27 Oct 2022

As part of preparations for the 2023 hunting season, the ministry of Environment and Tourism recently held a national hunting review session in Maun.

The purpose of the session was to evaluate the just ended hunting season; success and utilisation of the quotas allocated to different controlled hunting areas countrywide.

The hunting season ended in September and the review exercise gave wildlife officers an opportunity to share feedback from their regions on the 2022 hunting season, benefits for the communities, challenges faced during hunting and interventions.

Giving a key note address during the three-day event, department of Wildlife and National Parks acting director, Ms Maipelo Mojalemotho said it was important to review the season to appreciate and reflect on how the hunting exercise was implemented in regions and map the way forward to ensure a successful hunting season next year.

The department target, she said, was to ensure a successful hunting season, emphasising that hunting remained one of the critical areas that contributed significantly to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well as improving livelihoods of the communities through job creation.

The gathering learnt that the community quota accrued around P27 million this year and that the money assisted in community development projects through the Conservation Trust Fund facilitated by the department.

Ms Mojalemotho noted that some community based organisations implemented major projects such as lodges, while some constructed fences in an effort to address issues of human/wildlife conflict.

She also revealed that the special hunting quota was sold at around P24 million and that local safari companies were given priority to buy tenders for the quota in an effort to promote citizen empowerment.

She also shared some new developments introduced for this year’s hunting season citing the new revised game licensing fees,which came into effect April 1.

In the previous season, Ms Mojalemotho explained, non-citizens paid P20 000 for an elephant, which had now been increased to P70 000 while citizens bought it at P80 00 and was now P28 000.

Another development was that safari companies, which had won tenders for community based organisations’ quota, were now required to sign a memorandum of agreement with communities.

“This will promote community beneficiation as signing would be done before the hunting exercise. The local communities are also given priority to bid for the special quota and all these are efforts of citizen empowerment component of the Reset Agenda and it is pleasing to share that the local companies won the special quota this year,” she added.

Ms Mojalemotho noted that the department had made efforts to introduce point of sale machines to ease payment.

In their presentations, regions representatives indicated that the hunting season went well even though some areas experienced low sales while some were not successful to dispose their quota and thus disadvantaged communities from benefiting.

Chobe region Senior Wildlife Officer, Mr Taboka Ngakane shared that they had no citizen hunting, but the quota was allocated only to community trusts in three controlled hunting areas.

The areas, he said were utilised by two trusts namely; PALEKA Community Trust and Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust (CECT), adding that the utilisation rate was satisfactory as they managed to generate P6.5 million.

Elephants and buffaloes, he said generated more revenue as compared to other species. Mr Boammaruri Baumake reported that the Ngamiland region, which included all quotas allocated citizens, community and special, generated P8 million.

He said this also included all activities related to hunting such as sales of licenses among others.

Meanwhile, the ministry will engage stakeholders to also appreciate their achievements and challenges in order to improve quota utilization during the next hunting season. Ends