Botswana’s Wildlife and Natural Parks says millions will be spent to compensate farmers that have lost crops to wild animals.
According to the Parks Director, Kabelo Senyatso, the park currently has four projects of fixing and maintaining fences to help control the elephants and keep them out of the communities.
“We have workers currently working on maintaining fences at Makgadikgadi, Tuli backline, Kalahari and Khutse, we do believe farmers along those areas will benefit from this development.”
Botswana is estimated to be home to more than 130,000 elephants, about a third of Africa’s remaining population.
On the average, Botswana spends about 25 million Pula (2.29 million dollars) annually to compensate farmers for crops damaged by elephants and other wild animals.
In addition, he mentioned that a new anti-poaching camp has been recently set up in Kang, as well as a new canine unit to help fight against poaching.
“The canine unit will help supplement anti-poaching in the ground and some of them will be deployed at airports, roads, villages and border crossing to stop the trafficking of illegal products in our country,” said Senyatso.