Community calls for enforcement of hunting ban in NG3
Calistus Kolantsho | Thursday March 19, 2026 11:24
The villages that are covered by NG3, which is the western side of the Okavango Delta, are Qangwa, Qooshe, Magopa, and Dobe. According to the documents drafted by the community, NG3 is not a gazetted Wildlife Management Area (WMA). “It is legally impossible for the Qangwa Community Trust (QCT) to obtain a head lease over this communal land. The Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) and the QCT have operated under a 'fundamental legal flaw' by incorrectly identifying NG3 as a WMA in official documents. NG3 is not officially zoned for hunting. The 2019 reopening of hunting in NG3 violated the government hunting guidelines, as no hunting occurred there before the moratorium, and no local Community-Based Organization (CBO) had lost revenue during that time,” the document reads.
The community argues that hunting in NG3 is a threat to San livelihoods and human rights. The Ju/’hoansi San rely on this land for cultural heritage and sustainable development. Hunting activities conducted without consent have caused 'aggravated elephant behavior,' leading to near-fatal attacks on community members.
“Kalahari Wildlands Trust (KWT) is the largest individual-level employer in NG3 (paying P1.3 Million in direct benefits in 2024/25), community hunting income remains concentrated at the QCT board level. Poverty in the QCT member villages has not declined despite significant trophy revenue income for the hunting company. NG3 is a vital trans boundary wildlife corridor. Pro-hunting operations have bypassed Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and feasibility studies required by the EIA Act,” the document reads in part.
The hunting company has been accused of developing unauthorised roads, and it uses boreholes, including those it does not own, to intercept migrating elephants, undermining long-term conservation and photographic tourism viability. The evidence suggests a 'paper trail' was manufactured post facto to justify hunting. Records from the Tawana Land Board (TLB) confirm that meetings claimed by the DWNP to have granted waivers never actually occurred.
“San-owned eco-tourism (Auran/Kagusi) faced eight years of delays for licenses, while hunting quotas were granted to the QCT despite a lack of approved management plans, stakeholder consultations, lease agreements, or environmental authorizations. There is collusion between the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and land board points to fraudulent attempts to seize San-owned boreholes to facilitate hunting purposes,” the document further reads.
In 2021, the communities of Xaranxago, Aosha, Characharaga, Gihui!an, and Quaxuu wrote a letter to DWNP director stating that they do not want anything to do with QCT because they are not benefiting anything from it.
“As the Basarwa communities, we are assisted by Arthur Albertson Consulting (AAC), which covered the cost of setting up the Kagusi Wilderness Campsite. QCT has no right to control what we do. What makes it difficult for our Kagusi Wildness Campsite to progress is that we do not have a tourism license that allows us to venture into tourism activities such as guided tours, teaching them about our culture. Tawana Land Board and North West district commissioner’s office are pushing us to join QCT, but we do not want that,” the letter reads.
The community said they have attempted to stop hunting in NG3, but they have not been successful. The letter revealed that wildlife officers are involved in the shooting of elephant bulls in the area.
Speaking to Mmegi, Arthur Albertson of Kalahari Wildlands Trust said their role is mainly on community-based conservation. He said one of their project is in NG3, working closely with several stakeholders in the area. He said they have a project that is generating substantial income for the communities, which is at risk because of the way trophy hunting is being implemented in NG3.
“Our concern is unsustainability hunting quota extraction because NG3 has a low density of elephant area, and it is fast running out of older bulls, which has a range of impacts. The legalities at the moment are questionable because the way hunting was implemented, it did not follow any kind of proper consultative process with local stakeholders,” Albertson said. He said Kalahari Wildlands Trust and the affected communities have been trying to communicate with DWNP ever since hunting started, raising issues of a scientific basis for the hunting quota for NG3, proof of kgotla meetings having taken place related to hunting, evidence of a lease agreement with the Land Board, and an approved management plan, but nothing has been forthcoming.
Albertson said the elephant population in Botswana has been stable for the last 20 years. He said hunting proponents always claim that the elephant population increases by seven percent annually, which is incorrect. “According to a reliable survey, the population is stable, likely declining because of the high carcass ratio that is being detected. Another misconception is that trophy hunting reduces population numbers, but it does not. What they do is select from a small group. Botswana has roughly about 131, 000 elephants with about 7,000 bulls in the targeted age category, which are over 30 years, which are targeted by hunters and poachers because of their big tusks. If you consider the extraction from that age group at the current rate of 430 per year, not including poaching, if you do the Math, you see that the trajectory is going to be disastrous,” he said.
Albertson said there are better ways to deal with human wildlife conflicts, like what his organisation does, which provides water points for elephants, and they are effective; unfortunately, the boreholes are targeted by hunters. He said even if DWNP provides quotas, it does not mean the land use was approved by the Land Board. He said there is no management plan governing activities in NG3. He said they believe that the government, when opening up NG3 to hunting, made a legal error by regarding it as a community lease held wildlife area.
A landowner in NG3, Motlhabane Maphanyane, said his interest is in conservation, not killing animals. He said they are concerned about uncontrolled hunting activities in the area, including on land that is already owned by individuals. He said there are developments that are taking place to facilitate hunting meant to ambush elephants. “I am concerned not just out of my personal interest but for the sake of the communities. Hunting is done by a certain company, who are also a landowner in the Gantsi area. They have established themselves in NG3, working with QCT. They have bought a number of boreholes in the area and a game farm to promote hunting from my point of view. NG3 includes both community land ownership and private interests; those matters were not considered when quotas were allocated over the entire area,” he said.
The founder of Elephant Protection Society (EPS), Oaitse Nawa, said they are concerned about the safety of the communities because of the way hunting is being done and how the hunting quota is being addressed. He said hunting does not benefit communities as hunters always claim, but investors benefit a lot. Nawa said the only benefit for the communities is elephant meat and a little amount of money. He said elephants have their own structures, and when it comes to hunting, they are just killed without Scientific proof.
Nawa said hunters target big bulls, targeting the wisdom of the elephant society, and that brings confusion amongst the elephants, and as EPS, they feel that is wrong. He said hunters do not hunt females, but bulls with big trunks. “We are worried about bulls being hunted; they monitor youngsters. We are simply putting more fire in human wildlife conflict; we are looking into business, not solving the conflict we have,” Nawa said.
For his part, former QCT chairperson, Gaalathwe Nxauwe, said he is concerned that the trust was issued with a hunting quota without a management plan and lease agreement, which has caused conflict between stakeholders, syndicate members, and QCT. He said QCT was supposed to be allocated a site within NG3, not the whole area of NG3. “There is a threat to other pre-existing land user income streams. Activities like patrols for monitoring and conservation of wildlife and other projects like carbon credits are at risk. There is also a risk to the safety of communities and visitors because of aggressive elephants fleeing from bullets and predators,” Nxauwe said.
He said hunting in NG3 has disrupted the function of conservation boreholes as a human-wildlife conflict mitigation measure because there are hunting activities in the conservation area.
Nxauwe argued that there is damage to the integrity of elephant herds, genetics, and behaviour for tourism purposes. He said there are land grabs of heritage areas, and an invasion of sites that QCT has no legal rights over.