16 May 2017

Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Conservation and Tourism, Mr Tshekedi Khama has assured residents of Matsiloje that his ministry would process compensation for destruction of problem animals speedily.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in the village recently, Minister Tshekedi said for the past years, his ministry had been allocated inadequate funds for compensations, resulting in the ministry carrying forward claims to other financial years, but this year P21 million was allocated and he was optimistic that it would cover substantial arrears.

The minister  however, noted that compensation was not the solution to the issue of problem animals and implored the residents to work with his ministry in coming up with a permanent solution to human-wildlife conflict.

He said his ministry was faced with challenges such as shortage of personnel and was this financial year only allocated 100 posts out of the 500 needed.

In his welcome remarks, Kgosi Sekgoma Moipolai complained about elephants that destroyed crops.

He said while he was aware of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES), there is need to cull elephants in the area.

Kgosi Moipolai complained of shortage of wildlife officers and vehicles.

He said six officers, who only had two vehicles, were expected to serve the whole of the North East District, but that is not enough.

He suggested that the number of officers should be increased to 12 and the Francistown office should be served from some North East District villages.

Matsiloje Village Development Committee (VDC) chairperson, Mr Joel Mpetsane shared the sentiments with Kgosi Moipolai saying that after directing all their efforts to ploughing, residents came empty-handed from the fields due to destruction by elephants.

He said whereas they were expected to co-exist with the elephants the animals endangered the people’s lives as they were now coming into the village.

He said apart from the destruction at the fields, the elephants destroyed the cordon fence and cattle cross into the buffer zone causing them to be killed by veterinary officials.

Mr Mpetsane raised fear that the delay in the resolution of the problem of elephants would continue to expose the residents to the outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) because cattle and other animals would keep on crossing between the red and green zones.

He said he was aware of the plans to use helicopters to scare the elephants, but his main worry was where the elephants would go because most of the area was a built-up area made of Matsiloje and the surrounding villages.

He called on the ministry to include leopard and hyenas in the list of animals whose destruction was compensated since leopards killed cattle and hyenas killed goats.

Matopi VDC chairperson, Ms Josephine Odirile suggested that cattle found in the buffer zone should not be killed, but instead be quarantined for 21 days and returned to owners if they do not show any symptoms of FMD because P400 and P40 for a cow and goat respectively was too little.

Tati East MP, Mr Samson Guma Moyo called on the minister to advocate for the implementation of the suggestion that was long made that there should be farms in the buffer zone in order to deter cattle crossing into Zimbabwe.

MP Guma said one of the solutions to the problem of elephants could be installing an electric fence around the fields, like in Pandamatenga.

A resident, Mr Simon Lephalo raised fear that scaring elephants using helicopters might make them more wild and dangerous.

He observed that the use of chili pepper had also proved not to be effective as it seemed the elephants got used to it.

Mr Chombe Ncube noted that scaring away elephant would only transfer the problem.

In response, Minister Khama, who is also Serowe West MP, said the use of helicopters had proved to assist in some areas and was hopeful that it would help in Matsiloje.

He said in the Chobe areas the use of shade cloth fence and chili pepper had worked. ENDS