Botswana offers Germany 20,000 elephants to protest limit on hunting trophy imports

A diplomatic row between Germany and Botswana has resulted in the African country’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi offering Germany 20,000 elephants.

The proposal to take the giant animals off Botswana’s hands comes following the public mulling of limits on the importation of hunting trophies by Steffi Lemke, Germany’s environmental minister and a member of its Green Party.

In Botswana, elephants are seen less as an endangered species and more as a danger to human beings.

“In some areas, there are more of these beasts than people. They are killing children who get in their path. They trample and eat farmers’ crops, leaving Africans hungry,” Botswana Wildlife Minister Dumezweni Mthimkhulu told the BBC.

Botswana, which has a wild elephant population of 130,000, has already offloaded 8,000 of the animals to Angola, with hundreds more offered to Mozambique, according to the BBC.

Mr. Masisi told the German newspaper Bild, “It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana. We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world — and even for Lemke’s party.”

Around 40% of Botswana’s land is set aside for wildlife protection, and its elephant population is growing by 5% annually, according to Bild. Botswanan officials, in addition to the elephant offer, have excoriated Ms. Lemke and her party.

The Greens, Mr. Mthimkhulu told Bild, “look at us with contempt” and are “fundamentalists who act out of ideology.”

German officials say Botswana has not raised an official complaint over the possibility of import limits on the trophies, which include tusks, hides and other body parts.

“In light of the alarming loss of biological diversity, we have a special responsibility to do everything to ensure the import of hunting trophies is sustainable and legal,” a spokesperson for the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection told the wire service Agence France-Presse.

The British Parliament voted this year to support a hunting trophy import ban, which has not yet entered into law. The initiative led Mr. Mthimkhulu to threaten to send 10,000 elephants to London’s Hyde Park, according to the BBC.