Ngamiland Farmers Fed Up With Elephant Population

Boniface Keakabetse | Monday February 1, 2016 15:49

 

The farmers said during a Vision 2036 consultative meeting in Maun that they were concerned that the government was always quick to return the elephants to Ngamiland after they had strayed to southern Botswana.

They said the southern populations should also experience the damage that elephants did to vegetation.

Farmers said whenever elephants roamed to southern Botswana, the Department of Wildlife and National Parks always responded swiftly by returning them to Ngamiland.

One of the farmers, Seonka Kenosi, said: “They even broadcast messages on radio stations that the elephants will be driven back where they belong, meaning here. Who said they belong here?”

Kenosi suggested that the government must relief rising population of elephants in the north by allowing them to move freely southwards without hindrance. He also suggested that elephants should also be distributed throughout Botswana.

Northern Botswana has high concentration of elephants due to abundant water bodies in the district. Government had been implementing the Community Based Natural Resources programme to make communities benefit from wildlife utilisation but conflict is becoming rife with some farmers vowing to shoot down the marauding elephants.

Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Tshekedi Khama, said in a recent interview that elephants encroached into Botswana from neighbouring countries.

Minister Khama said the formation of Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Park (KAZA) was not helping to solve the highest number of elephants in northern Botswana as it was expected.

He said the expectation was that the park would solve the problem of high concentration of elephant population in northern Botswana by opening up the borders but so far little has happened.

He however explained that partner countries to relief pressure off Botswana would solve all the outstanding issues. The KAZA straddles the Caprivi Strip of Namibia, the south-eastern corner of Angola, south-western of Zambia and northern wildlife areas of Botswana and western Zimbabwe.

It annexes the Okavango Delta, Chobe National Park, Hwange National Park and Victoria Falls. 

In 2006, ministers for tourism of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe signed an agreement at Victoria Falls to work towards establishment of KAZA.

Initial problems for KAZA have arisen over conflicting land use in the participating countries, which make it difficult for the opening up of the wildlife corridors to allow trans-boundary wildlife migrations. According to Khama, this coupled with poor infrastructure services such as water provision in the neighbouring countries has led to massive elephants migration to Botswana.