https://www.namibian.com.na/go...th-640-wild-animals/


Govt to feed hungry communities with 640 wild animals


By Lugeretzia Kooper, Shelleygan Petersen and Envaalde Matheus

25 July 2024


The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism has donated 640 animals to the government’s national drought relief programme.

About 30 hippos, 60 buffalos, 50 impalas, 100 blue wildebeests, 300 zebras and 100 elands will be sourced from Namib Naukluft Park, Mangetti National Park, Bwabwata National Park, Mudumo National Park and Nkasa Rupara National Park to make meat packs for beneficiaries of the programme.

Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda revealed this to The Namibian yesterday, adding that their contribution of game meat is done with the approval of the Cabinet.


He said in these parks, where the animals will be sourced from, have sustainable game numbers and it will have a limited disturbance to tourism.

“Cabinet . . . approved the Namibia Livelihood Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis report that requires the ministry to support drought relief programmes with the provision of meat. This offtake will also assist in reducing the negative impact of drought on the conservation of wild animals in our national parks. Furthermore, it will assist in managing the current grazing pressure and water availability by reducing wildlife numbers in some parks,” he said.

According to Muyunda, their conservation efforts have proven to be beneficial to citizens.


The government has budgeted N$825 million for the drought-relief programme, which is expected to cater to about 172 200 households nationwide.

Meanwhile, the government is yet to get help from the international community despite asking for N$482 million last month to cover the shortfall needed to meet the budget set for drought relief.

The overal budget for drough relief is N$1,3 billion.


This comes a month after Namibia requested help from heads of diplomatic missions and development partners.

So far, the government has raised N$829 million for food assistance, livestock support, seed and horticulture provision and water provision.

Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) spokesperson Rhingo Mutambo says some foreign governments are willing to help.

“Some governments have indicated their willingness to support. However, they are still consulting their national governments,” he says.

Mutambo says they will continue to mobilise support, adding that only Qatar has donated something so far.

Meanwhile, Popular Democratic Movement president McHenry Venaani says the government must stop being international beggars.

“We are doing nothing to give impetus to agriculture. We are lacking innovation and strategies on how we can best place agriculture at the centre of our national development,” he says.

Venaani says the leadership does not pivot agriculture as an activity that can catapult food security and job creation.

“It’s a weakness, after 34 years of independence,” he says.

“A total of 341 855 households are expected to be food insecure between July 2024 and September 2024,” OPM stated in their earlier presentation.

The government formulated a N$1,3-billion drought-intervention programme for which it would need assistance to implement.

Last week, president Nangolo Mbumba met with development agencies and pleaded for aid from the United Nations. Former ambassador Pius Dunaiski on Tuesday said Namibia should put pressure on all its diplomatic missions to work much harder in light of the severe consequences of the drought emergency.

He said president Mbumba should request the Southern African Development Community to convene an emergency meeting with donor countries and United Nation agencies.

“The corruption headlines and theft of relief aid and food is an obstacle for the mitigation of a bad situation. In the rural areas food will be a priority while the challenges in commercial farming areas could be the collapse of a sector that proportionally gives a lot of jobs,” he said

In March this year, the ministry donated 10 buffaloes, three kudus, two blue-wildebeest, two hippos, one elephant and impalas as part of the country’s 34th Independence Day celebrations at Katima Mulilo.

It would be a benefit if they culled some elephants from parks where they are over populated.

Just for the stupid idiots in the West to chime in!

They don’t seem to forget that it is THEIR country, and they do with their resources as they see fit!

No one dares tell the stupid West what to do, but they are always dictating to others what they should do!

I was there when they issued these in early July. My son got to hunt one of the Hippos. I would have taken a second one but the processor didn’t have the storage space

https://allafrica.com/stories/202408290125.html

Namibia: Why Is Namibia Going to Kill its Endangered Desert Elephants?


29 August 2024
allAfrica.com
By Adam Cruise

Namibia intends to "cull" 21 elephants in the dry north-west of the country where a small population of desert elephants roam

In a statement issued on Monday, the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) said they plan to cull 723 wild animals, including 83 elephants, across the country and to distribute the meat to local people as a drought relief program.

The so-called cull will take place in national parks and communal areas where authorities believe animal numbers exceed available grazing land and water supplies amid the ongoing drought. The cull will include the killing of 21 elephants in an area that is traversed by a small isolated population of desert-adapted elephants.

The statement however provides no scientific basis behind the killings . The number of wildlife grazers to be culled is minimal compared to livestock, thus the competition for grazing is actually low. The targeting of elephants, who are hardly mass grazers (they are mainly browsers) raises the question of whether they are targeted for their high meat yield. This could indicate that the intention is less about wildlife population control and more about supplying bulk quantities of meat for possible political ends.


Desert elephants in decline

Namibia's population of desert-dwelling elephants represents one of only two such populations in Africa (the other being the small population in Mali). However, according to Elephant-Human Relations Aid (EHRA), an organisation monitoring and studying desert-adapted elephants in the area, t he removal of just a handful may threaten their future survival.

EHRA's research has revealed that desert elephants have experienced a continued population decline in recent years. They state that "the total number of resident elephants living in the Huab and Ugab ephemeral rivers of the southern Kunene and northern Erongo region of Namibia is only 62 individuals." These are both areas where the MEFT intends to cull 21 elephants.


Christin Winter, EHRA's Conservation Program Manager does point out that "as far as we know, the desert elephants will not be targeted." However, the area of the cull is where desert elephants are known to traverse and there is an overlap with other elephants. The hunters may not be able to identify which are desert elephants and which are not. Winter says EHRA will be monitoring the situation on the ground.

Since 2016, the desert elephant population in the Ugab River area decreased by a third. EHRA attributes the decline is due to severe drought, as well as human-caused factors. One of the main human-caused factors is overhunting. Overhunting, according to EHRA, "has severe impacts on large mammal populations in extreme environments at low density, especially because desert elephants have a lower reproductive rate than other savannah elephants".


Negative effects on wildlife populations

The ministry justifies the killing of elephants, and other species, as a necessary management action to reduce ‘grazing pressure' in natural ecosystems in times of drought. But, according to elephant biologist, Dr Keith Lindsay, this will have a negative impact on the entire arid ecosystem.

Lindsay maintains that Namibia is adopting an agricultural rather than a conservation mindset. The thinking of the environment ministry ought to be "derived from an understanding of the dynamics of wild animal communities in semi-arid savannas, where fluctuations are the norm and which produces heterogeneity and diversity at the landscape level and across time." Destructive Interventions of removing animals at random from wildlife populations," he says "are likely to reduce the resilience of the ecosystems of northern Namibia in the longer term."

EHRA states that the presence of elephants in the desert, "is vital to the local environment as elephants dig for water, making these resources available to other animals, and their deep tracks in the mud during the short rainy season are said to provide an ideal environment for seedlings."

Dangerous precedent

MEFT claims the culling will provide meat for its citizens affected by the drought. However, the meat yielded by this exercise will produce only short-term, minimal benefits to individual rural communities. Lindsay says this "sets a dangerous precedent of reliance on wildlife populations to solve human problems". This practice, if adopted and normalised, is very likely to create a continuing demand on vulnerable wildlife populations that would be unsustainable in the dwindling areas of natural habitat.

One of the most concerning aspects is that wildlife is being culled in national parks, which ought to be safe havens for wildlife populations. Photographic tourism is a major sector in the Namibian economy with most visitors flocking to national parks to view wildlife. It may not sit well with tourists if they know the elephant or the zebra they are photographing one day will be butchered for meat production the next.

"Wildlife cannot become a replacement for domestic livestock production," says Lindsay, "as its productivity is much more susceptible to the effects of variable seasonal conditions than livestock populations under human husbandry and protection." This vulnerability is only likely to increase as climate change brings patterns of ever more extreme weather events. The desert-adapted elephants can ill-afford more deaths in the face of the ongoing drought. According to EHRA, nine out of 14 newborn calves did not survive between 2014 and 2018 thus placing immense pressure on the future survival of the desert elephant population.

Minimal Human-elephant conflict solutions

The government statement also says that "elephant numbers need to be reduced as a measure to assist in reducing prevailing cases of human-wildlife conflict." They believe that due to "the severe drought situation in the country, conflicts are expected to increase if no interventions are made."

But, aside from the considerable impact on the desert elephant population and the fact that those animals within national parks pose no threat, Lindsay says the other locations for the killing of elephants are scattered widely across the north of the country, so that reductions in any local area would be minimal and would contribute very little to the improvement of human-elephant coexistence.



Lindsay maintains that "more pro-active measures, such as effective protection of agriculture and infrastructure, the growing of elephant-compatible crops, and land use for elephant corridors and elephant-free areas, exist and should be instituted instead of destructive lethal approaches."

Politics before conservation

Lindsay believes the announcement by the MEFT "represents a short-term populist action that displaces science and sound conservation practices for the scoring of political points".

Isak Smit, chairman and founder-member of Desert Lions Human Relations Aid (DLHRA) who has worked extensively in the north-west of Namibia, agrees. Smit maintains the latest move by the government "is an election ploy where meat seems to be earmarked for contested constituencies." Namibia will be holding a general election in November this year and many of the areas where the meat distribution scheme is being rolled out are where the ruling party is facing stiff opposition. Besides, local people may feel insulted about being given the odd meat hand-out instead of the government providing access to meaningful benefits in terms of social development and employment.

Ultimately, the ploy could backfire. Smit says Namibia is often lauded as a conservation success "but time and time again they are proving to be the exact opposite." Smit highlights other incidences where Namibia is guilty of misguided conservation practices especially as it relates to the overhunting of wildlife .

Namibia's reputation will be tarnished by these short-term actions but it may be too late for the desert elephants.

https://www.meft.gov.na/files/...t%20of%20Drought.pdf

Link to press release, where the elephants will be culled.