Africa-Press – Botswana. Government has appealed for backing from Batswana to lobby against the ban on importation of by-products of trophy hunting by European countries.
Addressing the 2024 HATAB annual conference in Maun recently, the Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Mr Boatametse Modukanele stated that there was need for a multi-sectoral approach on the matter.
He said Estonia and Belgium had enacted laws that banned trophy importation while France, United Kingdom and Germany were intending to do so with Bills being debated at different stages before being passed or otherwise.
He asked the tourism and hospitality industry to support government’s position by sharing Botswana’s success story on wildlife and natural resources conservation with their clientele, friends and international NGOs.
He said currently, Botswana was faced with an uphill battle because the European countries threatening to ban the importation of hunting trophies were backed by celebrities and organisations with financial muscle.
However, Mr Modukanele said the recent visits by Botswana delegation to UK, France and Germany led by Minister of Environment and Tourism, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu accorded Botswana an opportunity to share her success story on controlled hunting so that the world could learn from it.
He highlighted that it was imperative that the rest of the world was informed about Botswana’s policies and approach to sustainable wildlife conservation which guided the annual wildlife quotas for trophy hunting.
Mr Modukanele indicated that Botswana had the largest population of elephants in the world, which resulted from sustainable conservation policies that were catalysed by community involvement in conservation of natural resources.
Mr Modukanele stated that government released hunting quotas in wildlife concessions every year as a management tool for the increasing numbers of wildlife, and the funds generated from hunting were invested back into the communities that coexisted with wildlife.
He pointed out that the increase of wildlife population caused human-wildlife conflict in which many people lost lives.
He said last year a total of 7 500 incidents of human-wildlife conflict were registered with 70 per cent of the cases involving elephants.
He stated that Botswana was currently exploring other markets like Asia and Middle East to export trophies to.
Mr Modukanele acknowledged that some citizens and entities held different views on hunting of wildlife as they believed that this would result in extinction or other reasons.
However, he said Botswana had taken a stand to lobby for controlled hunting, which called for concerted efforts from citizens, communities, NGOs and other entities to support the government.
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