Elephant Corridors In Southern Africa Blocked By Poacher Gangs

This Article is an FYI.

Ít  is an article which is more than 2 Years Old But the facts remain the same even now in 2019.

Poaching Of Ellies is rampant in many parts of Southern Africa and Botswana is not immune to this phenomenon.

Here Is The Article In Brief.

Elephants need far greater ranges than any other land animals. But attempts to make space for them in Southern Africa are being thwarted by greed and by bullets.

In the dry end of a dry season, the blazing sun reduces water holes to circular irises of cracked mud. As the temperature rises into the 40s, animals follow ancient paths to rivers at the heart of the vast Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA). From the banks of the Chobe River hungry elephants from the world’s greatest herds gaze across the lazy water to the tempting green floodplains on the Namibian side, but few cross. Hunters wait there and the elephants know it.

A conservation management map indicates the problem. To the south of the river is the Chobe National Park, but on the Namibian side, between the Chobe and Zambezi rivers on the western toe of the Caprivi Strip, are the Impalila, Kasika and Kabulabula conservancies.

In 1996, the Government of Namibia introduced legislation giving communities the power to create their own conservancies ,which were to manage and benefit from wildlife on their land. It also allowed the local community, working with private companies, to use natural resources on a sustainable basis and to benefit from ecotourism.

But the simple fact remains that these have all remained "Good Intentions". 

Nothing has really changed on the ground as far as these Ellies are concerned. 

Credits : The Daily Maverick, South Africa