Masisi has visited Angola three times before. Briefing the media about the Angolan President's visit on Thursday, the director of Africa and the Middle East at Foreign Affairs, Pule Mphothwe said some of the issues that both Presidents might talk about include elephants and human conflict. According to Mphothwe some of the elephants in that country migrated to Botswana during the Angola civil war. “The two countries share a lot in common including wildlife. Again Okavango River borders the two countries and therefore, the Presidents may talk about tourism issues along that river. And also how people who are nearer that river may benefit from tourism and other things,” Mphothwe said. Over the years, Seronga and Eretsha, located in the eastern Okavango panhandle, have been some of the areas hardest hit by human-wildlife conflict involving elephants. “Seronga and many villages along the eastern Okavango panhandle have the worst human-elephant conflict. A number of people have died from being trampled down by elephants, and many farmers lose their crops every season due to elephants,” he said.
The pachyderms, which are estimated to number 130,000 in Botswana, are concentrated in the country’s northwest, around the Okavango Delta where lush wetlands provide ample supplies of the 250 kilogrammes or so elephants need to eat daily. With human-wildlife conflict cases increasing over the years, the government has revealed that it spent P38.4 million in compensating for damage caused by wild animals between the years 2020 and 2021. These are costs incurred by damages caused by elephants and six other wildlife species that attract wildlife compensation namely lion, leopard, hippo, rhino, buffalo and crocodile.
