At the time, the chilli pepper method was hailed as an affordable method to reduce human elephant conflict.
Starting around 2015, farmers in the North West began mixing chilli pepper with elephant dung to make briquettes which they then burnt. Lit at night when elephant destruction is more prevalent, the briquettes produce a noxious smell that the animals can pick from distances and detest.
Scientists at the time agreed that the method was the cheapest of the options available for reducing human elephant conflicts. And the chilli pepper briquettes helped some farmers make some much-needed cash, as they produced and sold them to others equally afflicted by elephants.
“I was given some chilli pepper to plant and I am proud to testify that it has worked wonders since then,” a Samedupi farmer told BOPA in an interview in 2015, revealing that she was able to sell one brick at P60 while a cup of ground chillies went for P10.
The North West, with its expansive wetlands, supports the bulk of the country’s elephant population estimated at about 130,000. While beloved by tourists who travel from the ends of the Earth to view them, the high elephant population also causes frequent crop and infrastructure damage, as well as injuries and deaths.
Between 2022 and 2024, an average of eight people were killed annually mainly by elephants, in the country’s Human Wildlife Conflict. Over that same period, 39 people were injured, again mainly by elephants and largely in the country’s north-west.
The country’s north-west region is a paradise in every sense of the word, boasting the Okavango Delta wetlands, being close to some of Africa’s greatest river systems and featuring a natural beauty that is amongst the world’s wonders.
However, because not all villagers in the area can benefit from the tourism activities in the region, many are still reliant on traditional subsistence farming for their sustenance. Elephants, which as adults can each eat up to 200 kilogrammes of food and drink up to 200 litres of water a day, often wander from their established ranges and encroach into human settlements and farming activities.
The chilli/dung briquettes were seen as a low-cost solution to “keep the peace” but Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) principle wildlife officer, Letlhogonolo Phologo, says the elephants have grown wise to the method.
“These animals learn the mitigation measures and destroy even more,” he told a sustainable wildlife management meeting in Gaborone this week. “With the chilli pepper, the elephant learns how the wind blows which is a behavioural habituation to this mitigation."
The dilemma is obvious. A farmer who has been successfully using the chilli briquettes develops a level of complacency, only to wake up and find that their precious crops and related farming infrastructure have been decimated overnight.
Scientists who agreed that the chilli pepper method was the cheapest, did however, also note that it could not be used in isolation. For one, due to habituation, the elephants became wise to when the briquettes were lit up.
“Chillies changed elephant temporal behaviour from nocturnal (night time) to pronominally diurnal (day time),” researchers wrote in a 2016 University of Oxford paper produced with a local NGO, Ecoexist. “Our findings reveal that the use of chilli-briquettes is unlikely to deflect elephant trajectories. “We therefore support their use in combination with other elephant crop-raiding management plans, but not as an exclusive mitigation method.”
The DWNP agrees, with new director, Moemedi Batshabang, telling Mmegi that a more integrated approach was required.
“They learn and when the wind blows towards them, it gets in their eyes and they learn,” he said in a brief interview on the sidelines of the meeting. “To be honest, these animals are intelligent. They learn very quickly. “One thing that you can do is to use a variety of strategies and combine them. “No one single strategy is very effective.”
The strategies range from the “hardware” such as erecting electric fences, enforcing elephant corridors and drilling boreholes for the beasts far from humans, to the “software” which include enhancing community participation in the wildlife value chain and providing more conservation education at earlier levels of learning.
The Human Wildlife Conflict strategy, which is at a final stage of preparation, is due to be launched soon, capturing the country’s approach to dealing with the challenge.
However, in the interim, other factors are at play suggesting that more incidents between humans and elephants could be coming.
Experts warn that bush encroachment levels are on the rise in the North West and generally around the country, a situation that means elephants wandering in their ranges may be stumbling across human settlements and farms with more frequency.
Part of the reason is the growing human population which means settlements push out into the surrounding bushveld and another involves the recent rains which increased the amount of bush cover around previously sparse areas.
“The animal follows the bush until it’s in the village and then there is human wildlife conflict,” explains Mod Masedi, Kgosi of Tubu village in the Okavango Delta’s western panhandle. “There is so much bush around the country and wildlife moves within that. “However, at the same time, there is not enough actual grass and cattle are going into move to where the wildlife is.”
Lately, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism has been issuing more warnings of elephants being sighted outside their ranges, in areas such as Kweneng District.
All eyes are on the upcoming Human Wildlife Conflict strategy and its associated National Action Plan, which DWNP authorities promise contain “plenty of ideas” to combat the eternal battle for sustenance between elephants and humans in the country.
