Reports of elephant poaching in Botswana are under the spotlight with various claims in national and international media that the current adverse situation is driven by anti-poaching budget cuts, disarming of anti-poaching units, poachers being spoilt for choice with wildlife finding a safe-haven in the country, and even the trophy hunting ban.

As the Botswana government rumbles towards the lifting of the ban on hunting its famous wildlife, an authoritative poll in the United States, from which the second greatest number of foreign tourists come, has found overwhelming public disapproval of the plan.

Research conducted by the Elephants Without Borders conservation group indicates that elephant poaching could have caused the deaths of as many as 400 animals in Botswana since 2017.

The debate surrounding Botswana’s recent decision to lift the hunting ban is highly polarised, and both sides have marshalled various facts and figures to argue their case. These figures, especially the numbers of living and poached elephants, are hotly debated and contested, with some even questioning the motives behind the research.

One of South Africa’s newest blueberry farms is situated in the Madikwe East Private Conservancy which lies to the east of the Madikwe game reserve, near the Botswana border.

Curiously, I see no substantiation of these claims; not a single appeal to scientific evidence.

The Okavango Delta in northern Botswana is a mosaic of water paths, floodplains and arid islands. The delta sits in the Okavango river basin, which spans three African countries: Angola, Namibia and Botswana.

Botswana, home to the world’s largest elephant population, has held its first major auction for trophy elephant hunting quotas since scrapping a hunting ban last year.

East Africa’s Great Migration is perhaps the most famous large mammal migration in the world, and for good reason, but few people realize that Africa is home to several smaller mammal migrations that are equally spectacular in their own way.

Gaborone — Botswana may have found a solution to its elephant overpopulation: it’s going to encourage some of them to leave the country.

For a distance of some 150km, Canadian company ReconAfrica’s oil and gas prospecting concessions border the Kavango River, a crucial source of water in a semi-arid area and the lifeline for one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wild species in the Okavango Delta into which it discharges.

Human-elephant conflict: Managing elephants in a landscape that includes rural human communities is a major challenge in countries where elephant populations are increasing as a result of successful conservation measures.

Data shows that over a 10-year period South Africa received most of the live lions and lion products exported from Botswana – including 16 live lions in 2019.

Did fences in northern Botswana cause the mysterious death of hundreds of elephants in 2020?

Botswana’s recent upsurge in rhino poaching is reaching a crisis point. More than 100 rhinos have been poached in under two years from a population of less than 400. Yet, the government remains resolute in its denial of a growing catastrophe.

In a recent Government Notice, (482 of 2021) signed on the 2nd of September, the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) of Botswana announced the wildlife hunting quotas for the year 2022.

For millions of years, elephants have undertaken seasonal migrations, following the rains that nourish the foliage they eat. On the way, they refashion landscapes, fertilise the grasslands essential for countless herbivores and help sequester carbon by spreading seeds.

In less than four decades after its independence, Botswana has quickly climbed the ranks from a poor country to an upper middle-income country, proving to be a development success.

The reintroduction of game farming has increased fears of poaching in Tsabong in Botswana’s Kgalagadi region by syndicates who operate with their South African counterparts.

Africa is home to about 410,000 savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana), most of them living in southern Africa. Over 290,000 elephants (70%) are spread across 103 protected areas which vary in size, connectivity and protection.