31 Oct 2022

Community Based Organisations (CBOs) have urged government to consider extending the hunting season in order for the community to benefit more.

CBOs representatives aired their views during a stakeholder meeting organised by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to review the 2022 hunting season which ended in September.

The hunting season takes six months from March to September and the CBOs representatives proposed that it should start earlier and be standardised so it ended in December instead, arguing that the short period disadvantaged some community trusts.

The current season, they said provided little social and economic benefit to the communities living within and adjacent to the wildlife management areas.

Some trusts, they said started hunting late and that resulted in low utilisation of the quota while some generated less profits because most of safari companies were interested in some species such as leopards and elephants.

A long hunting season, they said could afford them time to attract more potential investors and also help to track animals easily because hunting was seasonal.

 Some trusts also urged government to consider increasing quotas allocated to the communities, especially high value species given the human wildlife conflict in the areas due to large presence of lions and elephants and the damage they caused.

Representatives from Ghanzi and Kgalagadi areas complained that elephants and lions had become resident species in their areas and requested government to consider allocating quotas so that the community could benefit from them.

While government allocated a variety of species, it was reported that safari companies in such areas were more interested in leopards while in Chobe and Ngamiland, trusts generated more revenue through the sale of elephants and leopards.

A representative from Mababe Trust, Mr Gomolemo Obiditswe supported the idea to extend hunting season from six to nine months. Sharing their achievements from the just ended hunting season, he said they had managed to sell all the allocated quota which comprised 15 elephants, 15 buffaloes, 10 zebras, 15 impalas and 10 baboons, among others and generated over P4.2 million while in 2021 they accumulated P5.3 million.

Mr Obiditswe revealed that their concession NG41 was the busiest in Botswana owing to increased population of species.

“I am hopeful that the ministry will increase our quota next year just like last year where we were allocated 20 elephants and 19 buffaloes in order to reduce incidents of human wildlife conflict,” he added.

He cited that currently, the high population of animals, especially elephants had destroyed vegetation in the concession.

A regional representative from Botswana Wildlife Producers Association, Mr Leon Kachelhoffer urged the ministry to accelerate efforts to implement the National Elephant Action Plan (NEAP), which sought to identify and prioritise measures aimed at monitoring, protecting and managing elephants in the country.

Implementation of the plan, he said was critical because it included detailed actions, methods, target, monitoring and evaluation plan.

“This plan can benefit the hunting industry in a big way as it also included the Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme,” he added.

Earlier, Department of Wildlife and National Parks acting director, Ms Maipelo Mojalemotho implored all stakeholders to collaborate on issues of hunting and refrain from working in silos.

Through collaboration, she said they could easily address some of the issues encountered as well as enhance the working environment. With regard to the NEAP, she admitted that the plan had long been launched but implementation was delayed.

As such, she highlighted the need to appoint a committee that would implement the plan. However, she said currently, nominees had not yet been submitted for approval by the minister. “We will take up the issue with our principals to ensure the plan is implemented,” she said.  ENDS