Botswana's President Mokgwetsi Masisi is threatening to send 20,000 wild elephants to Germany to challenge the country's position on hunting. The comments were made after the German Ministry of the Environment proposed to restrict the import of hunting trophies due to poaching. This was reported by UNN with reference to Bild and Spiegel.
Details
Botswana wants to send 20,000 elephants to Germany - this is not a belated April Fool's joke.
"Bild quoted Botswana's President Mokgwetsi Masisi as confirming that "this is not a joke." This was Mokgwetsi Masisi's response to Berlin's criticism of Zimbabwe's pachyderm hunting and trophy exports. If Germany completely bans imports, it will contribute to poverty and poaching in Botswana, harming the country, President Masisi said.
For reference
Botswana is home to approximately one-third of the world's elephant population - more than 130,000. The Botswana president told Bild that elephant herds cause damage to property, eat crops, and trample people. The number of elephants has increased dramatically as a result of conservation measures, and hunting, the African leader says, allegedly helps to control them.
Destruction of tropical forests around the world has decreased slightly - study04.04.24, 21:42
In fact, Germany is not the only country where Botswana is threatening to send elephants. According to Botswana's Sunday newspaper The Patriot on Sunday, in late March, Minister of Environment and Tourism Dumezweni Mthimkhulu spoke about transferring 10,000 elephants to the UK. The reason: in March, the London parliament voted to ban the import of hunting trophies, although the law has not yet entered into force. The Botswana government is demanding that the ban be lifted.
Recall
Due to the hunting ban caused by Russia's war against Ukraine , the bear population in the Carpathian region of Ukraine has increased: residents and tourists are increasingly seeing bear tracks near human habitation.