Drought-stricken Zimbabwe proposes culling elephants to address food shortages

By Columbus Mavhunga

Zimbabwe’s government said Thursday it is considering a proposal to cull its elephant population to address food shortages and reduce the effects of an El Nino-induced drought.

“Zimbabwe has more elephants than our forests can accommodate,” said Sithembiso Nyoni, Zimbabwe’s minister of environment, climate, and wildlife. “We are having a discussion with ZimParks [Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority] and some communities to do like what Namibia has done, so that we can cull the elephants and mobilize the women to maybe dry the meat, package it, and ensure that it gets to some communities that need the protein.”

Zimbabwe is one the five countries in southern Africa that the World Food Programme said has been hit hard by El Nino drought, leaving millions of people food-insecure. The proposal to cull elephants in Zimbabwe follows Namibia’s recently announced plans to cull 723 wild animals — including 83 elephants — to mitigate the effects of the drought and distribute the meat to communities facing food shortages.

Much as Namibia’s decision attracted condemnation from conservationists, Zimbabwe’s proposal to cull elephants will paint the country in a bad light, said Farai Maguwu of the Center for Natural Resource Governance.

“Elephants are protected by international conventions, such as CITES [the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species]. They are in a world heritage,” said Maguwu. “So, one does not just decide to say, ‘I want to slaughter them.’ They are not like goats, which a person can just say, ‘I want to slaughter a goat and feed my family.’ There are rules and procedures.”

Maguwu said officials in Harare have long fought to change those rules.

“Zimbabwe has always been pushing for the right to kill elephants,” said Maguwu. “We all know when you look at how our natural resources are being plundered right now, like minerals, the whole idea is to sell ivory. It’s not even about the communities there.”

Maguwu also said that “there is a lot that government can do to cushion the people from the impacts of drought rather than killing elephants. I think they should stop that move.”

Zimbabwe said it has about 100,000 elephants against its carrying capacity of about 45,000 and has not been able to sell some of the jumbos because of CITES.

Minister Nyoni said Zimbabwe’s culling would fall within the confines of the country’s law.

“If Zimbabwe had a way, we would sell our elephants for ivory yesterday,” said Nyoni. “The people who prevent us from selling our ivory are people who have already finished and killed off their own animals. They don’t have elephants. And they don’t have the experience of this human wildlife conflict that we are facing. And those are people who influence the decision of CITES. So, it is a problem that Zimbabwe is facing. … There is a thinking that we move out of CITES and then do our own thing. There are consequences for doing that. Zimbabwe would like to be independent; we would like to take charge of our own animals. But we can’t because we are part of the global village.”

Nyoni added that Zimbabwe would continue to negotiate with other CITES members so that Harare is allowed to trade in ivory and elephants by CITES.

Efforts to reach CITES for comment did not yield results Thursday.