FOR THE ATTENTION OF HIS EXCELLENCY, DUMA BOKO, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BOTSWANA
19th November 2024
Dear Mr President Duma Boko,
A RESPECTFUL REQUEST TO RE-IMPOSE THE BAN ON ELEPHANT HUNTING IN BOTSWANA
The Wildlife Animal Protection Forum South Africa (WAPFSA) is a coalition of South African wildlife and environmental non-governmental organisations, please accept our warmest congratulations on your election as Botswana’s President. We hereby extend our best wishes for your success as you prepare to take up the responsibilities and challenges of this high office.
WAPFSA firmly believes that Botswana is one of the last places on earth where wildlife, especially elephants exist in significant numbers. Therefore, we believe that Botswana should be preserved as a non-trophy hunting area. As you embark on your new responsibilities WAPFSA humbly requests that you consider re-imposing the ban on elephant hunting in Botswana.
This ban would restore Botswana’s international reputation for conservation and in turn bolster revenue from tourism, the second largest source of foreign income after diamond mining. WAPFSA does not believe that by banning the trophy hunting of elephants that the levels of human elephant conflict will increase.
Instead, we believe that the world needs to find ways to make sure that communities living alongside this important, precious and iconic world heritage, benefit from photographic tourism and successful non-consumptive schemes, which link the conservation of wildlife and the natural ecosystems with sustainable improvements in their livelihoods.
Elephants, known for their intelligence, size and distinct appearance face a major threat from poaching an illegal practice driven by the demand for ivory and other elephant products. They remain the one of the most heavily poached mammals in the world, with a staggering 90% of African elephants being killed by poachers within the last 100 years.
WAPFSA remains concerned, particularly given that peer-reviewed data by experts points to a rise in thepoaching and killing of elephants for the trade in ivory, that the previous government of Botswana used aninflated figure (up to 237,000 elephants) to justify the need to consider unbanning trophy hunting and culling.
IUCN/PACO research shows that photographic safaris or eco-tourism creates 39 times more jobs than the trophy hunting for the equivalent surface area Photographic conservation tourism industry is the second largest revenue-generating industry to Botswana’s fiscus. If implemented these recommendations will do untold harm to the lucrative non-consumptive, eco-tourism sector in Botswana. They pose a direct threat to sustainable livelihoods in Botswana as well as to the country’s international reputation.
The following facts are also important to bear in mind:
1. A report published in October 2024 highlights a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of global wildlife populations in just 50 years reveals a ‘system in peril’.
2. Given that we are in the midst of the Sixth Extinction and that elephant numbers are rapidly decreasing, the plights of elephants is of concern to all, and the efforts to ensure their future should be shared by all.
3. Elephants are extremely complex beings with physical, social and psychological interests who have intrinsic value and deserve respect.
4. Elephants are important to maintaining the ecological integrity of the region and thus we have locus standi in the matter.
5. The maintenance of regional ecological integrity is a pillar of our societal survival, ecologically, economically and socially.
6. Elephant migration routes are key in supporting ecological integrity and corridors for wildlife are vitally important for natural systems to exist and enable the movement of elephant populations out of Botswana.
7. South Africa had to abandon its elephant culling model because it was discredited from a scientific and a biodiversity management perspective
8. Botswana’s support for the ivory trade, via its proposal to the CITES Cop 18, fly in the face of the global momentum to reduce consumer demand for ivory and run counter to the recommendation in Resolution Conf.10.10. (Rev. CoP17) which calls for closure of domestic ivory markets contributing to poaching or illegal trade.
There is no compelling, empirical evidence of the economic significance of trophy hunting or that it is imperative to the future of conservation and to generate local community benefits. Moreover trophy hunting and culling are an added threat to wildlife.
In conclusion, WAPFSA firmly believes based upon irrefutable scientific evidence that trophy hunting and culling are not solutions to, nor will they mitigate, human- animal-conflict and will in fact result in increased conflict and added dangers to communities. Disrupting elephant social structures and hierarchies through trophy hunting and culling will further exacerbate human-elephant-conflict and also destroy social andecological knowledge and experience in the elephant societies.
The extent of human-elephant-conflict needs to be accurately ascertained and humane, innovative and collaborative solutions implemented in ways that benefit, and are a win- win for, communities and elephants (and other animals).
Signed by Members of the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum of South Africa
Image: ©EMS Fondation 2024.
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