In southern Africa, the struggle for living space between humans and animals is intensifying. Namibia has found a solution that drives animal rights activists crazy.
Lots of desert, little water – and lots of elephants: South Africa’s neighboring state of Namibia, like neighboring Botswana, was considered a pioneer in animal welfare for decades. However, the dramatic droughts of recent years have triggered an ever-increasing race for precious habitat in the desert state between the population and wild animals.
Elephants sometimes trample over fences or cause other damage in search of water. At worst, they endanger local people living in rural areas. The government in the Namibian capital Windhoek therefore started selling wild jumbos last year, which are now also being exported abroad. Africa’s gray giants as an export hit – that causes international resentment.
The animal protection organization Pro Wildlife has criticized the fact that the Namibian government has approved the export of 22 previously free-roaming elephants to a safari park near Dubai. “It is incomprehensible why Namibia would risk its international reputation for such a questionable deal,” says Daniela Freyer from Pro Wildlife. The biologist considers Namibia’s justifications to be “thimble”. According to their information, the government had sold the pachyderms at an auction for around $10,000 per animal to buyers in Namibia. A middleman then sold them to the safari park at a premium.
According to estimates, around 23,000 elephants currently live in sparsely populated Namibia with its almost 2.5 million inhabitants – a significant increase compared to previous years. This leads to greater problems between humans and animals. The same applies to neighboring Botswana. While the number of elephants is declining in many regions of Africa, according to official figures, in the landlocked country it has risen from around 50,000 in 1991 to a good 130,000 animals – this corresponds to almost a third of Africa’s elephant population.
The auction of hunting licenses for 70 wild pachyderms in Botswana has also been denounced by animal rights activists. The responsible national park ministry had emphasized there that the hunting licenses had only been approved for controlled hunting areas. In addition, only Botswana companies are entitled to participate – but they can shoot the elephants and then sell them on to international companies.
“Elephant trophy hunting is not a solution to human-elephant conflict, it actually exacerbates it; plus there aren’t too many elephants in Botswana,” says Michele Pickover of the South Africa-based EMS Animal Welfare Foundation.
In Namibia, the Ministry of the Environment had auctioned 57 elephants to private buyers last year, of which only 15 stayed in the country, according to the animal welfare organization Ifaw. The government argued that it wanted to reduce the number of pachyderms and at the same time use the proceeds to alleviate conflicts between the population and the elephants. The Namibian economy had to cope with a low due to the devastating droughts and the pandemic.
“The capture of wild elephants for lifelong captivity in amusement parks and zoos is not only cruel, the export also violates international species protection regulations,” Freyer complained. Wild African elephants are actually protected by the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). Its provisions explicitly stipulate for Namibia that elephants may only be exported to species protection projects within Africa.
But Namibia invokes a legal interpretation of the regulations to justify wild-caught elephants in captivity being shipped outside of their natural range, according to the Swiss Franz Weber Foundation – an interpretation that is highly controversial, the foundation says.
The Namibian Hunters’ Association (Napha) sees it differently: “The whole debate is superfluous from a scientific and legal point of view, it is an emotional din that is instigated and fueled by animal welfare groups,” he wrote in a statement. The animal protection groups have no regard for local communities and their rights. Lisa Ossenbrink, dpa
