In Namibia, elephant numbers have been increasing, and the nation’s conservancy approach is applauded as a factor in this success.
Established by the Namibian government in 1996, the program grants communities the power to manage wildlife on communal land and to work with private companies to develop their own tourism markets.
The latest government statistics indicate that the estimated contributions from trophy hunting exceeded $70 million. The vast majority of this income is returned to operators and spin-off beneficiaries such as airlines, hotels, tourism facilities, but there is a trickle-down effect.
In 2000, the total income to communal conservancies from all forms of wildlife use, including trophy hunting, amounted to $165,000. Six years later, this had increased almost tenfold to $1,330,000. Though small compared to the overall income from trophy hunting, it does provide one in seven Namibians with $75 a month.
Conservancy lands given over to trophy hunting have the added benefit of keeping the wild, wild. If these areas were farmed, for instance, the incentives for conservation would undoubtedly wane, and habitat loss would reduce wildlife numbers. The ecological footprint of trophy hunting—even of a safari lodge catering for groups of wildlife watching tourists—is far lighter than that of commercial farming.
As reported in Africa Geographic, some government officials have handed out elephant hunting permits in an effort to
get political support from the communities, especially in the Kunene region, which is renowned for its rare desert elephants.
Plus, the country’s export quota of 90 elephants doesn’t include permits to hunt “problem animals,” but Namibian law allows hunters to easily obtain permits to shoot elephants judged to be in conflict with people.
According to a CNN
report in 2014, these permits are sometimes granted even before a “problem” animal has been identified. A hunter can then shoot any elephant a community declares to be a problem, whether it’s actually a problem or not. CNN reported that several desert elephants have been shot either for their meat or for the cash from hunt fees.