About: http://data.cimple.eu/news-article/d29e724497f1b81886bbe56af9c015bb48ada0888ac3794109737579     Goto   Sponge   NotDistinct   Permalink

An Entity of Type : schema:NewsArticle, within Data Space : data.cimple.eu associated with source document(s)

AttributesValues
rdf:type
schema:articleBody
  • Botswana on Friday will hold its first major auction for trophy elephant hunting quotas since controversially scrapping a hunting ban last year, a wildlife official said. President Mokgweetsi Masisi's government in May revoked a moratorium, just a year after he succeeded Ian Khama, an avid environmentalist, who introduced a blanket ban in 2014 to reverse a decline in the population of wild animals. Masisi fended off criticism of his government's decision, saying the move would not threaten the elephant population. The government will issue seven hunting "packages" of 10 elephants each, confined to "controlled hunting areas", a wildlife spokeswoman Alice Mmolawa told AFP on Thursday. In a text message, she said hunting would help areas most impacted by "human wildlife conflict," a reference to elephants roaming off game parks into communities. The 2020 hunting season is expected to open in April. Bidding is open to "companies that are either owned by Botswana citizens or are registered in Botswana," she added. Bidders must deposit a refundable of 200,000 pula ($18,300) to participate. The lifting of the hunting ban was praised by local communities but derided by conservationists and ignited tension between the Khama and Masisi. Masisi has defended his decision to end the hunting ban saying Botswana has an overpopulation of elephants, and pledged to regulate the practice. His predecessor Khama was bitter. "I have been against hunting because it represents a mentality (of) those who support it, to exploit nature for self interest that has brought about the extinction of many species worldwide," he told AFP in a phone interview. "This policy is driven by outsiders who have managed to motivate this regime in a manner which is obvious and who represent an industry that capitalises on ecological destruction," he added. He said allowing commercial hunting could "demotivate those who are engaged in anti poaching, who are being told to save elephants from poachers but the regime is poaching the same elephant and calling it hunting". With unfenced parks and wide-open spaces, Botswana has the world's largest elephant population with more than 135,000 animals -- about a third of the African continent's total. Most of the animals are in the Chobe National Park, an important tourist draw. But the marauding elephants invade villages located near wildlife reserves, knocking down fences, destroying crops, and at times killing people. str-sn/pma
schema:headline
  • Botswana to start auctions of elephant hunting licences
schema:mentions
schema:author
schema:datePublished
http://data.cimple...sPoliticalLeaning
http://data.cimple...logy#hasSentiment
http://data.cimple...readability_score
http://data.cimple...tology#hasEmotion
Faceted Search & Find service v1.16.115 as of Oct 09 2023


Alternative Linked Data Documents: ODE     Content Formats:   [cxml] [csv]     RDF   [text] [turtle] [ld+json] [rdf+json] [rdf+xml]     ODATA   [atom+xml] [odata+json]     Microdata   [microdata+json] [html]    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3238 as of Jul 16 2024, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-musl), Single-Server Edition (126 GB total memory, 11 GB memory in use)
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2025 OpenLink Software