I have just read an article entitled “Botswana can host 400-000 Elephants” –
Joubert. This article and the article on page four of the same paper (Monday
Monitor) entitled “Film Stars employ 180 Batswana, are both about Derek and
Beverly Jourbert conveying their views on anti-hunting and Botswana’s need
for more Elephants.
The article(s) have all the elements of a Disneyland film. With a vast
uninhabited “El Dorado” type forests just waiting for elephants to populate
in the Chobe, the Elephants ability to self control their populations, and
massive training and employment scenarios. Both articles have the flavor of
shoddy representatives lobbying for approval through false promises of
greener pastures for all their supporters.
All of this is band standing and green washing of the wildlife situation in
Botswana that came about by the banning of sport hunting for 2014. Although
many feel that it is far too earlier for a celebration, look at what has
happened in Kenya, for example. This once wonderfully rich wildlife country
has, since the banning of sport hunting, lost 80 percent of its wildlife.
Only time will tell if Botswana walks the same path.
As for the “Film Stars” view on Botswana Hosting 400 000 Elephants the
truth is simple: Botswana has too many elephants. Way too many, in fact, it
is their influence on the environment that is impacting all the other
species. The elephant issue is not a simple single-species conservation
issue – it is embedded in a complex social-ecological system with important
cross-scale effects and drivers.
Botswana currently has the largest elephant population on earth. In the
early 1960s there were less than 10,000 Elephants in Botswana. Since that
time their numbers have increased steadily by about 5 to 6 percent annually.
By 1990 there were 50,000 elephants, in the following year the Botswana
Department of Wildlife Conservation and National Parks drew up a draft
elephant management policy. In that year (1991), it was established that the
then-current elephant population of 55,000 was the maximum the country could
sustain without the eventual loss of habitat so essential for species
biodiversity. Unfortunately the policy was never adopted or implemented even
though it made the recommendation that management of elephant numbers was
necessary because of their effect on the habitat. Botswana’s elephant
numbers continued to increase steadily. By 1995 the population had increased
to 80,000. By 2002 some estimates said it was 120,000; by 2005, 140,000; and
now some 200,00 plus.
Could Botswana sustain a population of 400 000 Elephants? And what are the
consequences?
. Elephants can and do greatly modify woodlands and habitat structure.
During the drought period, (the 1990s and early 2000s) elephant numbers
increased steadily by about 6 percent annually while in the Moremi Game
Reserve (which borders the Okavango swamps and where no hunting takes place)
giraffe numbers over the same period decreased by 8 percent annually. Kudu
numbers also decreased by 11 percent annually, as did lechwe by 7 percent,
tsessebe by 13 percent and wildebeest by 18 percent! (Source: Elephants
Without Borders paper entitled “Dry Season Fixed-Wing Aerial Survey Of
Elephants & Wildlife in Northern Botswana, Sept.-Nov. 2010.”)
All of our wildlife is important: Is the life of an elephant more important
or sacred than that of a giraffe, for example, or a kudu, which disappears
because it no longer has trees to feed on? Everything in nature needs to be
in balance, and when the balance tips too far in favor of the
mega-herbivores, everything else falls apart.
Elephants damage crops, water installations for livestock, and not
infrequently kill people in rural areas.
When a rural farmer gets trampled to death by a herd of crop raiding
elephants while protecting his/her property, will family members of the
deceased rejoice that their loved one was killed by one of “nature’s little
sweet-hearts” and shout out “we need more Elephants”? – I don’t think so.
My point is simple: Elephant populations in Botswana are growing
exponentially and running out of space. (Too many elephants)
Will the Jourberts get their dream of 400 000 elephants in Botswana?
I don’t think so; there’s one higher factor that controls the inhabitants
of the planet, and she doesn’t live in Disneyland.
Mother Nature is smarter than all of us. Something is going to collapse,
and when it does I’m sure it will not be attractive. Regrettably it’s going
to be the other wildlife species that will be affected most. Gigantic
environmental deprivation and the loss of Botswana’s biodiversity is a
disaster just waiting to happen. Sport hunting could have been part of the
solution. Instead it is being used as a pretext, and now it is about to be
banned.
