19 Mar 2014

Parliament has approved the budget proposal for Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism (MEWT) totaling P822.6 million for 2014/2015 financial year.

Responding to MPs debate on the budget on Tuesday, Mr Tshekedi Khama said his ministry had been given an increase in funding for the Department of Wildlife and National Parks to specifically deal with challenges pertaining to poaching and human wildlife co-existence.

Speaking in Parliament, Tuesday, March 18, Mr Tshekedi said his ministry was also investigating other means to empower communities affected by human/wildlife conflict, that they were able to protect themselves.

He said he was aware of the number of people affected by elephants, but noted that his ministry was limited by the capacity it had to police all the areas affected. He informed the house that the ministry had been given additional posts to assist in wildlife anti-poaching and wildlife management.

On waste management, Mr Khama said the issue remained a concern and that recently his ministry was consulting with Water Utilities Corporation regarding the quality of affluent in the water as well as city councils regarding cleaning up of the cities.

He further said landfills remained a big issue and that the ministry was exploring the possibility of turning waste to power. He said the ministry has recently started engaging the ministry responsible that they be allowed to consider waste to power.

“This would then look after the landfills and we will be able to reduce the amount of rubbish and waste we have in the landfills and introduce a legislation that will allow burning up of waste and convert it to power,” he said.

He said his ministry had no final say on the amount of quality of affluent going into the rivers and that it will be reflected in the ministry budget that some of the money requested for, attend this matter specifically.

Mr Khama said his ministry was now able to monitor and insist on an increase on concession rates that communities will be getting, adding the rewards from concession will continue to go to the communities.

“It is not in my ministry’s interest to take away anything that the community has been used to have in the way of deriving a livelihood from that. In so doing the reason for doing this is to look after the interest on the community, environment and tourism,” he said.

Mr Khama further said elephant population was 200 000, the highest in Africa and that this was because of Botswana’s wildlife management system.

He said the population increased because in Angola the elephants ran aware from civil war and that in Caprivi, Namibia and in Zambia, they were poached.

He said with the formation of Okavango/ Zambezi Trans frontier Park, it is hoped that borders will be removed so that elephants can start to move back to where they have come from.

“This is one way in which we are sure of the success of reducing elephants population in Botswana. To cull elephants is not an option,” he said. ENDS