09 Sep 2019

Government has opened the citizen controlled hunting season following its decision to lift the hunting ban, says the Minister of Environment, Natural Resources, Conservation and Tourism Mr Kitso Mokaila.

Mr Mokaila informed Sepako residents during a kgotla meeting recently, that the hunting season which began on September 3 was divided into two categories with the first one ending on November 30 and the other lasting until end of January 2020.

He said the government had put in place guidelines which would be followed during the period adding that the procedure for hunting remained as it was in the past where people with interest registered at wildlife offices across the country.

He further explained that those who would be given an opportunity for hunting would be selected through the process of raffle.

In addition, he said community trusts had not been included in the current season’s hunting but would be included as well as given a quota in the April 2020 hunting season.

This, Minister Mokaila said was meant to empower the trusts as well as and have them making profits for their respective villages.

He said that with the re-introduction of the hunting after it was banned in 2014, government aimed at assisting Batswana to engage in activities such agriculture which the government is working on transforming without wildlife destroying their produce.

 He said hunting was also a controlling measure of wildlife, which was why it was called citizen controlled hunting.

Furthermore, Minister Mokaila said the hunting ban had repercussions such as increased number of animals which had led to human-wildlife conflict.

Mr Mokaila told residents that government would consult with village leadership which include Dikgosi and village development committees so that they could make arrangements on training young people within the communities or using the VDCs’ to make assessment of damages caused by animals on people properties in particular fields.

He said his ministry was inundated with complaints that wildlife officers failed to make assessment of damages on time and some exhibit ended up being destroyed.

He noted that the officers who would have been trained would be in better position to attend to the reports immediately.

This, he said would speed-up compensation process saying his ministry would also make arrangements with service providers such as Botswana Post  to assist in paying compensations. ENDS