A crisis of too many, not too few (Part 2)

However, elephant poaching in the rest of Africa does not imply that southern Africa should accept a massive and destructive over-population of elephants. Like any excesses – too many elk in Yellowstone, too many cattle on the range – this has visible and less visible environmental and human consequences.

In Botswana’s case, these are magnified by poverty and the fragile complexity of dry savannas. Forests of dead and dying trees are visible for all to see, but elephants are also causing massive changes in the composition and function of these ecosystems that are less visible to the casual observer.