Kereng enters lion's den to tackle elephant in the room

Botswana’s Environment Minister, Philda Kereng stormed the British House of Lords on the 26th of June, 2023 ostensibly to tackle the elephant in the room - the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill.

Kereng and her delegation were hosted by a member of the House of Lords, Lord Benjamin Lloyd Stormont Mancroft who together with six others, have been opposing the Bill. Since the House was on, Mancroft managed to mobilise his colleagues, making a total of 22 Lords who met and heard Botswana in one of the meeting rooms and are now in a good position to oppose the Bill.

She told them that rather than approve this Bill which spells devastating consequences for the country’s 150 000 elephants, communities as well as tourism, the United Kingdom Government and the global community should assist in developing an ivory trade tracer system modelled on the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme on diamonds.

She pleaded that the Lords do not accept the current Bill as is, as that would devastate African wildlife, and the livelihoods of local communities that co-exist with the wildlife while concurrently managing some of the most fragile ecosystems in this world.

The Bill was introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by Conservative MP Henry Smith. It seeks to prohibit the import of endangered species as hunting trophies into Great Britain, helping to reduce the threats the species face.

In her address in London, Kereng simply lectured to the Lords. She told them that Botswana respects the sovereign rights of States to make laws as they deem fit. But, the Hunting Trophies Importation Bill calls for 'our attention because it relates to resources in our country and region”.

She said the Bill disregards robust science and evidenced-based analysis that shows trophy hunting sustains Africa’s wildlife and habitats.

Further that without trophy hunting, African wildlife populations would be decimated because communities may be forced to use their lands for alternative uses, for example, converting rangelands into agricultural fields, that may not be compatible with wildlife conservation.

She said if the Bill is approved ‘as is’, livelihoods of many African communities will be negatively impacted. She said their major observations on the Bill are that it does not recognise that trophy hunting is a significant wildlife conservation measure widely used in Southern African and parts of East Africa.

'Trophy hunting generates income that is used to combat poaching, support community development, habitat protection and adapting to the effects of climate change. The Bill does not recognise that income from trophy hunting is re-invested to support Government’s development efforts including meeting obligations to SDGs and sustaining rural livelihoods”.

She argued that the Bill disregards the fact that trophy hunting is not a threat to any wildlife species because hunting quotas are based on robust scientific data. The Bill does not recognise existing systems such as those used by CITES to differentiate trade regimes applicable for threatened vs. non-threatened species.

For instance, CITES systems already prohibit international trade for those countries with weak governance systems. The Bill should treat threatened species differently from non-threatened species, and not apply a blanket ‘one-size’ approach to ban trophy importation.

She noted that the Bill fails to distinguish exporting countries with strong governance systems to conserve wildlife from those with weak governance systems. It also fails to distinguish legally-sourced trophies from those that are illegally-sourced.

On the basis of these observations, it is Botswana’s considered view that this Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill does not address the challenges of declining wildlife populations, where such is happening in Africa, on account of the mismatch between the root causes of wildlife population decline and the objectives of this Bill.

Strong governance systems are needed to conserve wildlife populations, said the minister. To put things in perspective, the IUCN Elephant Specialist Group’s data used for the 2021 IUCN Red List reports 415,000 elephants in Africa - Savannah and Forest sub species, 220,000 elephants within KAZA TFCA, 150,000 elephants in Botswana.

She said that sustainable use through trophy hunting has been a key component of the Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) model in Botswana, which was co-developed with the United Kingdom and has received United Kingdom’s support since its inception in the early 1990s.

Through this CBNRM model, management of wildlife has been devolved to local communities in efforts to incentivise these communities to conserve wildlife. The livelihoods of local communities, and the CBNRM model, are underpinned by trophy hunting.

She said in Botswana, trophy hunting is an important part of nature-based tourism programmes for CBOs who are annually allocated hunting quotas, contributing over 80 percent of income, relative to non-consumptive tourism.

During 2014 to 2018 when Botswana had suspended trophy hunting, it experienced among others, significant reduction in income by CBOs, reduced employment prospects for CBOs and increased food insecurity due to a lack of game meat for communities.

She said if approved in its current format, the Bill has the potential to undo all the success that the United Kingdom has helped Botswana to achieve over the last 35 years through the implementation of the CBNRM programme.

She told them that the RESET Agenda prioritises issues of value chains development, and beneficiation of the country’s natural resources. Explaining the importance of trophy hunting in financing wildlife conservation, Kereng said it has enabled Botswana to among others create jobs in remote and rural areas linked to wildlife utilisation, strengthen community participation in local development through CBOs, reduce food insecurity through the provision of game meat,

produce raw materials to support value chains that use wildlife products as inputs.

She said the trophy hunting has enabled Government and local communities to mobilise resources to address among others Human-Wildlife Conflicts, climate change adaptation, and habitat fragmentation. She explained to them that a Conservation Trust Fund has been set to channel income to Government from trophy hunting, which in turn is reinvested into wildlife conservation and community-based projects in the elephant range and in 2022, the Government raised

1,635,200.00 Pound Sterling from a Special Elephant Quota of 70 elephants.

Further that some of the CTF-supported projects have been used to help communities with cluster fencing of their arable fields, for example, villagers of a small village called Matopi near Francistown have only this year (2023) realised harvest from their fields for the first time since elephants moved into the area over the last decade, thanks to CTF funds used to put up 10km of fence around their clustered fields.

It helps develop and support alternative livelihoods to generate incomes that were historically based on crop-farming where people are now forced to seek alternative livelihoods due to elephants damaging their crops, for example, Tsodilo Community Development Trust, which manages the world-famous Tsodilo Hills, has been supported to construct accommodation facilities for clients to Tsodilo Hills, a UNESCO site, which income is mitigating loss of arable crops to elephants.

It also helps with water provisioning for wildlife and other habitat modifications that directly help the elephants themselves e.g. just in the last 24 months, the DWNP has converted over 30 wildlife-watering boreholes from diesel-powered to solar-powered. Lastly it supports Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) to undertake research into elephant movements, including habitat use and extent of rangeland damage by elephants.

She said due to water scarcity as a result of climate change, and over-abundance of elephants in Botswana, Human-Elephant Conflict has significantly increased in the elephant range. In the last decade elephants are also expanding outside their natural range and causing damage to infrastructure and agricultural properties that are not elephant-proofed.

Countering misinformation, Kereng told the Lords that there have been several misinformation campaigns based on biased and non-scientific data that sought to cast doubt on the sustainability of the elephant quota in Botswana, and on sustainable use more generally.

She said a ban of trophy import is not informed by scientific evidence and is contrary to the CITES provisions, including CITES-approved quotas, which are set by all 187 State Parties. Botswana as a member of CITES has a CITES-approved quota, in the case of elephants being 400 animals per annum out of an estimated 150,000 individuals.