‘I hate elephants’ — behind Botswana’s backlash against giant creatures
CHOBE ENCLAVE, Botswana
For as long as they can remember, farmers in Botswana lived mostly at peace with elephants, whose knowing eyes and playful kids made them seem almost like friendly human neighbors.
This southern African country of savannas and swamps is home to roughly one-third of Africa’s elephants, thanks in part to strict anti-poaching enforcement and a trophy hunting ban that have made it a darling of conservationists and a mecca for high-priced tourism. But the population spike has not been easy for the people who live alongside them, and a backlash has erupted.
“I hate elephants,” said Lumba Nderiki, a farmer well into her 80s, as she strolled through her modest and barren field in the Chobe enclave, a strip of mostly farmland between the river and national park of the same name. “Two simple reasons: They have widowed me, and they have left me without a harvest.”
Nderiki and her husband had been married 65 years before he was killed by an elephant in 2014. Like nearly everyone else in this cluster of villages, it has been years since her fields weren’t trampled and eaten up by what she calls “the giants.” She used to grow more than 100 bags of sorghum in a season. Last harvest, she salvaged three.
Growing resentment toward the animals among farmers here and around Botswana is upending the country’s politics and prompting the reversal of policies that turned tourism into Botswana’s second-biggest earner after diamonds. The furor has also spilled into a larger debate over race in a country where white foreigners and the descendants of colonialists control much of the conservation and tourism sectors while many who live outside the national parks eke out a living on government subsidies.
If there were anywhere elephants could become a populist issue, it is Botswana, which has a human population of just over 2 million and an elephant population of about 130,000. The country’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, was appointed last year and is up for his first election in October.
He has forcefully taken the farmers’ side, turning elephants into a major campaign issue. On May 23, he lifted a ban on trophy hunting of elephants put in place by his predecessor. And his government floated the possibility of culling and processing elephant meat as pet food.
The president clarified in a recent Facebook post that there would be no culling and no pet food factories. But he said that in his view, the numbers of elephants are now “far more than Botswana’s fragile environment, already stressed by drought and other effects of climate change, can safely accommodate,” leading to a “sharp increase” in conflict between humans and elephants. He believes a limited, permit-based return to hunting can solve the crisis.
Some conservationists argue that Masisi’s assertions aren’t true, and that even if they were, allowing hunting for sport isn’t an effective population-control method. Mike Chase, who runs Elephants Without Borders, a research charity that conducts the only elephant census in Botswana, says the elephant population has been stable for at least a decade and that the government’s own data shows instances of human-elephant conflict have been relatively constant, too.
The growth in Botswana’s elephant population from approximately 80,000 in 1996 to 130,000 in 2014 has been attributed to strictly upheld anti-poaching policies, which remain largely in place under the current president. Across Africa, however, poaching has contributed to steep declines in elephant populations over the past decade.
Trophy hunting of elephants is legal in many African countries, including in every country Botswana borders: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Governments set permit quotas that are reevaluated annually and can range from a few dozen to hundreds. Botswana’s government has said it plans to issue no more than 400 permits once legal hunting comes into effect. A permit can cost tens of thousands of dollars, though critics argue that little of that money filters down to local communities.
Data on elephant populations and human-elephant conflict are inexact. The census relies on aerial surveys, and instances of conflict rely on people to report them.
What’s palpable is how people on both sides feel about elephants, and emotions run high.
Some tourists are reacting to the reintroduction of hunting - which still doesn’t have a start date - by canceling trips. “Just got another typical mail today. Guest says after a dozen visits she will not come back to Botswana,” said Dereck Joubert, a conservationist, filmmaker and lodge owner.
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