Elephant conservation in Botswana

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1:11This is what everyone's come to see. They've all come to see the elephants. There's a lot of jostling at the waterhole as new elephants arrive. Whoa, there's more elephants coming. There must be about 40 elephants here now. and all the tourists around taking photos and completely spellbound. Oh, the elephants are amazing. Wow. I mean, we did see an absolutely huge herd of elephants. But yeah, I can't actually say how many. There's been so many. Everybody was saying this is the place to come if you want to watch beautiful elephants. It's early evening at a remote waterhole in northern Botswana, a part of the world where there are more elephants than people.

1:56In this particular district, I'm told there are four elephants for every one person. It's great for tourists, but it puts a huge strain on local communities.

2:09He has problems with elephants. They always come into his field. The elephants will just cause destruction. So conservation here means protecting wildlife and protecting local people. And that's expensive. We're talking of millions of dollars. It is not only the protection of the animals, but it is also to deal with the impacts that the animals have on the people. And as part of its efforts to fund elephant conservation, the government here in Botswana allows so-called trophy hunting, a controversial practice where hunters pay to kill an elephant for recreational sport and then keep part of the animal as a trophy.

2:51For us here, hunting is an integral part of sustainable use. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Jo Dwyer and I'm exploring the politics of elephant conservation in Botswana in southern Africa. Botswana is bucking the trend. While the elephant is an endangered species and numbers across Africa are in decline because of poaching, habitat loss and disease, Botswana has the largest elephant population in the world. It's home to about a third of Africa's remaining savannah elephants, over 130 ,000. But, as we'll be hearing, it's a burden as well as a blessing. We're in a small village in the Okavanga Delta, one of the world's largest inland deltas, a maze of waterways.

3:44A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it's a very remote part of the country where tourists come to see the landscape and the wildlife. Tourism helps drive Botswana's economy. It accounts for about 10 % of the country's GDP. This group of villagers puts on cultural shows for tourists to make a bit of money. And their shows reflect the challenges they face living in an area with so many elephants.

4:17Their song is a celebration of bringing in the harvest, but these villagers are all subsistence farmers growing crops to feed their families. And they say too often elephants get to the crops before they get a chance to harvest. The group is supported by a number of NGOs, non-governmental organisations, including the EcoExist Trust.

4:44If an elephant comes in someone's field, it's a disaster because that farmer would be working very hard to make sure that he produces or he comes with something at the end of the crop season. That would maybe keep his family alive for the whole year until the next crop season. Majita is the assistant manager at EcoExist and Anna Songhurst is the CEO. For a large free-roaming population of elephants like we have in Botswana, really their biggest challenge and the biggest challenge in conservation for elephants there is weather then coming into places where people are living and the conflict that arises from that.

5:23So the challenge is, for conservation to work, people need to be protected as well as the animals. So there's a great deal of work going on in the country, a lot of it undertaken by NGOs like EcoExist, to try to help people to live with elephants, so people are more tolerant of the burden. OK, now we are here next to the floodplain, where Mr Dimbo's field is located. Majita takes me to meet Mr Dimbo, a farmer that he co-exists, provides with beehive fences to help keep elephants out of his fields. He usually grows granuts, beans, maize. So if an elephant got in here, it could do a lot of damage very quickly?

6:12Yes, it would just eat everything. They once came in, the bull came in, it had corroborated. Then for it to just go out, it wanted to go the other route. Yeah, it knocked his water tank over and destroyed it. it's hard to farm in this part of the of the area where there's lots of elephants because what i can do to survive it's only fun so we're walking along this the side of the field uh where mr dimbo is growing all his crops and he's got he's got a sort of wire fence with tin cans as well yeah the idea is when the elephant comes and touches the fence then it will rattle like that so and again uh the female or the breeding head would straight away run away from this but uh as well it would help mr dimple to notice or it's an alert or an alarm ah and i see in the distance we've got the beehives 19 so the beehive it's like a wooden box and it's suspended so it's a whole fence and then the beehive suspended on those We're going a bit closer, but we've been told there are no bees in this beehive.

7:33So as an elephant comes in, this fence, it's just right on the belly height of elephants. So as it touches, you see? It shakes the beehive and then all the bees would come out. Then it would come and sting the elephant. Then they would retreat. So Mr Dimbo is saying that you'd find that elephants are coming from both directions. So he stays here all night to make sure that he helps to kind of like chase the elephants away and as well to make sure that the bees are there to help. Thank you. So we're just driving away from Mr Dimbo's farm and... Yeah, there are loads of elephants, literally a few metres from Mr Dimbo's farm.

8:24Oh, and in front of us, in front of us there's a whole herd. And just over in the distance there are two women and two children fishing. So people, cows, goats and elephants all sharing the same space. As Majita drives me away from Mr Dimbo's farm, we come to the dirt road that links a whole series of villages. On one side is the bush and on the other is the river. And elephants cross this road throughout the day to get to and from the water, across wide patches of land known as elephant corridors, which makes it dangerous for cars, for pedestrians and especially for children walking to school.

9:11People get killed by elephants every year in Botswana, so EcoExist has managed to get tour operators in the area to fund three school minibuses. So we've just pulled up on the side of the road that links 14 villages. We've pulled up outside a very small settlement with just about seven houses made in the traditional way with mud and thatched roofs. So all the children from this settlement will go to the main primary school a few kilometres away. And here comes a mini bus. It says Elephant Express on the front. And we are standing outside a lovely bus stop, Elephant Express bus shelter. And it's delivering some children coming back from school.

10:06Lolly was getting off and you were meant to stay on. Yeah, they are going to the next stop further this side. It's got a lovely big picture of an elephant and a baby elephant on the side of the minibus. Yeah, before, when there wasn't any buses, they would walk five kilometres to school. Sometimes they would just wake up in the morning, they would tell you, no, ah, we saw so many elephants yesterday, so we are scared we can't go back to school today. Yeah, now the parents are left because now they know kids go to school safely and come back home safely. But it's not just a case of making life easier for local people living with elephants as neighbours.

10:50It's about local people seeing tangible benefits from the elephants. So they're invested in protecting them rather than simply seeing them as a nuisance. So the honey produced from the beehives is sold to local tourist lodges as what's known as elephant-aware produce. And the millet, grown by some farmers, is sold at a premium as elephant-aware and turned into craft beer at the Okavanga Brewery in the northern town of Maun. That's money directly in the pockets of local farmers.

11:25This is Katie. She's been showing me how she plants her crops. And now she's demonstrating how she burns chilli to keep the elephants away from her fields. So she's dug a hole here and she's put the dried elephant dung in and then put the chillies on top and then she's just put some burning charcoal and that'll burn slowly all night. Yeah, slowly the whole night. So we're looking down, we can see smoke there already. There's quite a strong smell, isn't there? Yeah, it's a quiet story of smell. Come over this way. We're coughing because it's actually quite strong. She grows a variety of crops, but some of her millet is bought by the Okavango Brewery as elephant-aware, and she benefits from that.

12:17And it all seems to be playing a part in changing the attitudes of villagers towards elephants. And one thing that he mentioned is that in the past, people, they were killing elephants. You see maybe sometimes guns to shoot them when they get into their field. We have experienced that lots of things have changed. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

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14:18I'm Jo Dwyer and this is Elephant Politics. My name's Mubuso Kakandi. I'm the community education officer. That's the communal land. This is the cattle post and the river is that side. Further up north in Botswana, on the border with Namibia, Mubuso is with an NGO called Wildcat that works with people to help keep their cattle safe from predators such as lions. She says there are also many indirect but very important benefits that flow into the area through tourism. And it's important for wildlife protection that people understand this. When we teach about conservation, how to live with these wild animals, this is the message we always give to the communities, that you won't see direct benefits coming into your pocket to say this is the money from the tourism or from the tourists.

15:12it goes into that pot that is being distributed then at the end of the day you are being part of the beneficiaries we are getting this free medication, free education it helps us, our economy But tourism only brings in so much money and conservation is an expensive business and Botswana's diamond-reliant economy is under strain at the moment with a slumping global demand for diamonds putting pressure on government finances So we've come to the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources in the capital, Aberoni, and we've come to speak to Professor Victor Muposhi, a conservation biologist at the university.

15:59We are looking at not less than 20 million US dollars per annum to manage Botswana's elephant range. It's a huge demand on Botswana, and Botswana's fiscals cannot support that. It is not only about just looking at the conservation itself, the protection of the animals, but it is also to deal with the impacts that the animals have on the people. They have to be supported. So government pumps in money as part of compensation annually. We're talking of millions of dollars. So in other words, the government has double stress in the sense that there is pressure to conserve and manage. there's also pressure to compensate and look after these people whose livelihoods are compromised.

16:43So the government's always looking at ways to fund its conservation efforts. But Botswana has faced international criticism in recent years because of one of the conservation tools it and some of its African neighbours have embraced. In 2019, Botswana reintroduced so-called trophy hunting, where individuals, mostly from overseas, pay to hunt elephants and keep part of the animal as a trophy. This controversial practice that was banned in Botswana between 2014 and 2019 brings extra money into government coffers and the aim is that some of that money also goes to local communities as a benefit to keep them on board with conservation efforts and away from the clutches of ever-present poachers with their offers of money, either to turn a blind eye or to help with tracking.

17:34Another argument is that some communities are so remote that they don't benefit much from general tourism, but they can potentially host hunters. So for those who support it, the thinking is that hunting can play a positive, if counterintuitive, role in conservation. Although, as we'll hear, there are many who don't agree. The country now issues up to 400 hunting permits a year and the government says it's licensed and strictly controlled and only in specified areas. And only certain older elephants can be hunted. Botswana says it reintroduced hunting after facing pressure from local communities.

18:17Professor Muposhi. Elephants have been contributing through trophy hunting and after the ban was lifted and hunting started again. We could see how happy people were. I'm talking on behalf of the local communities because we talk to these people as part of our research and our work of extension in trying to understand how best we can support and help. And that's a key issue in this debate that can get pretty heated. How much benefit do local people really get out of hunting?

18:53so we just stopped on the side of the road because we've seen the bones of of what looks like a very large elephant so it's a dusty spot just off the main road that links various villages and we were driving past the other day and had seen a lot of people here and we weren't sure what was happening and we've now discovered that this is the spot where when an elephant is shot by hunters they bring the dead elephant here for the local community to come and take the elephant meat. So there's a dog here picking at the bones and birds but all that is left is bones really. I'd come to this area because it's one of many areas in northern Botswana that allows elephant hunting and I'd been told that I could speak to some community leaders to talk to me about the benefits to the local community, financial benefits in terms of hunting.

19:52But now I've got here, nobody seems to want to talk to me. I suspect it's to do with the sensitivities of the issue. But I've just bumped into a local man who lives just across the road, who's walking me down to the bones and explaining all about them. This elephant here, that one which we brought here last week back, so they bring here for community to take the meat. People were men here. I also was here with my family here and my friends here, and everyone gets happy and pleased so that they get meat. We community, we benefit here from the hunters, because they pay a lot of money here. Then those money are going back in the bank society of members of the communities.

20:41The local community, after having this money here, they just make the economies around the village here. Like now we can dig some boreholes for our cattle here. Some will just take that money to help to build our churches here that surround our village. So as well as the elephant meat, he says the community has been able to afford boreholes and buildings such as churches. Look at this elephant. And a local safari guide, Titi, who spends his days trying to get close to wildlife for tourists to take photographs, sees the wider benefits to the community of elephant hunting. All the money, they come to our country.

21:21So the country, again, benefits in different departments. Maybe on agriculture, trying to help the people that are growing crops, buying medicine to protect their cattle and all the stuff. Kids are given free education. So even if hunting is happening, but we know we still benefit as a country. I see it as part of conservation. Across Africa, there are differences of opinion. There's been tension recently between Kenya, which banned elephant hunting in the 1970s, and its neighbour Tanzania, which allows it. But obviously elephants don't respect borders. So you've got a situation where a group of elephants can be hunted on one side of the border, but not on the other.

22:01And that causes friction. Within Botswana itself, there are those who don't support the hunting of elephants. My name is Wai Tinawa, the co-founder of Elephants Protection Society. Honestly speaking, hunting is exploiting our resources here. What about if I have a kid that maybe he was interested in seeing an elephant with a big tusk? It's gone forever. One animal that will be gone forever. No more. So we cannot entertain something like that. We benefit nothing because at the end of the day, you hear them talking about giving the local community meat. And that is an insult because this is how my great-grandfather went through.

22:47And we are no longer in 1800. So we have to change the mindset. They haven't given themselves time to do a proper research regarding the social structure of the elephants. Because the elephants are very much cultural. So killing the big bulls, it's like getting all the wisdom from the young generation. So I'm very much against that. Botswana's reintroduction of hunting back in 2019 reignited the international debate about trophy hunting that's been simmering for years. And some countries have moved to ban the importation of hunting trophies, and others like the UK are considering it. It's led to debate amongst conservationists, some of whom, like Professor Moposhi, believe that hunting does have a role in conservation, while others say no.

23:38Mark Jones is head of policy at the British-based international wildlife protection charity Born Free. Trophy hunting certainly generates money. I think the question we have to ask is whether the extraction of those particular animals that trophy hunters typically target. And the damage that that causes to the social stability and the populations of those animals in the wild can be offset by the income that's generated through trophy hunting. And our view is that the damage outweighs the benefits in terms of cost. Our view is that trophy hunting is extremely damaging to wild animal populations, their family groups and their wider populations and, by extension, the role that those animals play in ecosystems.

24:30That said, we absolutely recognise that human-wildlife conflict is a serious issue for many people, but trophy hunting is not an effective way of tackling human-elephant conflict. We don't believe that trophy hunting is an ethical or sensible way to conduct conservation or generate money for conservation. I'm here on a viewing platform looking down over the Chobe River. I'm in Botswana, I'm on the Botswana side, but I'm looking across to Namibia and I'm with Dr Nayambe Nayambi. I'm the Executive Director of the Kavango Zambia Transfantia Conservation Area Secretariat. CASA, as it's known for short, spans parts of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

25:17It's a conservation and sustainable development partnership between the five countries, and it's home to about half of Africa's remaining elephants. And all of these countries allow elephant hunting. For us here in southern Africa, hunting properly done, and we're not saying there are no problems with hunting. Yes, there are problems, like with everything else, but in the bigger scheme of things, properly done, properly regulated, backed by scientific evidence, ensuring that communities are benefiting and ensuring that the money is generated also go into supporting conservation amongst other objectives.

25:58Hunting can be beneficial. Maybe I should say is beneficial. For us here, hunting is an integral part of sustainable use. why is it that hunting of certain species in other parts of the world is allowed and it should be banned here? There should be no double standards. Professor Muposhi shares some of these frustrations. I don't want us to discuss and talk about neither to hunt or not to hunt. No, it's an emotive subject. I think it's toxic and we can find solutions when we are open-minded than when we are closed. Professor Muposhi says there have to be new ways of funding conservation. Botswana, along with southern African neighbours, is also pushing to be allowed to sell its stockpiles of ivory, so it can earn money from this.

26:48But this is widely opposed over concerns it could encourage poaching. And now many in international conservation are actively looking for other new ways to ensure conservation is effectively funded. Professor Muposhi suggests including wildlife bonds or biodiversity credits. Just the same like we do with the carbon markets, how can we not translate that into saying, yes you are doing this, we promote what you are doing, but how do we then as a global community support you? There are international conventions and agreements that regulate conservation efforts around the world. And Dr. Nyambe Nyambe says African countries hosting huge numbers of elephants should have more of a voice in decision making.

27:39There is talk about a conservation fund. Yes, it's important, but it's not sufficient. We need resources, but we even need much more than money. The different parties need to dialogue, need to come to a common position on how elephants and other wildlife species can be managed. Don't forget, we're talking about elephants and the wildlands and also their habitats. We're talking about international property goods. The world has to come to the table. There is some urgency to the conversation. Professor Muposhi says climate change means elephants are moving into areas where they haven't been previously, competing for water and space with people and their cattle.