The president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany in a dispute over conservation.
Earlier this year, Germany’s environment ministry suggested there should be stricter limits on importing “trophies” from hunted animals. Meanwhile officials in Botswana insist that conservation efforts have led to a huge rise in the elephant population, and therefore some of them need to be shot by tourists.
“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Mr Masisi said of the quoted 20,000 elephants, adding that he would not take no for an answer. Germans should “live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to”, Mr Masisi told German newspaper Bild. “This is no joke.”
Botswana’s Wildlife Minister Dumezweni Mthimkhulu last month threatened to send 10,000 elephants to London’s Hyde Park so British people could “have a taste of living alongside” them.
In March, the British parliament voted to support a ban on importing hunting trophies, but the wording of the legislation is still being negotiated before becoming law.
Botswana is home to about a third of the world’s elephant population – over 130,000. Botswana has previously given 8,000 elephants to neighbouring Angola, and has offered hundreds more to Mozambique, as a means of bringing the population down.
Herds were causing damage to property, eating crops and trampling residents, Mr Masisi said.
Botswana and other southern African countries make a lot of money from rich tourists who pay thousands of dollars for a permit to shoot an animal and then take its head or skin back home as a trophy.
They say this money is used to help conservation efforts, and local people, so they are less likely to be tempted to poach the animals.
Animal rights groups argue that the practice is cruel and should be banned.
Botswana, along with its neighbours Zimbabwe and Namibia, has also argued that it should be allowed to sell their stockpiles of ivory so it can earn money from its huge numbers of elephants.
Countries in East Africa, as well as animal rights groups, have opposed this saying it would encourage poaching.
In Berlin, a spokeswoman for the environment ministry told the AFP news agency that Botswana had not raised any concerns with Germany on the matter.
“In light of the alarming loss of biological diversity, we have a special responsibility to do everything to ensure the import of hunting trophies is sustainable and legal,” she said.
