Shooting an Elephant in Botswana
March 04, 2025 at 02:45AMFor Foreign Policy, Anthony J. Wallace writes about elephant trophy hunting and wildlife conservation. While the West often vilifies trophy hunters, the reality for communities in Botswana, home to more elephants than any country in the world, is more complicated. In Mababe, where the Indigenous San Bushmen have lived for millennia, elephants are majestic creatures, yes, but they also destroy homes, devastate crops, and sometimes kill people. Botswanans argue that trophy hunting maintains ecological balance while creating a lifeline for them. “As the traditional San hunter-gatherer lifestyle has been destroyed over time,” writes Wallace, “trophy hunting is a rare source of economic opportunity.” Conservation experts also offer an interesting perspective: making wildlife financially valuable to local communities might actually be the most effective way to protect animals.
Botswanans argue for the right to manage their own wildlife, viewing the West’s opposition to trophy hunting as paternalistic and hypocritical (see also: factory farming). Wallace’s reporting highlights the tension between Western conservation ideals and the economic realities of the people who live alongside these massive beasts.
A foreign hunter can pay up to $80,000 for the permits and labor required to kill a single elephant. The hunter takes home the tusks, skin, and feet; the rest goes to locals, a windfall in a place where food can be hard to come by.
Yet much of what drives local support for trophy hunting is lost on some Western opponents. South Africa-based journalist Ed Stoddard coined the term “faunal poverty line” to describe people who live in daily fear of attack by a wild animal. People living in the Global North envision a “Tarzan version of Africa, or Disney version,” he told Foreign Policy. Most people don’t think much about what it’s actually like to live with wild animals or what it takes to conserve them.
More picks on wildlife conservation
Protectors of Aqviqtuuq
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The Very Hungry Urchins
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The Great Serengeti Land Grab
“How Gulf princes, the safari industry, and conservation groups are displacing the Maasai from the last of their Serengeti homeland.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/03/03/shooting-an-elephant-in-botswana/
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