African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
BotswanaSociety
Home›African Arguments›Country›Southern›Botswana›What’s the real story behind the Botswana elephant deaths false claims?

What’s the real story behind the Botswana elephant deaths false claims?

By Stephen Corry
October 2, 2018
3929
1
Who benefited from the false claim spreading that 87 elephants were poached in Botswana? Credit: UNWTO.

While “conservation” is usually seen as a progressive cause in the West, it is often despised in Africa as just more (white) colonial land theft.

Who benefited from the false claim spreading that 87 elephants were poached in Botswana? Credit: UNWTO.

Who benefited from the false claim spreading that 87 elephants were poached in Botswana? Credit: UNWTO.

Early in September, international news was awash with the claim that 87 elephants had been “killed by poachers” in Botswana. The story originated from the NGO Elephants Without Borders, which received massive publicity – and presumably donations – as a result. Even the beleaguered UK Prime Minister tweeted the story, while a petition calling for wildlife guards to be re-armed surpassed 150,000 signatures.

I know a little of Botswana. A few years ago, I was declared “public enemy number one”, threatened by a government spokesman on television, and banned from the country. This was because Survival International was instrumental in stopping the government destroying the Bushmen tribes of the Central Kalahari. The authorities had cut off their water supply and forced them off their ancestral lands. The Bushmen fought back and eventually won the longest court case in Botswana’s history.

I have some knowledge too of how false information is frequently broadcast in the name of conservation. A few years ago, for example, claims emerged that al-Shabaab militants in Somalia were being funded by ivory poaching. This assertion was made first made by a self-styled “anti-poaching consultant” – and former Israeli commando – presumably keen on drumming up business. The link was totally spurious and Interpol pointed out it was false, but that didn’t stop it spreading. In 2014, the Oscar-winning film director Kathryn Bigelow even made an animation about it to help raise money for another conservation NGO, Wild Aid.

With this in mind, I greeted the recent news from Botswana with scepticism. Soon after the claim of 87 killed elephants was first made, the government issued a press release calling the story “false and misleading”. It said that the true number of carcasses found was far fewer, that the bodies had been discovered over a period of several months, and that many had died from natural causes. Since the original report came out, a physical inspection found just 19 dead elephants, of which six had been killed by poachers.

Several prominent scientists in Botswana were also quick to question the BBC report that first carried the claim, saying they could “find no scientific basis for the dramatic assertions made”. In their statement, one of the false claims these experts were particularly keen to debunk was that poaching had increased because wildlife guards had been disarmed. “The Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks is still armed,” they emphasised, “but no longer carry automatic assault rifles”.

Vested interests

So what’s going on?

Before I try to answer, I should declare a personal interest. I have spent over 45 years working on tribal peoples’ rights. Rangers have been the scourge of the Bushmen for years, beating them up on a routine basis. Heavily arming wildlife guards is likely to bring more abuses against local people, including extrajudicial executions, with “evidence” then “found” near the bodies and never any “poachers” left alive to answer for themselves.

I should also make it clear that – while I fully support protecting healthy elephant herds and have spent many hours admiring these magnificent, gentle creatures myself –  I accept that there are now too many elephants in parts of southern Africa. In Chobe, for example, there are estimated to be seven times more elephants than the environment can support. This overpopulation threatens biodiversity and other species. It is also bad for the elephants. If their numbers are not reduced, they will inevitably begin to suffer and die themselves. Elephants double their numbers about every ten years and, like other grazing animals, must have predators if their herds are to remain healthy. It’s harsh, but if you don’t like it, blame nature.

But back to the story. Why did Elephants Without Borders, a body actually contracted by the government that called its story “false”, make such claims about the 87 elephants? I don’t know the answer, but there are plenty of vested interests to bear in mind.

The first is that conservation NGOs are currently strongly promoting the idea of heavily-armed “fortress conservation”. These groups say they consult local people, but this is largely an empty sham. The reality is that wildlife charities don’t want to give up their control of large areas of Africa. They continue to build up protected areas, prohibiting local people from accessing their traditional territories. The notion of “conservation”, usually seen as a progressive cause in the West, is often despised in Africa as just more (white) colonial land theft.

The way in which things aren’t always what they seem can also be seen in the links between big conservation organisations and arms dealers. The large NGO Conservation International (CI) was rumbled a few years ago, for example, for offering to “greenwash” an arms company in exchange for a sizeable donation. In that instance, the meeting was set up by an undercover reporter, but a senior figure from Northrop Grumman, the world’s fifth-biggest arms trader, does actually sit on the NGO’s board. The weapons company really does fund CI to the tune of millions. Arms manufacturers clearly have an interest in ensuring the sales of arms.

It should also be noted that Elephants Without Borders has also received funding from Wilderness Safaris. This tourism company operates luxury camps on Bushman land – needless to say, without their agreement.

Fortress conservation

We may never know the true story behind the NGO’s false claims (and Elephants Without Borders ignored the questions we put to it). Wealthy conservation organisations are quick to silence criticism with threats of litigation or offers of five-star safaris. This stick-or-carrot combination heads off most investigators. We also can’t forget the political motivations behind the story. Dig a little deeper, and internal political struggles and land disputes are clearly key issues at play in Botswana.

What we can be certain of though is that the conservation propaganda machine will continue, as it has for decades, to assail the world with stories of the extinction of the African elephant. This calamity is always described “imminent” and usually projected some 20 years into the future. It was first predicted in 1908, by the way.

Should that occur, it would be a tragedy. But with the direction things are moving, culpability would lie with “fortress conservation” itself. This heavy-handed, and often racist, approach evicts people from land that they have been managing expertly for generations. It increases anger and destroys livelihoods, making poaching more likely. If it isn’t abandoned, then my own prediction is the extinction of protected zones in Africa – perhaps within a couple of generations.

It also endangers the environment in other ways. Under fortress conservation, mining and logging companies – many of whom fund major wildlife organisations – are often allowed access to protected zones. Meanwhile, the tourism industry, which also has a clear vested interest, presents a clear long-term threat to nature by – amongst other things – privileging certain species to the detriment of others and of biodiversity.

Contrary to those calling for local peoples to be expelled from the land they have protected for generations or for wildlife guards to shoot on sight, it is fortress conservation that is the true threat to the environment. The real story here is not that 87 elephants were found killed, but in whose interests this false claim was made in the first place.

Previous Article

Cameroon elections: President Biya set for routine, ...

Next Article

Ethiopia: Rising ethnic violence undermines Abiy’s reform ...

Stephen Corry

Stephen Corry is the Director of Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples' rights.

1 comment

  1. A 5 October, 2018 at 12:11

    What Stephen Corry, very diplomatically, doesn’t mention is that Wilderness Safaris is owned by the family of the most recent President. Whose brother is the current Minister of Tourism.
    The story was originally “given” to the BBC by his wife.

    And you’ll never guess who has (or had) the contract to supply automatic weapons to the anti-poaching units…

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Angola's former president José Eduardo dos Santos (right) meeting his South African counterpart. Credit: GCIS.
    Africa InsidersAngolaKenya

    Insiders Insight: The downfall of the Dos Santos family

  • Politics

    Home Sweet Home: Kabila’s troubled relationship with Katanga – By Kris Berwouts

  • Politics

    Worsening Violence in Northern Nigeria reveals echoes of Algeria and AQIM – By Jonathan Hill

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Of cobblers, colonialism, and choices
  • Blackness, Pan-African Consciousness and Women’s Political Organising through the Magazine AWA
  • “People want to be rich overnight”: Nigeria logging abounds despite ban
  • The unaccountability of Liberia’s polluting miners
  • Africa Elections 2023: All the upcoming votes

Editor’s Picks

Editor's PicksKenyaSociety

Why is Africa always portrayed as a passive woman?

Africa is often talked about as an object to be consumed. Even those who resist this discourse sometimes employ it. At the start of this month, leaders of forty African ...
  • Tunisia's President Kais Saied meeting with then US Defense Secretary Mark Esper at Carthage Palace, Tunisia, in September 2020. Credit: DoD/Lisa Ferdinando.

    Is Tunisia’s democracy slipping away?

    By Raed Ben Maaouia
    June 16, 2022
  • Africa coronavirus covid A woman in Mali wearing a mask. Credit: Photo: World Bank / Ousmane Traore.

    Africans don’t just live to die. A response to the New York Times.

    By Mamka Anyona
    January 8, 2021
  • african films

    Best of the 2010s: African films

    By Wilfred Okiche
    December 20, 2019
  • President Hakainde Hichilema giving a speech at the European Parliament in June 2022. Credit: European Parliament.

    An assessment of President Hichilema’s first year in Zambia

    By Sishuwa Sishuwa
    August 24, 2022

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu