23 Jun 2024

In efforts to further put Botswana’s wildlife conservation story across, the country will compile and submit for consideration a bid to host a conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species on Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi revealed this at a dinner hosted in his honour by the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) in Germany on Friday.

He told the international wildlife conservation non-governmental organisation that given the country’s unparalleled conservation efforts, which saw wildlife-based tourism flourish and contribute handsomely to the GDP, the country was deserving of the honour to host the conference.

“Botswana is keen on putting in a pitch to host a CITES convention at some time in the future and clearly this being an initial pitch, we will consult our neighbours and other range states and try and get an agreement on that,” he said, noting that since it could be long and drawn-out, no specific timelines could be attached to the process.

Held every two to three years and dubbed the Conference on the Parties (CoPs), the immediate past version of the convention, CoP19 was held in Panama City in 2022, and the next one is billed for 2025 at a venue yet to be announced.

Weighing in on the ongoing debate surrounding calls for or against the banning of hunting and the resultant importation of wildlife trophies, President Masisi said the country would press on until it derived maximum benefits out of its wildlife.

He noted that trophy hunting predated the modern era, and that Botswana had crafted one of the best wildlife management frameworks the world over, adding that the practice was not a threat to the existence of any of the country’s wildlife species.

President Masisi spoke of the sacrifices that ordinary Batswana had to bear on a daily basis in order for wildlife-based tourism to thrive.

“Consider what sacrifice in terms of opportunity cost we have had to bear as a people when we sacrificed up to 40 per cent of our land mass for conservation,” he said, adding that it was

Batswana who deliberately let biodiversity thrive for national and global good.

Moreover, he said Batswana did not individually earn any direct income from tourism.

He called on Botswana and the CIC to nourish and further deepen their reciprocal relationship that was founded on the basis of the similarities within their conservation strategies.

He said as long as Botswana had the matching of their mutual values, the country would benefit from the expertise of the NGO in developing value chains that local communities could derive some benefit from with regard to wildlife hunting.

He said the country would seek the assistance of the CIC in conducting research to identify novel ways in which some of the indigenous species, such as the pangolin, could be reproduced in order to lessen their endangerment.

During a different engagement with the German Africa Foundation, an entity aimed at promoting German-Africa relations, a representative Mr Christoph Matschie commended Botswana for its sound conservation policy, which he said their foundation supported.

Mr Matschie said the country was doing well in striving to continually maintain the delicate balance between safeguarding the interest of citizens and protecting wildlife, saying on the basis of such efforts, they supported Botswana’s position on trophy hunting and importation.

In his engagements during his visits to France and Germany, President Masisi reiterated Botswana’ stance on the sustainable use of natural resources including wildlife.

He told his audiences that controlled hunting, which the country practiced, posed no extinction threat to any species for as long as it was carried out within the confines of the policies and laws that governed it. ENDS