One of the tribal leaders in the North West district, has decried the late response to reports on human wildlife conflict incidents made by communities to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, a situation that has for many years been a concern to people living in areas with wild animals.
Kgosi Oateng Sethodi of Chanoga said this during a consultative meeting to kick start the implementation of the National Elephant Management and Action Plan (NEMAP), this week in Maun.
Sethodi emphasised that for the department to improve on its turnaround time to reports and attend to cases, it has to have offices placed strategically across the country for better service delivery.
Sethodi said the late response by officials to damages caused by wild animals has been a challenge to farmers with animals that include lions, elephants and cheetahs among others being their worst nightmare. This alone exacerbates the already simmering tension between farmers and the animals, nullifying the government’s continued efforts to promote co-existence.
Botswana formally adopted its National Elephant Management Plan and Action Plan (2021–2026) in 2021. The drafting is a bottom-up, multi-stakeholder and consultative process which includes participatory regional workshops in Botswana’s elephant range areas, and a countrywide workshop. The consultation process ran for the period 2018 to 2020.
“We have seen other government departments going all out by setting offices across villages for better timely service delivery to communities, so I believe if DWNP does the same, human/wildlife co-existence may be achieved,” Sethodi highlighted.
He further emphasised that DWNP should close the gap which currently exist between the department and farmers urging the department to frequently check on farmers and conduct public awareness campaigns instead of only waiting to respond to reports.
Giving an overview, DWNP Deputy Director Matshelo Makondwe explained that NEMAP is based on a logical framework format which is set to achieve the targets set for managing Botswana’s elephants while ensuring communities that co-exist with the elephants derive sustainable benefits from such co-existence.
According to Makondwe NEMAP’ mission is to provide guidance on management of elephants in Botswana based on primary targets which include among them maintaining viable population of elephants in Botswana, contribution of elephants to community livelihoods through sustainable utilization and human wildlife conflict management.
“The plan also has six key components which have been identified, among them is Protection and law enforcement, human-elephant conflict management, Management of habitats and connectivity, Social and Economic framework, Conservation capacity as well as Coordination and collaboration,” Makondwe said.
