PRESS STATEMENT ON THE COMMEMORATION OF WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY – JUNE 5, 2007

Where elephants and people do not go together.

On June 5, 2007 Batswana will commemorate World Environment Day. The following civil society organisations support the recognition of the link between the environment and the rights of people to use the environment sustainably and responsibly: Botswana Council of Churches (BCC), Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO), DITSHWANELO – The Botswana Centre for Human Rights, Kalahari Conservation Society, and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

DITSHWANELO’s office in Kasane has registered a growing number of complaints from rural communities about damage caused by elephants in the Chobe District. The reported human-elephant conflicts include attacks on people and extensive destruction of property and food crops.

The ever-increasing elephant population in Botswana, which is currently estimated at more than 150.000, almost half of Southern Africa’s estimated numbers, poses real dangers to people and their livelihoods. Going out to harvest veld products such as firewood and thatching grass has become risky as elephants regularly charge people. The many elephants living near the Chobe riverfront have ‘pushed away’ other animal species and have caused permanent damage to the area’s plant biodiversity.

Increasing numbers of elephants and their pressure on the environment in their traditional areas in Chobe and Ngamiland, have driven substantial herds away in search of water and food. This inflicts further damage to the land, people’s lives and property, as well as to plants and animals. These and other issues relating to the future of elephant management in Botswana are on the agenda of the ongoing Conference of Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in The Hague, Netherlands. The Government of Botswana, along with South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, is seeking approval to have limited trade in trophies, hides, leather goods, registered stocks of raw ivory, ivory carvings and live animals. On Saturday, June 2, the CITES Standing Committee finalised a conditional 2002 sale of 60 tonnes of ivory from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa to Japan. Allowing controlled trade in elephant products, along with other management efforts such as relocation and conservation of elephant habitat, will provide incentives for appropriate elephant management.

The above mentioned organisations are concerned about the limited international appreciation of the human-elephant conflicts in Botswana. We support the efforts of Government and civil society groups to reduce the conflicts and improve wildlife and elephant management through community based natural resource management (CBNRM), controlled relocation and removal, conservation of elephant areas, and limited trading in elephant products. The latter option, as part of a comprehensive effort at managing elephant populations, would indeed come a long way in protecting the safety of Batswana and sustaining the country’s biodiversity.

4 June 2007

Gaborone