African Wildlife & Environment Issue 77 FINAL ISSUE

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

natural) elephant deaths [https://www.bbc.com/ news/world-africa-53257512], however, reveal that Botswana is being watched and judged internationally. Namibia has experienced its share of international judgement over its wildlife management policies, so we can commiserate with our neighbour. Both countries allow elephants to be hunted (along with several other African countries), much to the dismay of people who love elephants, yet don’t have to compete with them for food and water. Hunting permits are invariably granted for male elephants, particularly older ones that bear larger tusks. The quota in Botswana is set at 400 adult male elephants. “Yet scientists say that older male elephants are critically important, so we cannot allow this!” cry the activists from afar.Very rarely does anyone stop to critically assess the differences between what scientists actually found and what they recommend, as I did above. Studies like the one by Allen et al. are used as a club by international media to batter Botswana and other elephant hunting countries into submission.This article was popularised by no less than the New York Times [https://www.nytimes. com/2020/09/04/science/male-elephants-bulls. html] and the BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/ science-environment-54018133] among numerous others. Yet the findings of Mayberry et al . – that 90% of people living alongside the Boteti River are food-insecure as a result of elephants, not to mention the other impacts – remain tucked away in a scientific journal article, to be read only by scientists interested in the topic of human- elephant conflict.The next time someone says that elephants should be managed based on science, ask them what science – just the science focusing on the elephant dimension, or all of the science? What are we trying to achieve? Besides using science to guide management, one also needs to ask a critical (but often overlooked) question – what is the ultimate objective for management in this particular area? The answer to this question then guides how the science should be used. The objectives for national parks are usually to conserve plant and animal species, although they may also include generating income for park management and the country. Yet on the edges of parks and outside them, either in buffer

zones or on farmlands, the objective may be different. Particularly in areas where people are present, the objectives have to include their needs – ignoring them is both a violation of their rights and a recipe for disaster. Around the world, in nearly every human- wildlife conflict situation, whenever people feel that the authorities tasked with managing wildlife are ignoring them or trampling their rights, conflict intensifies. Anger and frustration generated by such intense conflict can reveal itself in a multitude of ways, including public protests [more information here], increased poaching [https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/poaching- and-the-problem-with-conservation-in-africa- commentary/], and a distrust of conservation officials generally [ https://www.sciencedirect. com/science/article/abs/pii/S0743016717302218 ]. More often than not, the animals are used as a pawn in a greater conflict between different groups of people, with sometimes devastating results. [https://africageographic.com/stories/mass- poisoning-leaves-lions-vultures-dead-ruaha/]. I hope we can all agree that no one wants human-wildlife conflict to escalate to the point of no return. If so, some compromises between the different human-interest groups must be made. Within strictly protected national parks, elephants and other animals should be allowed to continue their lives as unimpeded by human activities as possible (tourism can, and does, cause some issues but this should be minimised by managing the humans, rather than the animals). Outside the parks, we need to be more flexible. The existence of wildlife in human farmlands relies directly on the level of tolerance farmers have for it. Our efforts should therefore focus on maximising tolerance , which is achieved primarily through listening carefully to the concerns raised by the people in question and genuinely making an effort to address these. As a rule of thumb, we should aim to reduce the costs people experience and increase the benefits they derive from the presence of wildlife. Achieving either or both of these goals may require the sacrifice of a few individual animals – e.g. killing or translocating particular individuals that habitually cause conflict (reducing the cost), or allowing a few older males to be hunted by foreigners and thereby generate income and meat for the affected community (increasing the benefit). There is much scope for further

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