Eat elephants? “For me, it doesn’t make sense. Personally, I have never eaten it and I have never heard of it. It would be like eating a lion…” The opposition leader in Bulilima district, Bekezela Maplanka, is on the front line of dealing with the consequences of the drought affecting this rural region in south-west Zimbabwe.
Here, seasonal crops have been devastated by lack of rain and livestock are dropping like flies as the El Niño phenomenon affecting parts of southern Africa accentuates the effects of climate change. “People are hungry”The unsuccessful candidate for the 2023 elections continues. However, she does not hide her astonishment at the solution proposed by the Government to respond to the situation: sacrifice 200 elephants and distribute their meat among the most vulnerable populations.
Because Zimbabwe no longer knows what to do with its pachyderms. While the population of savannah elephants has declined by 60% in the past fifty years on the African continent, Zimbabwe’s has almost doubled since the 1980s, from 50,000 to almost 100,000 individuals, according to ZimParks, Zimbabwe’s wildlife management and protection authority. The country, praised for its efforts to protect the species, has insisted for years that it no longer has the capacity to accommodate all these animals.
“Zimbabwe has more elephants than our forests can accommodate”“This is a serious matter,” repeated Environment Minister Sithembiso Nyoni in Parliament on September 11, before suggesting that Namibia should follow the example of the recent killing of 700 wild animals, including 83 elephants, to alleviate the situation. The population is facing an unprecedented drought in a century.
“Risk of resurgence of poaching”
A decision quickly confirmed by ZimParks, which caused dismay among numerous wildlife protection associations. “This decision risks rekindling poaching and illegal ivory trade, undermining the remarkable progress made in wildlife conservation.”Tennyson Williams, Africa director of the NGO World Animal Protection, was particularly outraged in a press release.
“It is a false solution, we have between 6 and 7 million people who need food aid, 200 elephants will not change anything. We have to be honest, this decision has nothing to do with the population”agrees Farai Maguwu, director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, a Zimbabwean association that advocates responsible management of natural resources and questions the government’s motives.
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