and it follows earlier statements by officials of elephant culling programmes that come with meat canning and pet food factories.

Ostensibly done to improve socio-economic conditions in rural communities living alongside wildlife areas, and to halt the human-animal conflicts that arise, the decision, however, belies these motivations and points instead to a rather clumsy play to serve political expediency. It’s why they have been trying to secure the services of a Hollywood-based PR firm, an attempt that has failed with the contract being terminated due to gross misrepresentation by Botswana.

Few would argue against the governments wish to tackle the concerns expressed, or to improve on the shortcomings of previous administrations, and the record of ecotourism operators. However, to use a series of untruths, factual distortions and myths about elephants and their ecology to reintroduce trophy hunting as the solution is simply nonsensical. It is also highly irresponsible to pass on obligations to secure the future of both rural communities and the environment to a sector that is for the most part merely interested in killing elephants and other species for trophies.

What this move has done is blight over two decades of advancements made in the conservation and ecotourism sectors of the country, ones that have hitherto been held in high regard both locally and abroad.

And this record is one that should be trumpeted. In the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) 2018 Economic Impact report on Botswana, they point out the significant role the ecotourism industry plays in the overall economy. In 2018, the contribution reached US$2,5billion or 13.4% of the total economy, which translates to tourism accounting for one in every seven dollars in circulation. Of particular interest is the period between 2013, when trophy hunting was stopped, and 2018, which saw a 70% increase in GDP contributions from non-consumptive tourism.

In addition, tourism provides approximately 89 000 jobs, or 9% of the total workforce. And these are jobs that offer skills training, long term security and transferable career opportunities. Other than government activities, northern Botswana has no other economic sector to speak of, which means ecotourism accounts for the vast majority of employment and economic growth in this region.

These gains have come precisely because the country switched away from trophy hunting to develop non-consumptive tourism, and they have come on the back of the large elephant herds as well as a host of other drawcard species that roam what are for the most part well-managed protected areas. Speak to any safari operator and they will also tell you about the considerable goodwill dividend Botswana has enjoyed with visitors making choices over other destinations because of their no hunting policy.

Where is all this in the government’s reckoning? At every level of measurement, trophy hunting contributions are a fraction of a fraction of what non-consumptive ecotourism has achieved for the country. It is inconceivable that a government would ignore these successes and chose to take a course of action that may well end up eroding the gains, not to mention the gene pool of the very asset that forms the base of what could be their only sustainable economic sector.

Adding to the populist rhetoric has been the irrational attack on so-called Western or foreign conservation agencies and individuals opposing the new policy. In case the government hasn’t been listening, there is also widespread opposition to these moves across the continent. And maybe it’s worth reminding President Masisi that the impressive growth in the tourism industry has been built on the Dollars and Pounds of foreign visitors; WTTC reports that 73% of all travel spending is made by international visitors.

In addition, we also know that over 99% of the diamonds the country is as famous for have ended up in the hands of foreigners. And who does President Masisi think is coming to shoot the elephants and lions?

One has to believe the government is genuinely concerned about the plight of rural citizens. But then they are obligated to undertake the necessary research across all disciplines and sectors to fully understand the evolving nature of human population dynamics, settlement behaviour and the socio-economic challenges as well as the movement of elephants and other species in these regions.

Widespread education and awareness campaigns on the significant long-term benefits of the ecotourism industry would also help. And with the results, they then develop and implement a range of interventions that provide education, health-care, career prospects, safety from wildlife and other socio-economic benefits in a sustainable manner.

Reintroducing trophy hunting will have no impact on any of the government’s concerns as there is no correlation whatsoever between them and the ban introduced in 2013. These same issues were at play prior to 2013 when hunting was still in place. Trying to bluff the world otherwise is extremely short-sighted and akin to simply shooting oneself in the foot.

Read original article:
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/opinion ... -the-foot/


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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Elephant culling and hunting is a throwback to defending slavery

BY ROSS HARVEY - 18TH JUNE 2019 - DAILY MAVERICK

We have to pursue co-existence and shared benefits rather than a crude utilitarianism that wilfully endorses cruelty.

When I read Ron Thomson’s response to my article questioning the wisdom of reintroducing elephant trophy hunting to Botswana after a five-year moratorium, I was reminded of British abolotionist William Wilberforce’s opponents who defended the Atlantic slave trade on the grounds that it was a “necessary evil”.

John Pollock, who penned the epic Wilberforce biography, wrote:

“A Grosvenor uncle of Wilberforce’s young friend Lord Belgrave spoke third, arguing that the Trade was nasty but necessary; in Dolben’s summary: ‘…The wisest thing we can do is to shut our eyes, stop our ears and run away from the horrid sounds without enquiring about it, or words to this effect’.”

I invite Thomson to read the biography, as he might find echoes of this defence of slavery in the logic he applies to the ecological management of elephants. Defenders of slavery argued that its abolition would lead to an immediate loss of the British colonies. The colonial attitude, of course, remains pervasive among those who defend the trophy hunting of elephants. It is fascinating that those who defend hunting tend to argue that “the West”must stop lecturing Africans about how to manage their elephants. But it was Western hunters who shot elephants out to the point where Africans had to establish reserves, dispossessing and crowding out local communities in the process.

Fortress conservation and green militarisation are direct functions of past colonial activities. And a major part of the reason that local communities are so upset at being excluded from national parks has much to do with how they were established in the first place. Public relations efforts to paint trophy hunters as the imperial saviours of poor African communities are laughable.

As with colonialism and slavery, sport hunting of elephants will eventually be abolished. The history lesson is that Wilberforce won out, with the brutal slavery trade abolished 20 years after his battle had begun.

The hunting of elephants for sport is a similarly barbaric activity, with its proponents arguing that hunters kill the animals they love for the sake of conservation. This is a morally untenable position. Beyond that, the conservation value of hunting is being questioned, and its ostensible indirect benefit through monetary and bushmeat contributions to “communities” is rapidly declining.

Botswana reintroduced hunting on the premise that an exploding elephant population had exceeded its carrying capacity. But Thomson, having defended hunting his entire career, agrees that hunting is not a population-control method and “will have no ecological impact whatsoever on the elephant over-population problem that certainly exists”.

He argues that elephant management in Botswana has nothing to do with hunting or politics but everything to do with establishing a “management solution to a population of elephants that is very obviously grossly in excess of its habitat’s sustainable carrying capacity”. But he himself notes that hunting will not solve this purported problem, so it remains unclear as to what it has to do with establishing “best practice” for elephant management. Thomson appears to want to return to the grand old days of culling.

He cites no science in support of his view that carrying capacity has been exceeded. The anecdotal reference to his own experience and to the late Dr Graham Child’s notes are touching but do not make the “habitat destruction” argument self-evidently true. The “Child Observations”, as Thomson calls them, are factual, but seem to ignore the ecosystem engineering role that elephants play. Thomson cherry-picks these types of observations to defend the view that elephants are mere marauding habitat destroyers.

Thomson asked for the science – perhaps the hyperlinks in my article were not working – that “did not see any ecological reason to artificially change the number of elephants in Chobe National Park”; here it is: No fewer than 24 authors contributed to “The Return of the Giants: Ecological Effects of an Increasing Elephant Population” published in Ambio, a scientific journal, in 2004. The following quote may suffice:

“Much of the Chobe elephant problem has concerned the role of elephants in the disappearance of the riverine Acacia woodlands on the elevated alluvial plains along the Chobe River. As we have shown, these woodlands were probably a transient artefact, caused by artificially low densities of large herbivores following rinderpest and excessive hunting of elephants about 100 years ago, creating a window of opportunity for seedling establishment. Now that these woodlands have all but disappeared, their re-establishment would require drastic reductions in herbivore populations, including not only elephants, but also smaller browsers like impala.

“Our studies have confirmed that the ecosystem along the Chobe riverfront has changed profoundly since the 1960s, probably reverting towards a situation somewhat similar to the one before the excessive hunting of elephants and the rinderpest panzootic. There is, however, little evidence of a reduction in the carrying capacity for other large herbivores, in fact the dominating species of browsers, grazers and mixed feeders have increased in numbers concurrently with the elephants. We do not, however, see any ecological reason to artificially change the number of elephants in Chobe National Park, either through culling or opening new dry season ranges by providing extra water from boreholes.”

Further to this, 16 scientists co-authored a piece in Science Advances in 2015 that shows us that what Thomson refers to as “destruction” is more appropriately understood as conversion:

“African elephants convert woodland to shrubland, which indirectly improves the browse availability for impala and black rhinoceros. By damaging trees, African elephants facilitate increased structural habitat complexity benefiting lizard communities. Predation by large predators (for example, lions) on small ungulates is facilitated when African elephants open impenetrable thickets. African elephants are also great dispersers of seeds over long distances.”

Thomson asks where do “these seeds come from when the trees that once produced them have all been destroyed by too many elephants?” But this ignores seasonal variation. Elephants migrate and the trees (generally) recover.

Insisting on “carrying capacity” as the primary factor to determine elephant population size betrays Thomson’s worldview that “there is nothing ‘natural’ about wildlife management”. His view is that the natural order is there mainly to serve man. Eden would be a garden composed of Thomson’s calculations of what would best do this. That attitude subverts the call to steward responsibly to one of mere domination. Thomson laments that “today, all over southern Africa, our national parks are being managed as ‘elephant sanctuaries’ – at great cost to biological diversity” and that we should all be ashamed of ourselves for having allowed this.

As one might expect, Thomson can barely hide his love for culling, which he views as the only serious “management solution”. He is furious that “governments will not cull even the most excessive of elephant populations” and blames biological diversity destruction on this decision alone. Against all science, and reverting to the view that wildlife management is akin to managing an agricultural establishment, Thomson says the optimal carrying capacity in southern Africa is “in the vicinity of one elephant per 5km2”. Therefore, Botswana on its own may be able to sustainably carry “infinitely less than 50,000” – though he admits he doesn’t know. And, of course, we shouldn’t fear because elephants in rejuvenating habitats will double their population every 10 years and have to be culled again. His lust for culling on the altar of some utopian notion of species diversity protection is telling.

Thomson endorses hunting because “it will provide many benefits to the local rural folk”. But he really believes in mass culling as the only sustainable solution. It’s worth pointing out that culling is insane. Elephant populations in Africa are declining at the hands of poachers. Hunting will only amplify the negative effect of poaching, which also targets large tuskers. The removal of prime males from elephant families causes utter havoc and gene depletion, and culling makes everything worse, as I will show.

Culling actually creates a population problem rather than solving it. In the 20 years after the Kruger Park culling of 1994, the elephant population increased non-linearly from about 8,000 to 15,000 individuals and has continued to grow exponentially.

Perhaps it is most important for Thomson to understand that the culling of the past, much of it overseen by him, has caused irreparable damage to elephants and other species. It has been found that abilities to process information on social identity and age-related dominance are severely compromised among African elephants that experienced separation from family members and translocation decades previously.

Professor Don Ross writes:

“For a number of years, southern African wildlife managers culled [elephant]herds to prevent over-population from threatening habitat sustainability. Typically, culls would focus deliberately, though not exclusively, on older bulls who had already made substantial genetic contributions. In consequence, in two South African reserves in the 1990s young bulls were relocated to constitute new bachelor herds, without any older bulls to provide leadership. This had dramatic unexpected consequences. The young bulls displayed recurrent, atypical, lethal violence against rhinoceroses, and were occasionally observed forcing copulations with them.”

Thomson must surely be aware of these studies that provide detail of the negative effects of culling and the loss of older bull males for elephant herd sociology. In the context of a poaching epidemic, it does not make sense to allow the trophy hunting of older bulls, let alone to cull. Older bulls’ tusks grow exponentially larger towards the end of their lives and their musth cycles suppress the musth cycles of younger bulls and therefore prevent premature breeding and violent behaviour. Large tuskers are in severe decline, and must be heavily protected from trophy hunting and poaching, as Dr Michelle Henley has noted.

Furthermore, trophy hunting of elephants, never mind culling, raises serious moral questions. Thomson’s language is crudely utilitarian – elephant hunting and culling are seen as a means to an end, that end being a utopian bushveld garden free from vegetation transformation or “too many elephants”. The means are justified and rationalised on those grounds, typically with an appeal to “stick to the facts” or to “keep emotion out of the equation”.

Arguments that communities have called for hunting to return are not to be ignored. But to unthinkingly claim that only Western armchair critics are opposed to the practice is to ignore the fact that the whole trophy hunting endeavour (of elephants especially) is imperialistic and universally morally questionable. Aside from the moral questions and the conservation consequences of culling and hunting, it’s not clear that governance challenges associated with managing hunting have been solved. Will local “communities” get a fair share of hunting revenue (which is globally declining)? How will that money be distributed in a way that genuinely serves community members and incentivises them to drive conservation-driven development? If bushmeat is what communities are asking for, are there not feasible alternatives to trophy hunting?

I’m highly sympathetic to the voice of communities, and have written extensively on the topic but I am not sympathetic to elephant hunting as a solution unless the governance challenges are properly addressed and the science that shows how the extermination of 400 older males a year – in the midst of a poaching crisis – can be “sustainable” when the number of large tuskers is dwindling. The entire population is also in decline. Elephant-themed revenue creation projects, being pioneered on the ground by excellent outfits such as Eco-Exist, which aim to drive down human and elephant conflict, are surely the way forward.

It will probably be of no surprise to readers that Wilberforce was not only committed to ending the slave trade, but also campaigned tirelessly for education for the poor, parliamentary reform, compulsory inoculation against smallpox, and – with Thomas Erskine – the prevention of cruelty to animals.

Wilberforce argued coherently, from an objective worldview, that all forms of cruelty were intolerable. Thomson could learn much from this. It is not “scientific” or “objective” to divorce the material psychological consequences of culling and hunting elephants from “necessary ecological management”. The science shows us that disrupting elephant sociology is inextricably linked to negative conservation consequences. Increased aggression among elephants due to culling, hunting and poaching will only increase human and elephant conflict. We have to pursue co-existence and shared benefits rather than a crude utilitarianism that wilfully endorses cruelty.


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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Botswana trophy hunting poached 385 elephants

BY LOUISE DE WAAL - 18TH JUNE 2019 - ETURBO NEWS

At least 385 elephants were poached in the last year, however the Botswana government has just set an annual quota of 400 elephants to be killed by trophy hunters and proposes to amend the CITES listing of the African elephant to allow for trade in ivory.

“There has been an increase in poaching, that we admit”, said Kitso Mokaila (Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Conservation and Tourism) in a recent CNN interview. However, the government does not seem to fully accept the grave poaching levels that Botswana is now experiencing or the fact that trophy hunting will exacerbate this.

Evidence of a nearly 600% increase in fresh elephant carcasses, poached most likely during 2017-18, is presented in a peer reviewed paper “Evidence of a Growing Elephant Poaching Problem in Botswana”, published in the Current Biology journal.

Many of the elephant carcasses of suspected poaching victims found during the 2018 aerial survey, were verified on the ground by Dr Mike Chase and his Elephants Without Borders (EWB) team and all showed the horrific signs of poaching. Their skulls are hacked away with axes to remove the tusks and their mutilated bodies are covered with branches to literally conceal the evidence. Some elephants even had their spines severed to immobilise the animals that were obviously still alive while the poachers removed their tusks.

The poaching levels found by EWB during their aerial survey is extremely worrying. Chase (Founder and Director – EWB) said “the evidence in this paper is indisputable and supports our warning that elephant bulls are being killed by poaching gangs in Botswana; we need to stop them before they become bolder.

Every poached elephant found by Chase and his team was a mature bull between the age of 30-60 years old with large tusks that are worth many thousands of dollars on the black market.

Both poachers and trophy hunters have a clear preference for the largest and older bull elephants with the biggest tusks, which are mostly bulls older than 35 years. These bulls are incredibly important to the social fabric of the elephant population, to the photographic safari industry and to the long-term sustainability of trophy hunting industry itself.

However, is a hunting quota of 400 elephants, exacerbated by nearly as many poached bulls, sustainable?

The total mature bull population in Botswana is around 20,600, according to the EWB 2018 aerial survey. At best, 6,000 of those are bulls older than 35 years.

When President Mokgweetsi Masisi opens the trophy hunting season, Botswana could potentially lose 785 bulls to both trophy hunting and poaching. In other words, 13% of the mature and mostly sexually active bulls will be removed from the elephant population per year.

Hunters themselves believe that a quota of 0.35% of the total population, or approximately 7% of the mature bulls, is the maximum sustainable “off-take” without losing the highly desirable tusk size. However, this doesn’t take into account the additional “off-take” due to poaching, which makes the current quota in Botswana nearly double this” sustainable” level.

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Even if poaching levels do not increase, it would take a mere 7-8 years to eliminate all mature bull elephants, which is obviously nowhere near sustainable.

The pro-hunting lobby will quickly argue that the poaching happens because the hunting concessions were left abandoned. However, poaching in Botswana only started to escalate some time during 2017, three full years after the hunting moratorium was put into place.

Natural population growth will slow down this impact, but in those areas where both hunting and poaching takes place, the mature bull population will be severely reduced, which will have a bearing on the social structure of those elephant populations.

Dr Michelle Henley (Director, Co-founder and Principal Researcher – Elephants Alive) says “older bulls have a higher paternity success, promote group cohesion, function as mentors within bachelor groups, and suppress musth in younger bulls”.

The latter is particularly important, as the absence of older bulls means that youngster come into musth too early, making them potentially more aggressive. This aggression could lead to increases in Human-Elephant Conflict, the very issue that the Botswana government hopes to reduce by reintroducing trophy hunting.

The long-term selective “off-take” of large tuskers also affects the genetic diversity of elephants, leading to populations with smaller tusks and even tuskless elephants. This change in genetics not only affects the long-term survival of these elephants, but also has direct consequences for the sustainability of the trophy hunting industry itself.

The illegal killing of elephants for their ivory has reached unsustainable levels across Africa, where the number of elephants illegally killed now exceeds the natural reproduction. It is estimated that one elephant is killed every 30 minutes.

Even though elephants have been massacred in most of Africa for some time now, Botswana’s elephant population has been more or less stable since early 2010 with a healthy population of about 126,000 elephants.

Chase said, “I am confident that all stakeholders can work together to implement necessary measures to curtail poaching. In the end, Botswana will be judged not for having a poaching problem, but for how it deals with it.”

SOURCE: Conservation Action Trust


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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Killing elephants in Botswana is a vote-catcher that could go badly wrong

By Don Pinnock• 20 June 2019

Elephants have become a hot political issue in Botswana, with President Mokgweetsi Masisi beating the hunting drum, a sure vote-catcher in rural communities. But the country, which has the world’s biggest and most secure elephant population – more than 130,000 – could be staring down the barrels of the poachers’ guns.

For small-scale farmers, elephants can be a danger and a damn nuisance. So when Botswana’s new president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, was looking for rural votes to boost his flagging party in the upcoming elections, calling in the guns was low-hanging fruit. For rural communities, shooting crop raiders, jobs for skinners and a pile of meat the size of an elephant was very attractive.

Politically it was a smart move and got everyone’s attention. Masisi clearly wasn’t just outgoing president Ian Khama’s handpicked successor, but his own man. In every other respect, however, the timing was terrible and the unintended consequences are still rippling outwards.

By chance, Masisi’s move to end the hunting ban coincided with a report by the NGO Elephants Without Borders (EWB), which found serious poaching in the north of the country. Given the massive poaching in Africa, it said an escalation in Botswana, with 130,000 elephants, was likely.

That story jarred badly with the president’s mission to lift the ban, not helped by a Cabinet report which included the suggestion to can elephant meat for dog food upon which the world press pounced.

EWB’s head, Dr Mike Chase, came under personal attack from the government and a compliant press. The survey was dubbed fake news and a plot by foreign lodge owners to undermine the new president.

EWB found itself under immense pressure and its only defence was to make the science unassailable. Its latest report in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Current Biology did just that – Botswana, without a doubt, has an escalating poaching problem.

Hunting

But first, let’s consider what happens when you reintroduce hunting on a continent where poachers are killing huge numbers of elephants.

Organisations like Safari Club International, pro-hunting propagandists and mass elephant killers like Ron Thomson claim that the presence of hunters reduces poaching. This is unproven and the contrary seems true.

In Tanzania’s huge Selous Game Reserve where legal hunting is widespread, elephant numbers plummeted from 70,000 in 2005 to 10,000 in 2016 from poaching. Once illegal killing is embedded, hunting won’t stop it. The smell of hunting attracts unscrupulous human predators the way blood in the water attracts sharks and the boundary between legal and illegal tends to shift, as South Africa’s experience with rhinos shows.

In 2010 Dawie Groenewald and 10 others, including his wife, veterinarians and professional hunters were arrested and charged with 1,872 crimes, including illegal hunting, dealing in rhino horns, money laundering and fraud. The charge sheet ran to 637 pages.

Groenewald and another co-accused allegedly induced other farmers to dehorn rhinos and sell their horns. Some of the rhinos were not killed, but were dehorned after being tranquillised. Rhinos that were killed were at first reportedly sold to a local butcher, but when this arrangement fell through, they were buried and later burnt on Groenewald’s farm.

The “Groenewald gang” allegedly made about R62.6-million from the illegal sale of rhino horns. Seven years and endless postponements later, the case has mysteriously been deferred to 2021.

Fast forward. Late one afternoon on Friday, 7 June 2019, a man booked into Thobololo Bush Lodge in northern Botswana. He was driving the latest VX-L Land Cruiser Prado and had a very young, dark-haired woman in tow. They kept to themselves, had food sent to their room and checked out the next morning before breakfast. Lodge owner Mike Gunn engaged the man on the way out. Was he on holiday? Where was he heading?

He said he was from Polokwane and was heading into Botswana to scope out hunting concession areas CH1 and CH2. (There are many former hunting concessions which were not used during the ban but could quickly become active.)

When Gunn expressed his distaste for hunting, the man said: “That’s all going to change soon. I have political connections. I will get 14 bulls in each concession.” Gunn then checked the man’s name in the register: Dawie Groenewald. Alarmed, he immediately contacted the relevant authorities.

Of course, poachers take out many more elephants than hunters and they also target bulls with the biggest tusks. But that doesn’t absolve hunters of damage. Here’s a calculation by environmentalist Colin Bell.

Botswana has set the hunting quota at 400 bulls. According to the latest EWB census, the country has about 130,000 elephants, with about 20,600 independent mature bulls. At best, 2,060 to 4,130 of these will be over the age of 35 (based on population figures of males in this age bracket from other populations) and these are what hunters typically target as trophy bulls.

The EWB report estimated 385 carcasses poached within a year. Every one they found was a mature bull over 35 years of age, but let’s be conservative and say only 200 of them were trophy bulls, adding to 400 legally hunted (hunters also go for the big tuskers) – that’s 600 prime male elephants. It means that if this level of hunting and poaching was sustained, within less than seven years, Botswana’s current biggest tuskers could be dead.

Males only begin to regularly reproduce by age 40, by which age 75% of males have died. It would be a genetic disaster and obviously completely unsustainable – and these are the big guys tourists pay to see.

It could be worse. According to Mike Gunn, “I believe that the number of trophy bulls left in Botswana is way down. I see many hundreds of elephant watering at Thobolo Lodge and in the last few years I’ve seen perhaps one bull that could vaguely be considered a trophy.”

Strangely, Botswana’s local hunting industry does not view this as a threat – and their photo-tourist sector has not questioned this quota though it goes to the heart of their industry. It’s worth asking why, but with the government controlling the allocation of their leases, one can understand their reluctance to raise their heads into the firing line.

Human/wildlife conflict

Much of the reasoning by the Botswana government and justification by hunters for opening hunting is the problems elephants cause farmers who need to be protected. Hunting has nothing to do with this. Shooting trophy elephant bulls does nothing to reduce elephant numbers or prevent human-wildlife conflict.

According to Gunn, the few large remaining tuskers tend to live far away from human habitation and have little or nothing to do with wildlife conflict. So the few elephants that do raid crops are not those trophy hunters wish to bag. So what the government is really talking about is culling. There are other ways.

“Mitigating crop damage can be fairly cheaply achieved by simple and powerful electric fencing that requires little to no maintenance plus other proven methods.

“Funds to achieve this could be easily raised from the international community without Botswana having to shell out for it if the willingness were there from the relevant authorities.”

Poaching

Returning to poaching. As noted before, Botswana is home to one-third of Africa’s savannah elephants – 130,000– making it critical for their conservation. Flying over 94,000km2 in fixed-wing aircraft and thousands more by helicopter across northern Botswana, EWB found 156 elephants with their skulls split open and tusks removed, a huge increase over the previous survey. The actual number poached is undoubtedly higher than just those seen. All were within five “hot spots”.

‘This evidence,” says EWB, “suggests that ivory poaching on the scale of hundreds of elephants per year has been occurring in northern Botswana since 2017 or possibly earlier.”

Increases in carcass numbers are worrying because it can indicate future poaching increase. In Zimbabwe’s Sebungwe ecosystem, carcass numbers went up in the early 2000s. This was followed by massive poaching and population collapse, with 2014 elephant numbers down by 76% from the early 2000s.

In Mozambique’s Niassa National Reserve, increases in carcass ratios (percentage of dead elephants observed during the count) from 2009 preceded a 78% decrease in elephant populations in just five years. In Kenya’s Tsavo ecosystem the same pattern occurred, a crash in elephant numbers following an earlier poaching uptick. Large numbers of elephants have also been poached in nearby Angola and Zambia.

According to the EWB report, between 2014 and 2018, carcass ratios in Botswana increased from 5% to 16% in the hotspots. “This change,” says the report, “may be a warning sign that Botswana’s elephant population could be at risk in the near future.”

Tourism

Predation by poachers will have a negative effect on tourism, which accounts for a fifth of the nation’s economy. Foreign safari operators are also worried that hunting and culling will damage Botswana’s reputation as a safe haven for wild animals. Tours are already being cancelled.

In a US poll by the Remington Research Group, three in four respondents considered it important to protect elephants from trophy hunting, 78% did not support the proposed culling and 73% believed that if trophy hunting and elephants culls were started, Botswana’s image as a leader in wildlife conservation would be harmed. Tourists don’t travel blindly.

Early warning

The EWB survey and research is an important early warning or what could become a national tragedy in Botswana.

“Publishing the new findings in a peer-reviewed journal is about vindication,” EWB’s Mike Chase told National Geographic. “To have your scientific reputation called into question is soul-destroying.

“I’m hoping our [Current Biology] paper will in some way restore my reputation as a well-known elephant conservationist and, more importantly, help with the plight of elephants in our country and restore our legacy of being a safe haven for the world’s largest elephant population.”

Chase remains hopeful – as long as everyone co-operates and the mud-slinging ends. “The evidence in the paper is indisputable and supports our warning that elephant bulls are being killed by poaching gangs. We need to stop them before they become bolder.

“I’m confident that stakeholders can work together to implement necessary measures to curtail poaching. In the end, Botswana will be judged, not for having a poaching problem, but for how it deals with it.” DM


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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WHAT RURAL BOTSWANA FEEL ABOUT ELEPHANTS - BEYOND POLITICS AND IDEOLOGIES


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by
Simon Espley
Friday, 21 June 2019


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SO, WHAT’S IT LIKE LIVING AMONGST ELEPHANTS?

To Read the whole story and see the photos, just click on the tittle \O


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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ANALYSIS: Botswana has an elephant poaching problem, not an overpopulation problem

2019-07-01 16:51
Ross Harvey


The Botswana government recently reintroduced trophy hunting after a five-year moratorium. It did so on the pretext that Botswana has “too many elephants”.

But a new academic paper shows that this argument doesn’t hold.

The researchers compared the results of two aerial surveys in northern Botswana. The first was conducted in 2014, the second in 2018. Both were conducted during the dry season. This allowed for easy detection of changes over time.

A 94 000 km2 area was studied and the elephant population estimated at 122 700 in 2018. This was roughly similar to the 2014 numbers.

But comparing results from the 2014 and 2018 aerial surveys, the scientists found that the numbers of elephant carcasses have increased, especially for newer carcasses dead for less than roughly one year. Populations can remain stable despite increased carcass counts because of new births and immigration from other range states.

Were these changes poaching-induced? The survey shows that they were. Carcasses suspected of poaching were physically checked. Evidence of skull hacking and attempts to cover tracks were clear. The elephants were killed in clusters, suggesting poaching hot-spots.

The paper has been published amid a fierce debate about the future of Botswana’s preferred conservation model. Restoring trophy hunting rights is likely to amplify the poaching problem rather than solve it.

Trophy hunting and poaching both target large bulls with big tusks. Hunting may therefore create an additive effect to poaching, leading to exponential decline of the rare genetics carried by “big tuskers”.

The findings

Elephant population health and its future prospects are partially determined by carcass ratios. This is the number of carcasses divided by the sum of carcasses plus live elephants. If the carcass ratio is high, it might indicate a population in decline. “Fresh” carcasses indicate death within a year of the survey, whereas old carcasses indicate death more than a year prior. “Very old” carcasses belong to elephants who died more than ten years before the survey.

The estimated overall carcass count increased by 21% between 2014 and 2018. The combined fresh and recent number increased by 593% over the same time.

A number of factors could affect carcass ratios. These include drought, disease, poaching and excessive hunting.

One of the signs that poaching is responsible for animal deaths is if they occur in clusters. The survey identified clustering effects in the 2018 survey that were not present in the 2014 survey.

The density of fresh and recent carcasses in observed hot-spots was 0.04/km2 but only 0.001/km2 in surrounding areas (buffer zones). Population decline in the hot-spots was roughly 16% while the increase in the surrounding areas was 10%.

Cause of death

To verify the cause of death for carcasses suspected of poaching, the researchers used a helicopter to visit carcasses on the ground or photograph them from low altitude. Poachers hack skulls for tusk removal and move branches over the carcass to try and cover their tracks.

Poaching was confirmed for 94 fresh or recent carcasses. For older carcasses, 62 of the 76 checked were verified as poached. That’s 156 illegally killed elephants directly observed within a few months, and a total carcass ratio of 8%, which may indicate a population at risk of decline. As the scientists note:

"In Zimbabwe’s Sebungwe ecosystem, numbers of carcasses increased in the early 2000s while elephant populations generally remained stable. This stable period was followed by a population collapse, with 2014 numbers down by 76% from the early 2000s."

In addition, their evidence showed that the vast majority of poached carcasses were older bulls. This is because they carry bigger tusks with more ivory. Poachers preferentially select these bulls, especially in previously unexploited populations. These are also the bulls that photographers pay to see.

What does this tell us about the future of elephants in Botswana?

Unsustainable policy

Botswana’s decision to reintroduce trophy hunting means that it’s now possible to pay around $40,000 to kill a “tusker” with ivory weighing between 40 to 70 pounds. Botswana’s annual quota has been set at 400 bulls per annum, for bulls older than 35. Trophy bulls are normally selected from the oldest 10% of the male population.

This is unsustainable.

Only a small proportion of the 400 are likely to have large tusk genetics. Botswana’s independent bull elephant population is currently estimated at between 18,474 and 22,816. If 4,000 of these were trophy bulls (unlikely), removing 400 a year (plus poaching of at least 200), would mean that big tuskers would be shot out within seven years.

Older males are critical for maintaining cogent elephant sociology. They suppress the musth cycles of younger bulls and deter delinquent behaviour. Consequently, hunting might lead to more human and elephant conflict.

Bulls also breed most successfully beyond the age of 40. Their absence will therefore negatively affect breeding cycles. Killing them off comes with extensive opportunity costs for Botswana. Photographic tourists – paying up to $2,000 per person per night – may now choose other destinations to see big tuskers.

Botswana’s Minister of Tourism, Kitso Mokaila, has stated that “photographic tourism is a model that does not work for Batswana”. Mokaila also intimated that leases would not be renewed, cowing the industry into silence.

While the photographic safari industry could certainly benefit communities more, this does not amount to an argument in favour of hunting. Self-drive tourism options, for instance, have not been tried in the Central Conservation Areas, which would bring counter-poaching presence and revenue to those communities.

What's next?

With declining diamond rents and few economic alternatives to tourism, Botswana may need to rethink its position on hunting and must take action now to stop poaching in its tracks. This requires that local communities become drivers of conservation, true participants rather than ‘consulted’ stakeholders. And appropriate land-use planning must be followed, especially in conservation areas that are not conducive to photographic tourism.The Conversation

- Ross Harvey is an independent economist and PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town.


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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The Great Elephant Debate: Why tourists should not boycott Botswana

OP-ED

By Gail C Potgieter• 4 July 2019

The lifting of the ban on elephant trophy hunting in Botswana has sparked calls for a boycott of that country. However, these calls send clear messages to Botswana and its neighbours – messages that carry harmful consequences.

The recent decision by the president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, to lift the ban on trophy hunting has sparked an international outcry. Individuals, organisations, and at least one travel agent have suggested a boycott of Botswana’s wildlife tourism industry in a bid to force the president to rethink his decision.

Considering that this decision was made after extensive consultations with rural people and local stakeholders, it is extremely unlikely the boycott calls will change anything in Botswana. Instead, the boycott sends at least five clear messages to Botswana and its neighbouring African countries, most of which are probably not intended.

1. Banning trophy hunting is a risky strategy

This message is especially clear to Botswana’s neighbours – South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia – all of which still allow trophy hunting. Although there are occasional hunting-related controversies in all countries, there are no outright calls to boycott their tourism industries. The travel agent called Luxtripper exemplifies this hypocrisy as it now refuses to book trips to Botswana, but still sells holidays to its hunting neighbours.

The leaders of these countries must have taken note of this – if you do not want undue pressure on your tourism industries, never ban trophy hunting. If you do, even as a temporary measure (as was promised in Botswana during the 2013 meetings before the ban), then there will be hell to pay if you ever revert to your former pro-hunting policy. While a decision to ban hunting may be fêted internationally in the short-term, it is a risky long-term strategy.

2. International photographic tourism is a fickle friend

If the photographic industry is substantially weakened by these misguided calls for a boycott, then it will effectively force people in Botswana to usher in the trophy hunters as quickly as possible. Photo-tourism and hunting are the two main alternatives for using wildlife to generate income in rural Africa outside national parks. If photo-tourism is weakened, these safari companies will no longer have the buying power to operate in their concessions, which opens the door wide for hunting operators.

Since the hunting ban in Botswana, a number of former hunting operators were forced to switch to photo-tourism. Similarly, community organisations had to shift from hunting partners to photographic partners. If the photographic business goes well for them, they will not need to switch back to hunting. If their photographic clients all cancel their trips in protest, however, then hunting clients will soon be a better prospect.

3. Elephant conservation does not actually matter

It is an incontrovertible fact that there are more elephants in Botswana than any other country in Africa. Going purely on aerial survey results published by Elephants Without Borders, one can see that the elephant population in Botswana was doing perfectly well when hunting was still allowed. Despite the recent increase in poaching incidents (occurring during the hunting ban period), Botswana’s elephant population is still doing well (see graph below). While numbers appear to have remained stable, the African Elephant Status Report reveals they have expanded their former range towards the south – right into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. This expansion is actually a result of human activities, as there are now pumped waterholes in areas that used to be too dry for elephants to occupy.

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Graph showing the elephant populations estimated by Elephants Without Borders following aerial surveys done before the ban (2010), just after the ban was enacted (2014), and before the ban was lifted (2018). The error bars show the minimum and maximum estimates for each year.

Considering the widespread elephant poaching throughout Africa and the high levels of human-elephant conflict in Botswana, the country deserves an award for its sterling elephant conservation efforts. The last three decades have seen a substantial increase in elephant numbers. Unfortunately, the policies of the last few years that have won so much international acclaim have, if anything, allowed poaching to raise its ugly head in Botswana once more.

Elephants Without Borders reported in 2014 (after many years of trophy hunting) that elephant poaching rates were minimal; in 2018 (after four years of no hunting) they reported substantial levels of elephant poaching. This national poaching increase comes at a time when elephant poaching is declining elsewhere in Africa, possibly due to an economic downturn in China.

Clearly, policy change is needed. But the president who is willing to make this change is being castigated. The boycott message is quite simple: it does not actually matter how well you have conserved elephants in the past or if your current decisions may reduce poaching in future – if you do not make us feel happy we will hurt you.

4. Elephant lives matter more than African lives

One of the reasons that people in Botswana are becoming more vocal about elephants is a recent increase in the number of people killed by these “gentle” giants. Some villagers even live under an elephant-enforced curfew because residents are afraid of encountering elephants at night. A combination of fear and the frequent destruction of their crops resulted in an understandable outcry. The president is merely responding to widespread calls to “do something” about the problem, which is quite normal in democratically-ruled countries.

The international responses to Botswana’s decision reveal a frightening callousness among the former “friends” of the country from the anti-hunting lobby. There is a usual, glib statement about human-elephant conflict being a problem followed by a diatribe against the policy change that was demanded by the people at the sharp end of this conflict.

While reports of increased elephant poaching or articles written against elephant hunting circle the globe hundreds of times on social media, reports of people being trampled to death by elephants are barely even noticed beyond the boundaries of Botswana. To add insult to injury, common “solutions” to the problem proposed online involve reducing the number of people in Botswana or throwing them out of their homes, ignoring the fact that this is one of the least populated countries in the world, let alone Africa. #ElephantLivesMatter, #AfricanLivesNotSoMuch

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Some of the Facebook comments reacting to Botswana’s hunting decision. The first three comments are by foreigners, the last two by people living in Botswana.

5. The spirit of colonialism is alive and well

African countries are independent, sovereign nations. Botswana, in particular, has a long-standing reputation for stability, democracy and good governance. Yet you would not think so, given the way the rest of the world treats it. The decision taken by the president comes after months of consultations with rural villagers, the tourism industry, conservationists and other stakeholders. It stands in stark contrast to the initial decision to ban hunting, where the “consultation” meetings involved government representatives simply informing people that President Ian Khama had already decided to ban hunting. Yet people who enjoy the fruits of consultative, democratic leadership in their own countries vilify Masisi and venerate former president Khama.

The boycott message is this: African countries and their presidents must stay under the thumbs of the developed world, just like the old days. When an African leader actually listens and responds to the needs of his people, he is branded as “populist”.This legitimises foreigners holding him and his people hostage to their own ideologies. As a former protectorate, Botswana felt somewhat less of the pain inflicted on its colonised neighbours in the past, but it has not escaped the colonialist attitudes of the present.

Conclusion: if boycotting Botswana is counter-productive, what can elephant lovers do?

The calls for a boycott have already done severe damage, and the first of the messages listed here has already been broadcast loud and clear to all African nations. Nonetheless, I believe that some of the damage can be undone if those who love elephants would try a different approach by doing one or more of the following:

1.Re-book that trip to Botswana you cancelled, or book the one you were thinking about before being put off by the recent media storm. Supporting the photographic industry is probably the single best way to keep hunting operators out of pristine wildlife areas, if that is your goal.

2.Try to gain a fuller picture of the situation in Botswana and other African countries that allow hunting. Each country is different, and they have highly variable conservation records. Read media articles that give different points of view. The extreme sides of this polarised debate tend to exaggerate to make their points, so listening to only one side will undoubtedly give a skewed picture of reality.

3.Remain respectful when debating with others on social media, especially when your opponent comes from the country in question. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes – how would you feel if your child or spouse was killed by a wild animal in your backyard?

4.Support efforts to reduce human-wildlife conflict in Botswana and elsewhere. There are good people doing excellent work on the ground that help rural communities deal with elephants. There is no final solution to conflict, but every bit helps. DM

Gail C. Potgieter (MSc) is a conservationist specialising in addressing human-wildlife conflict with rural communities in southern Africa. She has worked in Botswana and Namibia for 10 years in wildlife management areas and communal conservancies. As an independent consultant, she has a contract with the Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE) to help translate scientific articles and reports for the general public. This article was not funded by the NCE or any other party, and the opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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Another opinion post from Gail Potgieter

https://africageographic.com/blog/opini ... -botswana/


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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Opinion: The untold story behind hunting in Botswana

Posted on 12 July, 2019 by Gail Potgieter in Botswana, Destinations, Hunting, Opinion Editorial, Research, Wildlife and the Opinion Editorial post series

Opinion post from Gail Potgieter – Human-wildlife conflict specialist

The debate surrounding Botswana’s recent decision to lift the hunting ban is highly polarised, and both sides have marshalled various facts and figures to argue their case. These figures, especially the numbers of living and poached elephants, are hotly debated and contested, with some even questioning the motives behind the research.

As a conservation scientist, I am wary of questioning the results of conservation research, especially when it is clear that the researchers are ultimately interested in conserving wildlife. I have therefore sought to cut through the politics of the debate, focus on the actual research results and draw some conclusions, which I want to share with you.

I used published scientific articles by various authors, and reports from aerial surveys done by Elephants Without Borders (EWB) in 2010 (before the ban), 2014 (soon after the ban was enacted) and 2018 (after four years of no trophy hunting). Using this information and other studies, I will answer three important questions:

a) Was the ban on trophy hunting elephants necessary in the first place?
b) What impacts did the ban have on people and elephants?
c) Where to from here for Botswana’s people and elephants?

WAS THE BAN ON TROPHY HUNTING ELEPHANTS NECESSARY IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The ban on hunting in Botswana was total – it outlawed all forms of hunting any species on state land (the only exception was privately owned game farms). This covered everything from ordinary citizens hunting for the pot to trophy hunters paying exorbitant amounts of money to hunt the Big 5 – including elephant.

Considering that the hunting industry earned P33 million (about US$ 3 million using current exchange rates) for local community organisations between 2006-2009 while photographic tourism earned only P4.4 million (US$ 405,000) in the same period for the same communities, one would imagine that the government must have had very good reasons to ban hunting. Elephants and the other members of the Big 5 are the biggest earners for this industry, so a partial ban that excluded these high value species would have had less economic impact. Since the current international furore centres on elephants, I will focus on the rationale for banning elephant hunting specifically.

The decision to ban hunting was hailed in many quarters as a “win” for conservation. But was it really? When deciding on a major policy change like this one the biggest questions from a conservation viewpoint are: 1) Are the population numbers of the animal in question increasing or decreasing? And 2) Are the threats to this animal (e.g. poaching) increasing or decreasing? The EWB aerial survey reports answer these questions quite well. For easy reference, I have graphed the elephant population estimates from the three EWB reports covering northern Botswana below (the reports can be obtained from EWB’s website).

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Graph showing the elephant population estimates produced by Elephants Without Borders following aerial surveys done before the ban (2010), just after the ban was enacted (2014), and most recently (2018). The error bars show the minimum and maximum population estimates for each year. Data from Elephant Without Borders reports.

If the elephant population was in trouble, then one could understand a hunting ban for this species. The aerial survey data actually reveal that the elephants were doing fine in the period 2010-2014 when hunting was still allowed. Additionally, the survey reports for 2010 and 2014 suggest that elephant poaching was not a major concern. Indeed, in 2014 record low numbers of fresh elephant carcasses were seen from the air, and when researchers visited the accessible carcasses on the ground they assigned all of them to natural causes.

The 2010 survey reported interesting results for a number of other species. Wildebeest populations appeared to be declining across northern Botswana. Five other antelope species, plus zebra and warthog all increased over a 10-year period in the Chobe District in the east, while four antelope species plus giraffe, ostrich and warthog declined in the Okavango Delta area in the west. Finding out whether these population trends were due to human threats or ecological changes (the Delta is a highly dynamic ecosystem) would be impossible from an aerial survey alone. Some of the more concerning trends thus required further research to inform management decisions.

Despite claims that the decision to ban hunting in 2013 (enacted in 2014) was based on conservation concerns, there is no evidence that elephants needed extra protection, although the aerial survey trends for other species required further investigation. I worked in Botswana from the end of 2014 to 2018, and all of the conservation scientists I met while there agreed that the hunting ban was not based on good evidence.

WHAT IMPACTS DID THE BAN HAVE ON PEOPLE AND ELEPHANTS?

Even though science-based reasons for the ban were in short supply at the time, there remained a possibility that it could improve the lot of local people and/or the elephants. In hindsight, the opposite is true. Local community organisations lost millions of Pula in annual income (see graph below) from the year prior to the ban to the year after its effect, along with 200 local jobs. While those supporting the hunting ban point to economic gains made by the country from a growth in photographic tourism, the people who live with the elephants did not see this economic windfall.

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Income reported in millions of Botswana Pula by five community Trusts situated around the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Data from Mbaiwa (2018).

Instead, poverty and hardship only increased – besides income and jobs, a valuable source of protein (in the form of meat from trophy hunts) was also lost. While many people in developed countries have converted to vegetarian and vegan diets, they have access to a variety of vegetables, meat replacement meals and protein supplements. Fresh vegetables and soya-based products are unobtainable luxuries for people living in these far-flung rural areas.

As for the elephants, the EWB aerial survey in 2018 revealed that while the overall population remains relatively stable (refer to the graph above), there are worrying signs that poaching is on the rise. In 2010, EWB reported 66 fresh elephant carcasses in the Chobe Region; only 20% of these (i.e. 13 of them) were considered poached. In 2014 all the elephant deaths appeared to be natural. In 2018, EWB recorded 87 poached elephants during their aerial survey. In a more recent scientific article by the EWB team, they report that poaching appears to have peaked in 2017-2018 with an estimated 385 elephants poached in northern Botswana during this period. If this threat continues to increase, the elephant population could be in trouble in future.

Interestingly, an independent study that examined poaching rates throughout Africa between 2014-2017 reported an overall decline in elephant poaching. It seems that Botswana, despite its emphasis on anti-poaching and the draconian “shoot-to-kill” policy, has become an attractive target for poachers.

During their aerial surveys, the EWB team counts every elephant carcass they see (maps below, reproduced from EWB data). Although their carcass counts include both natural and poached deaths, poaching was only flagged as a serious problem in 2018. There is also a much broader distribution of carcasses in 2018 when compared with the previous years. This deserves a closer look.

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Maps of northern Botswana showing density of fresh elephant carcasses (i.e. less than 1 year old) counted during EWB aerial surveys. The darker colours represent higher carcass densities, while the grey areas were not surveyed in that year. Note that these include natural deaths and poached animals. © Rob Thomson. Data from the 2010, 2014 and 2018 Elephants Without Borders reports.

Due to their concern over the poached carcasses spotted during their survey, EWB highlighted areas in northern Botswana where they found the most poached animals. These poaching hotspots are mapped below with the nearby villages and names for each management block (designated by government) provided for context.

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Poaching hotspots reported by EWB overlaid on a map of the concession areas designated by government, with notable villages and towns © Rob Thomson. Data from the 2018 Elephants Without Borders report.

The most westerly hotspot is north of the Okavango River (known as the panhandle by locals), and is close to a number of villages that experience some of the highest levels of human-elephant conflict in the country. The hotspot to the east of this one lies directly north of Khwai and Mababe villages. These villagers do not keep livestock or plant crops because they live in a high-density wildlife area; they used to rely on meat produced by the hunting industry to fulfil their protein requirements. In 2013, before the ban, the Mababe community Trust earned P3.5 million and employed 54 local people. In 2018, this Trust earned P1 million (from photographic tourism only) and employs only 8 people; it had to lay off the rest due to mounting tax debts. In the five years since the hunting ban, income from photographic tourism has not replaced income from hunting.

The third hotspot, near Maun (a major town) and Shorobe village has the highest human population density. Elephant sightings were increasing around Maun when I lived there (2014-2018); it appears they were moving further south than usual – to their peril. Finally, the hotspot in NG/42 is a former hunting concession that was abandoned after the hunting ban; no photographic tourism operators have taken over this area to date.

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An elephant in the Mababe floodplains in northern Botswana © Gail Potgieter

WHERE TO FROM HERE FOR BOTSWANA’S PEOPLE AND ELEPHANTS?

The hunting ban has clearly failed Botswana’s people and its elephants. Research from Namibia indicates that hunting and photographic tourism make joint, but not equivalent, contributions to local communities. They argue that banning hunting in that country would have dire consequences for Namibian communal conservancies that either rely entirely on hunting or a combination of hunting and tourism (only 12% rely on tourism only). The communities in neighbouring Botswana can confirm that prediction from their own real life experiences.

Furthermore, it is clear that the former President’s combined policies to strip local communities of their rights to use their wildlife while increasing anti-poaching efforts have not helped elephants. This outcome also confirms predictions by scientists that increasing “top-down” law enforcement coupled with reducing local benefits from wildlife conservation is a recipe for increasing illegal wildlife trade. The recent Africa-wide study focusing on elephant poaching adds further strength to this prediction using hard data. They found that reducing poverty and corruption, coupled with reducing ivory prices, would be more effective in reducing poaching than increased law enforcement on its own. Given that Botswana had the lowest level of corruption of all countries in that study, we can conclude that increased rural poverty has most likely played a critical role in allowing poaching to increase.

The “shoot to kill” policy only created tensions with Namibia and Zimbabwe, as the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) gunned down 52 of their citizens suspected of poaching. President Masisi has since reversed this policy and removed military grade weapons from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks – it is illegal in Botswana for any non-military personnel to use such weapons anyway. This does not mean that the government is no longer doing all they can to prevent poaching. The BDF is still an active part of anti-poaching efforts in Botswana. These soldiers are still armed with military grade weapons; they are now just expected to show some restraint before pulling the trigger.

Local people are not always directly involved in poaching, but they often know about it. In my work with rural communities in Namibia, it never ceased to amaze me just how quickly word spread of a newcomer or foreigner arriving in the area. The government and its partners in Namibia have taken advantage of that ability by enlisting their citizens in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking. Tip-offs from locals have stopped poachers before they even killed rhinos in the northwest, caused numerous seizures of ivory in the northeast, and led to the rescue of 62 live pangolins from 177 people who captured them illegally (they were arrested). Where people are not disenfranchised by draconian policies that prevent them from using their wildlife, they can be the best allies anyone can have in the fight against poaching.

With a new President that is committed to listening to his people, the future for conservation in Botswana appears bright. President Masisi is also engaging with his neighbouring countries to improve the management strategies for elephants in the critical Kavango-Zambezi landscape. The government is currently revising their legislation regarding community-based conservation with the aim of reducing local governance issues and ultimately ensuring that people truly benefit from wildlife. All stakeholders, including photographic tourists, should support these new efforts to include the people of Botswana in conserving their wildlife.

I would like to thank the Director of the Ngamiland Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (NCONGO), Siyoka Simasiku, for his input into this document, particularly for the up to date statistics on income for Mababe Zokotsama Community Trust. Rob Thomson pored over all the EWB reports in great detail to produce the maps presented here.


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Re: Elephant Poaching, Census and Management in Botswana

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It is extremely difficult not to say impossible to find a trustworthy 100% objective valuation of the elephant situation in Botswana as it all depends on who is writing 0*\

There is a lot of talk about numbers and gains, but very little about the real situation seen from the point of view of the elephants and a serious proposal on how to keep them away from people and crops. It is cheaper to kill a few hundreds of elephants than to erect protection around the farms.


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