The president of Botswana threatened to ship 20,000 elephants to Germany amid a dispute over looking trophy imports.
Germans ought to “live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to,” Mokgweetsi Masisi informed the German day by day Bild.
“This is not a joke,” stated Masisi, whose nation has seen its elephant inhabitants develop to some 130,000.
Botswana has already provided 8,000 elephants to Angola and one other 500 to Mozambique, because it seeks to sort out what Masisi described as “overpopulation.”
“We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Masisi stated, including that he would “not take no for an answer.”
The African chief argued that conservation efforts have led to an explosion within the variety of elephants and that looking is a vital means to maintain them in test.
The herds of elephants have been inflicting harm to property, consuming crops and trampling residents, he informed the German paper.
Germany’s setting ministry earlier this 12 months raised the potential for stricter limits on the import of looking trophies over poaching considerations.
But a ban on the import of looking trophies would solely impoverish Botswanans, Masisi stated.
Botswana banned trophy looking in 2014 however lifted the restrictions in 2019 beneath stress from native communities. The nation now points annual looking quotas.
A spokeswoman for the setting ministry in Berlin stated Botswana had not raised any considerations with Germany on the matter.
Source: www.dailysabah.com