Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany amid a dispute over the import of hunting trophies.
”Twenty thousand elephants for Germany, this is not a joke,” Masisi told German tabloid Bild.
The African leader criticised the German government – particularly the environment ministry – for seeking to ban the import of trophies despite Botswana’s ”overpopulation” of elephants.
Earlier this year Germany’s environment ministry, which is headed up by Steffi Lemke of the Green party, raised the possibility of stricter limits on the import of hunting trophies due to poaching concerns.
Masisi told Bild that Germany’s Green party could learn to cohabitate with elephants without hunting them.
”It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana. We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world – and even for Lemke’s party,” Masisi said.
Germans should try to “live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to,” he added.
According to Masisi, Botswana has seen its elephant population grow to some 130,000.
To tackle the country’s ”overpopulation” of the animals, Botswana has already offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and another 500 to Mozambique, Masisi said, adding that Mozambique had yet to collect the elephants.
“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Masisi told Bild, adding that he would “not take no for an answer.”
Botswana’s president argued that conservation efforts have led to an explosion in the elephant population, and hunting is an “important means to keep them in check.”
A rendering of a woolly mammoth. Biotech company Colossal wants to revive the mammoth by creating a hybrid combining its DNA with that of Asian elephants.
Masisi said that elephants were trampling people to death, eating crops and causing damage to villages, and a ban on the import of hunting trophies would only impoverish Botswanans.
Masisi claimed that his country does more to protect wildlife ”than any other country in the world,” and invited the German minister to inspect wildlife protection in his country.
CNN has contacted Botswana’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism for comment.
The southern African nation banned trophy hunting in 2014 to help declining elephant numbers recover from poaching and shrinking habitats.
But the ban was scrapped in 2019 after pressure from local communities, and Botswana now issues annual hunting quotas.
Botswana has not raised any concerns with the German government on this matter, a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry told reporters at a regular news briefing Wednesday.
And German environment ministry spokeswoman Iris Throm said that the ministry remained in talks with African countries affected by import rules, including Botswana.
According to the ministry, Germany is one of the largest importers of hunting trophies in the European Union, and African hunting trophies already require import authorization under current rules.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/03/africa/botswana-germany-trophy-hunting-scli-intl/index.html