Kann das wahr sein? Im Namibia Botswana Forum gelesen.
Namibia
People hear - please note, do not say - that:
- fearing defeat in the upcoming elections, the ruling party has decided to sacrifice the core wildlife stocks left in the smaller parks for meat to be distributed among the voters of Kavango as their last political stronghold;
- that in the coming week or so, they plan to cull at least 685 animals of all kinds but also including elephants to be fed to their loyal constituents to keep them loyal;
- that this culling exercise will be conducted using the MEFT helicopter, which method has already been deployed in the recent trophy hunting of an elephant and black rhino in Khaudom and Mangetti on behalf of a dying German industrialist who needed to be kept on an oxygen mask but still missed that rhino, possibly wounding it;
- that a great deal of this culling has been assigned by the Minister to a trophy hunting outfitter known to have senior MEFT staff in his pocket, and who will be offering this opportunity to his own clientele;
- that this decision has put the Minister and his ED at odds with the rest of the MEFT senior management because none of this money will be going to the Wildlife Fund, but pocketed in the guise of fees for doing the culling;
- that this cull is not based on any scientific census of actual wildlife numbers in the parks, but based on the number of connected families in the Kavango whose support the ruling party needs to avert a political disaster for them come November 29.
Never before has a greater disaster loomed for Namibian tourism - because our wildlife is what brings in the foreign tourists.
Culling for whatever reason is always a PR disaster - and never before has culling been used for this purpose.
We have lost more wildlife - including nearly all the desert lions, hundreds of (mostly) black rhinos, elephant etc - under the current Minister than ever before.
All for the love of money.