Once considered a giant friend, Botswana has forged new relationships with elephants

For, as far as they remember, Botswana's farmers lived mostly in peace with elephants, whose alert eyes and playful children almost made them look like friendly human neighbors. This southern African country, made up of savannas and swamps, is home to about one-third of Africa's elephants, thanks in part to strict anti-poaching measures and a ban on trophy hunting, which has made it a favorite of African elephants. ecologists and a very expensive place of tourism.

But the peak of population has not been easy for people who live alongside them and a violent reaction has occurred. "I hate elephants," says Lumba Nderiki, an 80-year-old farmer, as she walks through her modest, barren field in the Chobe enclave, a strip of mostly agricultural land between the river and the national park of the same name. "Two simple reasons: they made me widowed and left me without a harvest."

Nderiki and her husband were married 65 years before being murdered by an elephant in 2014. Like almost all the inhabitants of this set of villages, her fields have not been trampled or devastated for years. she calls "the giants". ". She grew more than 100 bags of sorghum per season. Last harvest, she saved three.

Growing animal resentment among farmers here and around Botswana is disrupting the country's policy and driving the reversal of policies that make tourism the second most important source of income for Botswana, after diamonds. The fury has also led to a wider race debate in a country where white outsiders and descendants of colonialists control much of the conservation and tourism sectors, while many people living outside national parks are gaining ground. their lives through government grants.

If there was a place where elephants could become a populist problem, it is well Botswana, which has a human population of just over 2 million and an elephant population of about 130,000 people. The country's president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, was appointed last year and is due to visit for the first time in October. He strongly sided with farmers, turning elephants into a major campaign issue. In May, he lifted the ban on elephant trophy hunting set up by his predecessor.

He handed over to heads of state invited stools in feet of elephant. And his government has proposed the possibility of slaughtering and turning elephant meat into pet food. The president said in a recent publication on Facebook that there would be no slaughter and no pet food factories. But he said that in his opinion, the number of elephants is now "far more than the fragile environment of Botswana, already stressed by drought and other effects of climate change, can to take care of safely, "which resulted in a" sharp increase "in human conflict. the elephants. He believes that a return to limited hunting, based on a permit, can solve the crisis.

Some environmental activists claim that Masisi's claims are not true and that even if they were, allowing sport hunting was not an effective method of controlling the population. Mike Chase, who runs Elephants Without Borders, a charitable research organization that conducts the only elephant census in Botswana, says that the elephant population has been stable for at least a decade and that the government's own data show that Conflicts between humans and elephants are relatively constant. , as well.

The increase in Botswana's elephant population from around 80 000 in 1996 to 130 000 in 2014 is due to the strict application of the anti-poaching policy, which is largely under the current president. In Africa, however, poaching has contributed to the sharp decline in the elephant population over the last decade. Elephant trophy hunting is legal in many African countries, including all Botswana border countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Governments set permit quotas that are reevaluated each year and can range from a few dozen to several hundred.

The Government of Botswana has announced its intention not to issue more than 400 licenses when the hunt is effective. A license can cost tens of thousands of dollars, although critics argue that little of this money is passed on to local communities. Data on elephant populations and human-elephant conflict are inaccurate. The census is based on aerial surveys and the cases of conflict depend on the people to report them.

What is palpable is what people on both sides feel about elephants and emotions are strong. Some tourists react to the reintroduction of the hunt – which still has no start date – by canceling trips. "I just got another typical mail today. A guest says that after a dozen visits, she will not return to Botswana, "says environmentalist Dereck Joubert, filmmaker and lodge owner.

The country's former president, Ian Khama, went to the opposition last week, partly out of disdain for the dismantling of his hunting ban by his successor. Khama is close to Chase, whose family has been living in Botswana for five generations. Both conservation and tourism have flourished over the decade as Khama's presidency. "All the people of Botswana feel that Khama was a protector of the whites, who owned many of our big farms and big houses, at the expense of the people," says Anthony Morima, writer and political analyst.

"Masisi presents himself as a nationalist who regains control, which goes hand in hand with the growing feeling that we do not want whites or strangers to tell us how to live."

Chase complains that the conversation has become racial and claims that her citizenship has often been questioned. "This new government has changed everything for us," he said.

The inhabitants of the Chobe enclave are impressed by the current president and largely express contempt for the pro-elephant legacy of his predecessor. Despite the fact that they are surrounded by parks and pavilions, less than a quarter of the inhabitants of the enclave are employed for reasons of tourism or nature protection, and the benefits of elephants are less immediate than the destruction that they speak.

"Khama feared that white tourists would have to go too far in the bush to see elephants. It has allowed them to multiply themselves to become more than us, "says Zoom Shanzinza, 62, coming out of the church near her recent day's farm, shortly after the lifting of the prohibition to hunt. "We are waiting for Masisi to allow us to take these issues in hand. Until then, we expect that we will suffer.

The money that tourists bring to the area is also well known. Tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry in Botswana and, according to government estimates, accounts for 12% of the country's income. People like Chimney Mululwani, 45, worked in lodges and, in rare cases, like her, became managers. They report stories of bottles of wine and more expensive excursions than most Chobe enclaves have ever seen.

"I saw the numbers – I know how many millions are coming into some of these places. While if you show a few hundred dollars to someone here, it will seem like they see all the money in the world, "he said. "How could there be no resentment?"

Everyone did not believe that hunting would directly benefit them, but many hoped that Masisi's demarches would indicate that he had the interests of farmers at heart, and not conservationists. The government, environmental advocates and Chobe's enclave residents all agree on one point: major tour operators must devote a larger share of their revenue to local communities because what negative reactions will only intensify. Maggie Zambo, 42, laughed at the prospect of hunters improving her life. "Will they come from America in time to slaughter an elephant in my field?", She asks, watching a fence surrounding her elephant-damaged field.

His parent, Matthews Zambo, is running for a local job on a platform offering less complex solutions to this crisis than rebuilding an economy based on hunting permits. He proposes to repair the boreholes that feed the park with water so that elephants do not have to cross villages to draw water from the river. And instead of free seeds, the government should provide electric fencing for farms, he says.

Without quick fixes, locals try everything they can. Ephraim Simasiku, 71, spent a whole month tying up tin cans along a wire to create a fence around her farmhouse that, with its sheen and glow, could scare elephants away. He spent whole nights patrolling his field, filled with juicy watermelons that elephants love, with a flashlight and a drum. The elephants ate 400 of the 1,000 they planted this season.

"During the night, elephants. During the day, elephants, "he said. "A farmer like me can not sleep." The night of May 14, when all his other methods failed, Simasiku chose his last resort: a rifle. The next day, people from all over the enclave came into his field bringing home a piece of meat.

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