Fearful of elephant attacks, some in Botswana cheer hunting's return

- An elephant carcass lies at the edge of a field in Legotlhwana village, northeast Botswana -- evidence of the desperation and anger felt by a farmer whose crops have been repeatedly destroyed.

Ishmael Simasiku, 71, indignantly recounts how he was guarding his field as he does every night when an elephant broke through the perimeter fence and helped itself to his watermelons.

Simasiku's attempts to repel the elephant using torchlights and gunshots fired into the air were futile. The animal only retreated briefly and returned.

Fed up, he shot it dead on May 14.

"The elephant came from the forest and was destroying my crops. The (sports hunting) ban made my life worse," said Simasiku, holding a watermelon half-eaten by an elephant.

The retired policeman in this village near the border with Namibia has seen his corn harvest fall by about 90 percent over recent years as elephant numbers have boomed.

Under the country's wildlife conservation policy, Botswana's elephant population has increased nearly 10-fold since 1970, to 130,000 today, according to the UN Environment Programme.

As elephants grazed behind him in Chobe National Park , Thebeyakgosi Horatius, head of the park's human-wildlife conflict office, confirms that elephants are "killing people (and) destroying their crops".

His department runs a 24-hour emergency response team to react to elephant attacks.

Last month, the government lifted a blanket hunting ban, imposed in 2014 by then-president Ian Khama, on the grounds that elephant numbers were growing. The decision angered many conservationists and stirred up a political hornet's nest as elections loom later this year.

"To me it's so sad and extremely painful that all these years' work to build up to what we had achieved is being put in reverse," Khama told AFP by telephone.

"Our tourism is wildlife-based. We have already seen it taking a hit. I'm told our numbers have dropped by 10 percent since they started talking about (re-starting hunting)."
"Human beings should be controlling the animals, not animals controlling us."
"It has to come to an end. This is too much. I can't continue planting for elephants."
"One way of controlling is hunting, it has been done in the past," he said. Kavimba village's chief Josephat Mwezi, 74, said elephants were previously found only in parks "but now they are where we live. We are not after their extinction. We want them... confined to their areas."