07 Mar 2019

 Government is developing the human wildlife co-existence strategy.

The strategy will help address the human/wildlife conflict that has now become a major challenge for Botswana.

In an interview, deputy director for Research and Strategy in the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Dr Cyril Taolo said guided by the 2013 Wildlife Policy, they had decided to focus attention on trying to reduce the human/wildlife conflict and also improve co-existence between people and wildlife. 

“It is work in progress. You might be aware of the recent consultations which have been done in terms of the National Elephant Action Plan and consultations by the Ministerial Sub-committee on the Hunting Ban Social Dialogue. 

A lot of issues came out from the communities and the farmers, who indicated that they wanted us to come up with strategies to assist them to reduce this conflict,” he said.

The elephant action plan was formulated last year and the department is currently reviewing the draft document, which, according to Dr Taolo, would in a month or two be ready to be submitted for final approval.

Dr Taolo explained that the co-existence strategy would address the concerns raised and that government had to involve stakeholders, more especially communities who were confronted by this challenge.

“It is for us to assist them to come up with strategies that they can apply to reduce this conflict. 

The strategy talks about how we can engage communities through the use of different mitigating methods; chillie pepper, guard dogs, improved livestock husbandry, early maturing seeds, the use of bees to chase elephants from certain areas,” he added.

 Dr Taolo said the communities, because of the benefit of experience and indigenous knowledge would be fully engaged to come up with the best solutions. 

He said Botswana had different species of wildlife that was causing problems in different areas and it was important to come up with targeted measures to reduce the conflict.

Quizzed on the population status of elephants, Dr Taolo admitted that Botswana was sitting on the biggest population of elephants in the continent estimated to be between 130 000 and 200 000.

“These elephants are constantly moving, particularly in the northern elephants range between Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia, so it is a shared population. Their numbers will fluctuate depending on the climatic conditions, drought or management issues,” he said.

Dr Taolo said Botswana’s first Elephant Management Plan, which was developed in the early 90s, talked to keeping the elephant population at around 50 000. 

“But such a large number comes with challenges. 

We have to be responsible in the way we manage our population because it is big and the world is looking to Botswana as one of the few countries that has such numbers. 

In our management we work to reduce the impact of elephants on people rather than reducing numbers because for us to get back to that 50 000 we will require the removal of 100 000 elephants, which is not practicable,” he added.

He said they would be guided by recommendations from the recent consultations.

Dr Taolo noted that the current Wildlife Policy, which followed a review of the 1986 policy, focused more on how Batswana could benefit from wildlife resources. 

He said government also made a commitment to address poaching by working with other stakeholders. 

He said the nature of poaching had changed from being just subsistence to a more commercial venture and taken over by international criminal syndicates.

“It has become more sophisticated and we have to become sophisticated in the way we address wildlife crime. 

We are no longer combating poaching in our parks and reserves, but trying to stop the wildlife products from getting out of the country. 

We are trying to recover proceeds of wildlife crime. 

Most of these products are not even used here in Botswana or regionally, but end in the Far East. 

Now we have to engage at international level,” he said.

Dr Taolo said Botswana had engaged on a number of conferences such as the Illegal Wildlife Conference held in Kasane in 2015. 

He said government committed to strengthening legislation to combat wildlife crime.

He also said President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi attended the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London, where Botswana reaffirmed her commitment to working with the international community to reduce the scourge of poaching and wildlife crime. Ends