In April 2024, Botswana’s then-president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, made headlines for his government’s threat to send 30,000 elephants to Germany and the United Kingdom so that Europeans could try living alongside the creatures.
“This is not a joke,” he said.
The bizarre proposal was a response to proposed legislation in the U.K. and Germany that would ban trophy hunting, making it illegal for their citizens to kill elephants and other wild animals abroad and bring their remains back home to display.
Polls show that 85 percent of the German and British publics support trophy import bans. In 2019, when Botswana lifted its own wildlife hunting ban, which had been in place since 2014, there was vocal opposition from Western celebrities and activists, with some even calling for boycotts of the country. Trophy hunters make easy villains, and African elephants are easy to love. The world’s largest land animals, they stick together in multi-generational matriarchal herds. They call each other by names, and when one dies, they linger over their bodies, seeming to mourn each other.
But in Botswana, home to more elephants than any country in the world, the picture is more complicated. The herbivores, which can weigh up to 15,000 pounds, are wreaking havoc—destroying centuries-old forests, stealing farmers’ crops, and, according to local sources I spoke with, killing people in the most affected areas at a rate as deadly as car accidents in the United States. As celebrities and powerful NGOs campaign against trophy hunting, many locals see it as a lifeline.
A warning sign marks an elephant crossing on the road to Chobe National Park, which is just a few kilometers from Mababe, in Botswana on Dec. 2, 2013. Sergio Pitamitz/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
“These people don’t know how we are living,” said Kutlwano Russel, a 41-year-old widow, mother of two, and advocate for her impoverished community in the outskirts of the elephant-dense Okavango Delta. The bumpy road to her 400-person hometown of Mababe is dotted with elephant crossing signs; during our journey together, multiple herds meandered across our path.
Globally, the African elephant population was obliterated by the ivory trade in the 19th and 20th centuries. In Botswana, however, elephant numbers have more than tripled since the 1980s. The government’s aggressive anti-poaching and conservation policies have made it a destination of choice for elephant “refugees” migrating from less protective countries. Today, one-third of all African elephants—about 132,000, according to the most recent count—reside in Botswana.
Russel said that hungry elephants rip off the roofs of homes in town in the middle of the night, plundering sorghum and maize and startling the humans sleeping inside. Many people there have given up on farming because elephants raid their crops incessantly, she said: “Today, the seeds germinate, tomorrow morning there’s nothing in the field.”
Ishmael Simasiku, a farmer, explains how elephants damaged his crops in Kachikau village, northern Botswana, on May 29, 2019. Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP via Getty Images
Russel’s community got in on the trophy hunting business more than 20 years ago. Like several others in Botswana, their community trust—a legal entity established to manage natural resources—is allocated an annual quota of hunting licenses from the national government for elephants and other animals. The licenses are sold to a hunting company, generating income to fund household dividends, pensions for orphans and older residents, and scholarships.
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.
On the way to Mababe, Russel despaired about the international backlash that Botswana received when it reinstated hunting in 2019. “We were heartbroken when we heard this on social media,” she said. “We were like, ‘God, can you just bring someone who can be our voice to come and see how we suffer when there is no hunting?’”
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A woman with white hair touches an animal bone. Behind her are other animal bones amid makeshift shelters. - Debbie Peake stands amid a yard full of animal bones—mostly elephant jaws—at Mochaba Developments on Sept. 23, 2024. Mochaba is a taxidermy and import/export business that helps hunters get their trophies prepared and shipped home.
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Giant skulls of elephants rest between two outdoor shelters. Trees are seen in the background. - Elephant skulls rest in the yard at Mochaba Developments, their tusks removed to make trophies. Anthony Wallace photo for Foreign Policy
Hoping to provide additional context, last March a delegation of Botswanan officials, experts, and advocates traveled to London to lobby against the U.K. bill. They spoke to the House of Commons, where, according to Debbie Peake, a taxidermist who joined the delegation, no one backing the ban took them seriously. “It was offensive,” she said. The unproductive debate, Peake said, felt like the Brits “pointing a long finger at Africans,” when Botswana is widely seen as a conservation success story.
Russel and her people, the indigenous San Bushmen, are by many accounts part of the oldest known culture on Earth. They have hunted and gathered sustainably in southern Africa for millennia. In the Americas and Australia, 80 percent of large mammal species have gone extinct in the past 100,000 years, but in the same period, southern Africa has lost only about 5 percent. Ultimately, Peake said, many of the British officials took the position that “it doesn’t matter that you’re hunting sustainably and that the quotas are done properly. We just don’t like the fact that people kill the things.”
Peake and other members of the delegation were exasperated by what they perceive as the paternalism of a colonial power; Botswana was a British protectorate until 1966. They also see hypocrisy among anti-trophy hunting lawmakers in the United Kingdom, where factory-farmed animals are slaughtered en masse, who judge African communities for how they manage their own wildlife. “You kill cows to eat them, you kill chickens to eat them. You kill pigs to eat them,” Peake said. “And you’re appalled by the fact that Black people can eat an elephant.”
Elephants roam the plains of the Chobe District on Sept. 19, 2018. Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP via Getty Images
Opponents of trophy hunting often make their case on ethical or environmental grounds. Liam Slattery, the Humane World for Animals (formerly known as Humane Society International/Europe) campaign director for trophy hunting, characterized the practice as a “reduction of sentient animals to commodities, stripping them of their intrinsic value and essential ecological roles.” Many proponents of trophy hunting agree with the broader goal of conservation but see the commodification of elephants as a good thing. They argue that making wildlife an asset, particularly where economic opportunity is limited, is a better way to protect the species.
Simply put, if maintaining a stable elephant population leads to profit, then communities will invest in keeping them around. Without incentives, people will find other uses for their land and treat elephants as pests to be exterminated—forsaking both animal and habitat conservation. This dynamic has played out in Kenya, once a trophy hunting destination. After the government banned the practice in 1977, people began using their land for agriculture and livestock. Hartebeest and impala were displaced as their natural habitats were plowed over to raise goats and sheep. By 2016, wildlife populations had dropped 70 percent from pre-ban numbers.
Trophy hunting advocates fear that a similar fate could await Botswana’s elephants if the regulated industry disappears. A recent University of Oxford-led analysis found that the proposed U.K. bill may ultimately “cause more harm than good to the species it was intended to protect.”
Brian Child, a conservationist and professor at the University of Florida, sees the primary goal for conservation as outcompeting livestock and agriculture. “I’m not for hunting or for tourism. I’m for whatever land use pays,” he said. Community and private sector partnerships, such as with trophy hunting or ecotourism projects, are efficient, he said, often conserving land at a much lower cost on a per hectare basis than NGOs (which have associated administrative and fundraising expenses).
The carcass of an elephant discovered in the Chobe District on Sept. 20, 2018. The elephant was among 87 carcasses found in the area around the time, suggesting a spike in killings. Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP via Getty Images
Trophy hunting can be an effective way to support communities like the San that live among wild animals. “We want these communities to participate in wildlife conservation,” said Joseph Mbaiwa, the director of the Okavango Research Institute at the University of Botswana. With trophy hunting, he said, they can “benefit directly from the wildlife resources in their area.”
As the traditional San hunter-gatherer lifestyle has been destroyed over time, trophy hunting is a rare source of economic opportunity. Dan Challender, lead author of the Oxford analysis, wrote that Britain’s trophy hunting bill could “have a severe, even devastating, impact on marginalised rural communities and indigenous peoples.”
Although Botswana has a relatively low poverty rate overall, the vast majority of the San live on less than $2.50 per day. When Botswana banned trophy hunting, the economic impact in rural areas was huge, vaporizing an industry that employed hundreds of people and generated nearly $20 million annually.
In some places, photographic tourism—which involves high volumes of wealthy tourists doing daily safaris—is a viable substitute for trophy hunting. But it requires picturesque scenery, infrastructure, and easy access for travelers, which few places in Botswana have. During the hunting ban, Mababe couldn’t seamlessly transition to photography, and the small community saw its tourism income drop from around $250,000 to $35,000. Dividends, pensions, and scholarships were cut off; jobs were lost. “We really suffered,” Russel said. “Everything just stopped.”
Ghanzi, Botswana, is flat, dry, and expansive compared to the lush Okavango Delta. Located in the country’s far west, it attracts only the most adventurous travelers—and committed foreign hunters. Many of them come to see Clive Eaton. His home and 120,000-hectare hunting ranch is an oasis with high-speed Starlink Wi-Fi among the dirt and shrubbery of the Kalahari Desert. His great-grandmother, one of the first Dutch settlers in the area, established the ranch in the late 1800s.
In the 1990s, Eaton and his wife started Tholo Safaris, which offers luxury accommodation, on-site hunting, and expeditions across the country—including in the Okavango Delta—where he has secured hunting rights from local communities. Eaton says that his family has lived and worked alongside the local San community for generations. They are his trackers, cooks, mechanics, and the beneficiaries of a piece of the hunting revenue.
On his private land, Eaton is free to cull certain animals to maintain the balance of species. Last September, ahead of Botswana’s independence day, his employees used a helicopter to corral and shoot 60 wildebeest. Before the festivities kicked off, a parade of pickup trucks from the neighboring villages came through to take some of the meat.
Section Bimbo drove one of those trucks from the village of Dekar, about an hour away. His grandfather worked on Eaton’s ranch, and Bimbo was born there. “I see Clive as my father,” he said, laughing, and added that the ranch is important for people all over the region. “If it wasn’t for [this meat], then we couldn’t find anything. People will starve.”
Annah NXhonxae Tseeku, 40, was also born on the ranch and has worked there for nearly 20 years as a housekeeper; Eaton also employs her husband as an animal tracker. Without hunting, their wages are low, she said, “but if we go do safaris and we get the tips from the clients, then we can do something more.” Tseeku and her husband saved up to buy two plots of land—one nearby, the other near her husband’s home village—where they plan to raise and sell small game.
Gakemotho Satau, a San activist and researcher who has studied integrating Indigenous knowledge into conservation efforts at the Okavango Research Institute, told Foreign Policy that he believes trophy hunting works better in some places than others; he’s skeptical that villages benefit much from it. Trophy hunting generates money but it is also an opportunity to exploit local people, he said, who are often not paid fairly for their labor and expertise, which is passed down over generations. “Cut away middlemen,” Satau said. “The community need to take their trophy, be able to market and sell it, and even become outfitters.”
Many feel that hunters are underpaying communities and that corruption on the local and national level often prevents hunting income from translating into real improvements in livelihoods. For example, in 2022, a hunting operator paid the Tcheku Community Trust $100,000 for five elephant and two leopard licenses, which it sold, based on average trophy hunting prices, for an estimated total of $445,000. And, according to journalist Joel Kopono, some of the proceeds that came back to the Tcheku Community Trust end up in the pockets of trust staff members instead of going to the community.
A painting that shows an elephant chasing children hangs on the wall at the Seronga Craft Shop, in Seronga, Botswana on Sept. 25, 2024. The shop, supported by Ecoexist, sells “elephant aware creations” by local artists from the Okavango Delta, some made from elephant dung and wood taken from trees pushed over by elephants. Anthony Wallace photo for Foreign Policy
Elsewhere in Botswana, some communities are trying to move beyond the traditional trophy hunting model. Collaborating with NGOs and starting non-hunting business ventures, they provide for themselves and mitigate human-elephant conflict without killing elephants.
In the eastern Okavango Delta—where there are as many elephants as humans—the Okavango Community Trust (OCT), a local governing body, does not partner with hunting operators on its land. Instead, they have deals with safari companies. With the proceeds, the OCT offers scholarships and other benefits similar to those in Mababe, but without the bloodshed. Still, OCT Administrative Officer Kebonemotse Amos has no problem with communities that allow hunting. “It is a mitigation strategy to ensure that the elephants’ numbers do not overflow,” he said. “It is a source of income … and employment to local communities. And also, in our communities, it is the time we find a buffet of meat. We enjoy it.”
The OCT’s headquarters are located in the remote town of Seronga, accessible much of the time only by 4×4 truck. On a sunny morning last September, Picture and Obadile Kavara walked along the dirt road into town on their way to pick up a cow from a nearby village.
Brothers Picture and Obadile Kavara pose near the road to Seronga, Botswana, on Sept. 25, 2024. Anthony Wallace photo for Foreign Policy
The brothers, ages 20 and 35, recounted how a year before, their uncle Batshidi—a 53-year-old father of four—was trampled and killed by an elephant while walking on the same road, on his way to pick up his own cow. It is one of four or five trampling deaths that Picture can remember in the area in recent years. “There are too many elephants,” he said.
From 2018 to 2023, more than 60 people were killed in Botswana by wild animals. In the last decade, human injuries and death from wildlife increased 80 percent in the delta region; elephants were responsible for about 70 percent of the deaths.
The roads near Seronga are so treacherous that several NGOs and the OCT launched the Elephant Express system—vans that shepherd around 200 students from nearby villages to and from school. Amos, the OCT administrator, said that before, some children would stay home rather than risk the walk. “It was dangerous, and also it led to school dropouts,” he said.
Every week, around 200 children in the Okavango Delta ride the Elephant Express—a system of vans that transport students to and from school in elephant-dense areas that can be dangerous to walk through alone. Inside the bus stop is a map of elephant corridors and instructions about how to respond if an elephant charges. Anthony Wallace photo for Foreign Policy
More commonly, elephants threaten not lives but livelihoods. In the nearby town of Shakawe, Tito Tsatsilebe works as a chef and bartender at a tourist lodge. He would rather be farming; he spends only his scarce time off tending to crops of peanuts and sorghum, which he sells and uses to feed his family. But early last year, elephants snuck onto his fields and ate $7,000 worth of crops.
Botswana compensates farmers for these losses, paying out close to $10 million to farmers for crop raids between 2018 and 2023, according to a Botswana newspaper citing government figures. Still, it’s not always enough: Tsatsilebe received only around $220, he said, making it impossible to buy new clothes or take his kids out to dinner this year.
Ecoexist, one of the NGOs that funded the Elephant Express, seeks to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and improve locals’ livelihoods. It has developed tactics to deter elephants from agricultural plots, including chili plants and beehives that bother elephants (and provide extra income). The organization digs boreholes so that people can get water closer to home and avoid long treks across the elephant corridor. In 2019, Ecoexist established the Okavango Craft Brewery, which uses millet that it purchases at good prices from local farmers, offsetting losses from elephant raids. The NGO’s initiatives protect wildlife, but have people as their primary concern. It’s an approach that counteracts a common local sentiment towards Western animal activists. As Mbaiwa from Okavango Research Institute put it: “These people care more about wildlife than they care about our lives.”
A broken tree—damaged just days prior by an elephant—stands in Stef Obiditswe’s front yard in Mababe, Botswana, on Sept. 28, 2024. Anthony Wallace photo for Foreign Policy
On the edge of the Okavango Delta, past the elephant herds and clearings of the broken trees, Russel finally reaches her mother’s house in Mababe. Out back, her mother, Stef Obiditswe, and a friend are sitting in a gazebo surrounded by raw, red flesh—the remains of a roughly 6 ton elephant killed by a trophy hunter from Texas the day before. The women are slicing and stewing the meat, which will be passed out to community members that evening. A large tree, recently damaged by an elephant, droops nearby.
Today, elephant hunting only happens in Mababe for six months out of the year. “When hunting season starts, [the elephants] begin to distance themselves. When it ends, we start to live with them,” Obiditswe said.
It’s hard to get by in Mababe. But trophy hunting has brought a glimmer of opportunity to the village, and Russel has seized it. As a kid, she spent four months at a time in boarding school, where she learned English, which eventually helped her secure good jobs in local hunting ranches. Over time, she has learned how to deal with Western tourists and how to run a business.
Russel and her husband started their own tourism company in the delta in 2020, but he died last year, and the business has slowed down. With limited income, Russel juggles raising their children while working for the community trust to distribute benefits funded by trophy hunting.
Thanks in part to hunting, Mababe has developed in recent decades. There is now a school in town, so children don’t have to attend boarding school to get an education. In 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, the average household monthly income in rural Botswana was about $300. According to the community trust’s 2024 annual report, it has distributed $220 in annual dividends to each household in Mababe, $50 monthly to all residents aged 60 and older, and $7,360 collectively in scholarships for college and job training programs.
Fifi Obiditswe, a 29-year-old mother of two, used one of those scholarships for hospitality and lodge management training. She is now employed as a waitress in a luxury photographic safari lodge, where she does traditional dance performances in the evening and gets good tips from American tourists. “I don’t have any problem. No worries,” she said. “I’m proud.”
“Hunting is good right now,” she added. “For that six months, our children get some food.”
As the sun went down in Mababe, people from all over the village converged on Russel’s mother’s yard for their share of elephant meat. The women rested in their chairs after a long day of butchering, while kids ran and yelled around them.
From left: Thatsana Galeakanye slices elephant meat in Mababe; Galeakanye and Stef Obiditswe cut up and cook elephant meat in an outdoor hut. Kutlwano Russel holds a slice of elephant meat at her mother’s home in Mababe, all on Sept. 28, 2024. The animal was killed the day prior by a trophy hunter from Texas. Anthony Wallace photos for Foreign Policy
The San have been forcibly displaced—centuries ago by African herders and more recently by the Botswanan government to make way for diamond mines. Well into the 20th century, the San were hunted as animals by Europeans given legal permits from the South African government. These injustices have bred desperate economic conditions, and the San—alongside other Indigenous and rural-dwelling people of Botswana—would like to devise their own solutions without outside interference.
Hunting is an essential part of the traditional San lifestyle dating back thousands of years. Now, it is still a means for survival, just in a more convoluted way.
Later that afternoon, in a nearby hunting camp, I meet Frank Sitterle, a homebuilder from San Antonio, Texas, who hunted the elephant being stewed and eaten just a few miles away. He sits overlooking the Okavango Delta wilderness, basking in the afterglow of seeing a dream come true. To Sitterle, hunting is almost spiritual; it connects him to nature. “It brings me closer to what’s real in life,” he said. “It’s humbling. You’re seeing all this beauty out there, and you’re in the middle of it.”
The elephant’s tusks, which will hang on Sitterle’s wall in Texas one day, were an important part of the draw. He made clear that if importing the trophy back to the United States were illegal, he wouldn’t have made the investment to do the hunt.
An elephant crosses the road to Mababe on Sept. 28, 2024. Anthony Wallace photo for Foreign Policy
Sitterle and his guides tracked elephants for 11 days. “We were covering hundreds of kilometers back and forth trying to find them,” he recounted. When they finally found the target, the climactic moment came quickly. “We had [to] sneak up behind him and get up close, within 30 yards,” he said. “This one was a side-brain shot, and we were aiming right at the ear hole,” he said.
“And he went right down.”