https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/art...how-namibian-tuskers-got-to-middle-east-zoos/
four-month investigation has found that North West’s canned hunting industry was behind the controversial export of 24 wild-caught Namibian desert elephants to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late February 2022. It was closely supported by the top officials of Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT).
The exported herd was among 57 elephants sold by a tender issued late in December 2020 by MEFT to catch and remove 170 elephants ranging outside of Namibia’s national parks, ostensibly to alleviate “rampant” human-elephant conflict.
A paper trail going back 40 years revealed how the canned hunting industry had taken advantage of a growing information gap between South Africa and Namibia’s regulatory authorities to create a ghost company that the controversial deal was run through to hide its true beneficiaries.
The deal not only robbed the Namibian state treasury of at least $2.3-million (about R33.3-million), but left the core problem of crop damage by elephants unresolved while deeply impacting the fragile ecology and ecotourism industry of the northwestern Kunene Region, also known as The Arid Eden.
North West trophy hunting, the ghost, and the dodgy deal — how Namibian tuskers got to Middle East zoos
Afour-month investigation has found that North West’s canned hunting industry was behind the controversial export of 24 wild-caught Namibian desert elephants to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late February 2022. It was closely supported by the top officials of Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT).
The exported herd was among 57 elephants sold by a tender issued late in December 2020 by MEFT to catch and remove 170 elephants ranging outside of Namibia’s national parks, ostensibly to alleviate “rampant” human-elephant conflict.
A paper trail going back 40 years revealed how the canned hunting industry had taken advantage of a growing information gap between South Africa and Namibia’s regulatory authorities to create a ghost company that the controversial deal was run through to hide its true beneficiaries.
The deal not only robbed the Namibian state treasury of at least $2.3-million (about R33.3-million), but left the core problem of crop damage by elephants unresolved while deeply impacting the fragile ecology and ecotourism industry of the northwestern Kunene Region, also known as The Arid Eden.
