Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism has been forced to pay N$2,9 million since 2019 to compensate farmers who have lost crops due to human-wildlife conflict involving stray elephants.
Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda says human-wildlife conflict involving elephants accounts for 90% of all cases in which farmers’ crops are damaged.
Meanwhile the ministry has auctioned off 37 elephants to reduce cases of human-wildlife conflict.
Muyunda says 15 of these elephants were sold to local buyers, and 22 will be exported.
He says the ministry has raised N$4,4 million out of a target of N$ 5,9 million for the auction.
“The funds generated through this auction will be transferred to the Game Product Trust Fund to be reinvested in the conservation and management of wildlife resources and rural development, including in community conservancies,” he says.
Muyunda says the funds will also be used for human-wildlife conflict management, the management of national parks, species conservation, wildlife-conflict management and law enforcement, community-based natural resources management, and rural development.
“The remaining 22 elephants meant for one of the export destinations were captured in the Kamanjab commercial farming area in the Kunene region, and supplied to GH Odendaal as one of the successful bidders,” he says.
“Cases of human-wildlife conflict have seriously affected livestock grazing areas. If there is no vegetation in an area it affects climate and rainfall patterns, which in turn affects the cultivation of crops. It is the entire ecosystem that is affected,” Muyunda says.
He says both elephants and other animals depend on vegetation for food, and in the absence of that, Namibia may end up losing the entire population of elephants in an area, or the entire wildlife population of an area.
Muyunda says it is therefore important to reduce the number of elephants to ensure that vegetation is preserved.
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