Wow! And apologies! In the Blog on Zims problems with elephants I thoughtlessly wrote “Zambia, when I meant ZIMBABWE!
However, elephants are still a Zim (not a Zam) issue. In the last week of May Zimbabwe hosted the African Elephant Conference at Hwange and naturally issues such as culling and the ban on ivory was an issue. Zimbabwe wants to cull 30% of its huge number of Jumbos with its growth rate of 0.5%, which it says causes ecological problems, apart from the human-animal conflict. Finance Minister Ncube called for Africans to work out recommendations to be presented to the international community.
Zimbabwe is lobbying to be allowed to sell its US$600m ivory stockpile on a one-off basis. Together with Botswana, Namibia, Zambia it further wants the ban to be removed altogether, as they allege this would benefit the local people living close to the animals, whose preservation would also benefit.
This debate has long been contentious between animal lovers and African governments. The problem is the human encroachment on the living habitat of big game, which includes humans chopping down trees for charcoal.
So far there is no solution in sight.