Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi has reacted angrily to Western critics of his government’s decision to lift a ban on hunting of elephants that was imposed in 2014.
In a statement on Monday, Masisi said while it is true that the country is lifting the ban on hunting, “we are doing so in an extremely limited, tightly controlled fashion.”
“When my Government announced that Botswana would be lifting its ban on elephant hunting, many people around the world, but especially in the U.S. and the UK, reacted with shock and horror.
“We in Botswana, who live with and alongside the elephants, yield to no one in our affection and concern for them, and we would never condone, no less promote, any of the terrible things,” Masisi said.
He said Botswana was “not engaging in anything remotely like the culling of our elephant herds, and we are definitely not going to be using any elephants for pet food.”
He noted that after extensive consultations his government decided on a course of action that embodies three guiding principles—the need to conserve Botswana’s natural resources, the need to facilitate human-wildlife co-existence, and the need to promote scientific management of the country’s elephants and other wildlife species.
KO/jn/APA