Strange threat: Botswana president wants to send 20,000 elephants to Germany Miracle healer marries 12-year-old in Ghana, live on television

20,000 elephants as a gift: that is how many animals the African country Botswana wants to send to Germany, President Mokgweetsi Masisi explains in the newspaper ‘Bild’. “That’s no joke.” But the reason is not pleasant: the politician is annoyed by a project of the German federal government. Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) wants to ban the import of hunting trophies.

According to Masisi, Botswana is suffering from “overpopulation” “after decades” of successful species conservation. Therefore, controlled hunting has a lasting benefit. He sees the animals as a resource anyway, he says on ‘Bild’.

However, it is controversial that the country in southern Africa is home to too many elephants. The population of African savanna elephants in the region is likely stable or even growing, the WWF reports. Nevertheless, the species is considered endangered according to the IUCN, the former International Union for the Conservation of Nature. As the association ‘Future for Elephants’ also reports, the number of animals in the country fell by 15 percent between 2010 and 2016 alone.

Botswana reintroduced controversial trophy hunting in 2019. However, this was done out of commercial interest and not to control the animals’ population, said Kabelo Senyatso, director of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks in Botswana.

Invitation to Steffi Lemke

Botswana President Masisi is not deterred by this. The country has given away 8,000 elephants to Angola in the Kavango-Zambezi trans-border protected area, and more animals will be transferred to Mozambique. “And we would like to make such an offer to the Federal Republic of Germany. We don’t take no for an answer,” reports “Bild”.

‘Future for Elephants’ questions the president’s numbers. Attributing elephant numbers to individual countries is scientifically questionable. “76 percent of all elephants are alive […] Populations that cross borders,” the association explains.

According to Masisi, elephants also trample people in Botswana, destroying crops and destroying villages. “I want Ms. Lemke, whom I deeply respect, to take the time to accept the facts and the science.” The president said he wanted to “find out how Ms. Lemke handles it.” But he also struck a conciliatory tone: he invited the Green Party minister to take a look at the protection of wildlife in the country.