Big changes coming to Botswana. Above, I posted out the previous President bowing to the animal rights and anti hunting group pressures. To quickly summarize....
About 6 years ago, the ARA and AH groups convinced (paid off) the then President to close all big game hunting and dangerous game hunting throughout Bots. They "promised" him that by doing so, "environmental tourism" will boom and they will bring more money into the country and hire more locals and it will be utopia. He did allow private land owners to continue to offer only plains game hunting.
Flash forward 6-years, new President who was elected in large part due to his intention to reopen dangerous game and plains game hunting on private and government concessions again. After he was elected, he held a series of public meeting around the country. He invited the surrounding citizens as well as all the ARA and AH people and groups to allow them all to give their take on the current situation.
The general take away was NONE of the "promises" of increased tourism, increased revenue, more employment of locals, more money put back into the local communities as schools, clinics or conservation projects or even simply putting down new bore holes (wells) for the communities or in the conservation areas happened. These groups where challenged directly by the President to provide proof that even on dollar was put back as promised. They couldn't. Meanwhile the elephant and other dangerous game populations, which were already increasing before the hunting ban, continued to increase.
Side note for background - Elephant herds will naturally expand at an approximate nominal rate of 5% per year. Prior to the hunting ban taking effect, the estimated elephant population in Bots was around 130,000 to 145,000. In 2017 an aerial survey was done and funded by a big anti-hunting NGO. That surveyed showed there were about 170,000 elephants in Bots. Only trouble is, the entire country only has enough space and forage to sustain approximately 75,000. The elephant are actually eating themselves out of existence. The multi-fold increase in crop raids and killing local villagers and subsistence farmers by elephant had reached several hundred a year. Now, if you take the 5% natural annual population increase, at even 150,000 elephant, that is 7500 and MORE added every year. So, just to MAINTAIN the current elephant populations at the level they are at, 7500 per year would have to be killed - either by culling or trophy hunting.
A few months ago, the President announced that DG and PG hunting would be reinstated through out the country. The ARA an AH groups screamed and he said they were still going to be allowed to maintain their current operations as well. If they didn't like it and since NONE of the promises they had made 6-years ago never happened, if they didn't like it they could pack their crap and leave. Most of these places were owned and run by foreign people or groups anyway. He even revoked the visas of some very prominent ARA and HA groups and individuals.
As of this time, as I understand it, the government had established an initial quota of just 400 elephant to be auctioned off for trophy hunting this year. They are still finalizing the details of the controlling processes and regulations but they intend to make the bidding open to only Bots registered and licensed PH's/Outfitters. Since the herds tend to migrate around the country following the rains and crops, they are seriously looking at issuing permits for only certain areas, certain specific time frames. The intention is to put pressure on the herds to keep them out of the crop lands and moving to other areas.
Similar limits, regulations and restrictions are being reviewed for other DG and cats as the buffalo, hippo, lion and leopard populations are at the point they are causing huge conflicts with the locals as well.
Hope this works out for Botswana. I know we will be back though we have no desire for DG ourselves.
