Botswana president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has lamented what he described as the “explosion” of elephant population in the country.
He said the conversation efforts in the country has backfired, as the elephants now cause damage to property, eat crops and trample residents.
The president has also threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany amid a dispute over the import of hunting trophies.
Germany’s environment ministry earlier this year raised the possibility of stricter limits on the import of hunting trophies over poaching concerns.
Masisi told Germany that a ban on the import of hunting trophies would only impoverish Botswanans.
He argued that conservation efforts had led to an explosion in the number of elephants and that hunting is an important way to keep them in check.
Botswana banned trophy hunting in 2014 but lifted the restrictions in 2019 under pressure from local communities. The country now issues annual hunting quotas.
Herds of elephants cause damage to property, feast on crops and trample residents, Masisi told Bild, a German newspaper.
“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,” he said.
“Germans should live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to. This is not a joke,” said Masisi, whose country has seen its elephant population grow to some 130,000.
Botswana population as of 2022 was 2.63m.
Botswana, home of the world’s largest elephant population, has already offered 8,000 elephants to Angola and another 500 to Mozambique, as it seeks to tackle what Masisi described as “overpopulation”.
