African leaders say elephants need to die for food. Critics say it’s cruel and won’t work

CNN
—

Drought has now become so bad in parts of southern Africa that governments say they must kill hundreds of their most magnificent and majestic wild animals to feed the desperately hungry.

In August, Namibia announced that it had begun implementing the project Execution of 723 animalsincluding 83 elephants, 30 hippopotamuses and 300 zebras. The following month, Zimbabwe allowed the slaughter of 200 elephants.

The two governments said the culls would help mitigate the effects of the region’s worst drought in 100 years, reduce pressure on land and water, and prevent conflicts as animals move into human settlements in search of food.

But it sparked a heated debate.

Conservationists have criticized the culls as cruel and short-term, setting a dangerous precedent.

The decision to offer some of Namibia’s elephants to trophy hunters — tourists, often from the United States and Europe, who pay thousands of dollars to shoot the animals and keep parts of their bodies as trophies — has increased opposition and raised questions about governments’ motives.

However, for some cull supporters, critics misunderstand conservation at best, and are “racist” at worst — telling African countries what to do, favoring wildlife over humans.

It’s a heated debate that gets to the heart of what conservation looks like and how countries will deal with the deep and devastating droughts that are becoming more frequent as humans burn fossil fuels and the world warms.

The situation facing southern Africa is dire. Crops failed Livestock Nearly 70 million people have died and are in desperate need of food.

Zimbabwe declared a national disaster in April. Namibia followed in May, Declaring a state of emergency The drought left about half of its population facing drought High levels of acute food insecurity.

The drought was caused by El Niño – a natural weather pattern that has led to a sharp decline in rainfall in the region – and worsened drought. Due to the human-caused climate crisis.

“The reality is that we are seeing an unprecedented increase in droughts,” said Elizabeth Mrema, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. “There is tremendous suffering.”

Legally harvesting and consuming wild game for food is a common practice in cultures around the world, Mrema told CNN. “Provided that these animals are harvested using sustainable, scientifically proven methods…there should be no cause for concern.”

Both countries say the culls will not threaten the long-term survival of wild animal populations. They say it’s the opposite: reducing numbers will help protect remaining animals as drought shrinks food and water resources.

All animals in Zimbabwe and most in Namibia will be killed by professional hunters.

Chris Brown, an ecologist with the Namibian Environment Chamber, an association of conservation groups, which supports the cull, said the animals would be shot. “It’s mostly done at night with a silencer and an infrared dot so you can get very close to the animals. A shot to the head, the animals go down,” Brown told CNN.

He said it was “very humane”, unlike farm animals that are pressed into trucks before being killed in slaughterhouses. The meat will then be distributed to those in need.

However, about 12 of the 83 Namibian elephants earmarked for slaughter will be killed by trophy hunters. Romeo Muyunda, spokesman for Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, told CNN.

This caused an uproar. A report by 14 African conservationists, who say they must remain anonymous because of the risks of speaking out, says the courtship of trophy hunters raises questions about their “true motive.”

Muyunda said none of the money would go to the government, but rather the goal was to generate funds for communities affected by human-wildlife conflict.

‘Cruel and misleading’

Elephants may be a prized sight on safari, but they can pose a danger to those who live alongside them.

In Namibia, which has about 21 thousand elephants, according to A 2022 surveySome areas have such large numbers of trees that they have become “almost unbearable for people,” Brown said, with elephants destroying crops, harming livestock and even killing people.

The country has tried to offload elephants before. In 2020, it announced an auction for 170 items, but was only able to sell one item A third of them. They cannot be sold or given away, Brown said. “The fact of the matter is that no one wants the elephants,” he said.

But others don’t buy the overpopulation argument.

“Namibia’s wildlife has survived but has diminished over the past 12 years “Years of drought,” said Isaac Smit, president of Desert Lions Human Affairs Aid, a Namibian non-profit. This is especially true for areas of the country where executions will take place, he told CNN.

In Zimbabwe, where the government says there are more than 85,000 elephants, some experts worry the numbers are exaggerated.

It is a “myth,” said Farai Magoo, founding director of the Center for Natural Resource Governance, because it does not take into account the fact that elephants roam freely between countries in the region.

Safaris operators in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, one of the areas designated for culling, are “actually complaining that the number is low,” Magwo said.

Elephants are not the problem, he said, pointing to poor land management and increased human settlements next to national parks and in buffer zones designed to separate animals and humans.

Conservationists also worry that killing these wild animals will unbalance the delicate ecology of the two countries, making them less resilient to drought.

It could also inadvertently increase human-elephant conflict, said Elizabeth Valerio, a safari operator and conservationist in Hwange Park, Zimbabwe. She told CNN that the trauma of killing family members can make elephants more aggressive.

Both Namibia and Zimbabwe say professional hunters will ensure that entire groups are killed to prevent this.

Perhaps one of the biggest criticisms is that culling cannot do anything meaningful in the face of severe drought.

Magoo said it was a “false solution” when millions of people need food aid. He added: “Many of us are hearing for the first time that elephant meat can be eaten,” and expecting poor families to eat this meat is an “insult.”

Megan Carr, a senior researcher at the EMS Foundation, a social justice organization in South Africa, said culls would do nothing to address hunger in anything other than the short-term way, calling them “misguided and cruel.”

Conservation biologist and natural resources consultant Keith Lindsay is also concerned that the cull could be used to lobby for weakening international rules on wildlife trade, such as the sale of ivory.

This could establish a narrative that “people who oppose the wildlife trade, oppose starving people,” he told CNN.

Namibian government spokesman Muyunda said much of the criticism ignored the suffering drought caused to both people and animals.

He added that there is also hypocrisy, as Western countries have also culled animals. “Just because it is Namibia and it is an African country, the decision is questionable.”

Brown, of the Namibian Environment Chamber, went further, saying: “It’s actually racist: Africa can’t manage its wildlife.” We need to tell them how they should do it.

But as fossil fuel pollution helps cause increasingly severe and devastating droughts, many environmentalists fear these culls could open the door to much larger-scale killings of wildlife.

“The government may start something that it will not be able to finish,” Magoo said. “Something that will go on and on.”