Why Is Namibia Going to Kill its Endangered Desert Elephants?

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 .

This article originally appeared on AllAfrica