Botswana threatens to "gift" 20,000 elephants to Germany in protest

 

The president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has threatened - in statements to the newspaper "Bild" - to "gift" 20,000 elephants to Germany as a protest against the ban on bringing hunting trophies into the European country.

Masisi says that he sees elephants and their controlled hunting as an economic resource that also prevents the number of elephants from increasing exorbitantly, endangering the population.

Now, according to the president, the German Environment Minister, Steffi Lemke of the Greens party, wants to ban the entry of trophies.

"If the Greens and Lemke know more about everything than the others, then they have to show how to live with elephants. I propose sending 20,000 wild elephants to Germany, it is not a joke," declared the president, who maintains that in the attitude of the Greens there are racist tendencies.

According to Masisi, Botswana has more than 130,000 elephants and the population grows by 6,000 annually and they have donated thousands of animals to neighboring countries such as Angola and Mozambique.

"We want to make a similar offer to Germany and we will not accept a negative response," he said.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment assured this Wednesday that there is currently no plan at the national level, although there is at the European level, to restrict imports of hunting trophies.

What is being studied is to expand the list of protected species, which would not change anything in the case of elephants that are already classified as a protected species.

Another spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that there is no record of the donation of elephants from Botswana to Germany.

Ban hunting

Animal rights groups say trophy hunting - hunting an animal to take its head or skin as a trophy - is cruel and should be banned.

Germany is the country in the European Union that imports the most hunting trophies according to a 2021 report from the Humane Society International.

Botswana had banned hunting in 2014, but lifted restrictions in 2019 under pressure from several local populations.

The country then issued a series of annual hunting quotas, noting that it provided a good source of money for the local economy, and that it also discouraged poaching of wild animals, which is prohibited in the country.

Botswana has previously considered using elephants as pet food.

A spokeswoman for the Environment Ministry in Berlin told the AFP news agency that Botswana had not officially raised any concerns with Germany on the matter.

"In light of the alarming loss of biological diversity, we have a special responsibility to do everything possible to ensure that the importation of hunting trophies is sustainable and legal ," he stated.