Drought Forces Zimbabwe to Begin Culling Elephants for Meat as Famine Looms

Following in the footsteps of its Southern African Development Community (SADC) partner Namibia, which has begun the culling of an approximate 700 wild elephants and hippos to provide meat for civilians impacted by El Nino-induced droughts, Zimbabwe has announced its intent to cull at least 200 elephants with the aim to alleviate food insecurity in the country. 

Speaking at Parliament last week, Minister of Environment, Climate, and Wildlife, DR. S. Nyoni claimed, "Zimbabwe has more elephants than we need and more elephants than our forests can accommodate." We are having a discussion with Zim Parks and some communities to do like what Namibia has done, so that we can count the elephants, mobilize the women to maybe dry the meat and package it to ensure that it gets to some communities that need the protein." 

What You Need to Know

Facing its worst drought in 40 years, 7.6 million citizens—specifically in the rural areas—are living with acute food shortages. The country's northern districts face the worst of it, with the Zambezi and Vombozi rivers sitting at some of their lowest levels. In Mudzi district, the once flowing Vombozi sits bone dry, forcing expectant mothers to turn to maworesa porridge, translating to 'the very best' to limit their hunger. 

Made with assistance from UNICEF, maworesa is comprised of sugar beans, peanut butter, maize meal, and baobab fruit to provide adequate sustenance for pregnant women and young children. 

Despite this, the United Nation's flash funding appeal, which was launched in May, has only acquired an approximate 11 percent of its required funding. Aiming to feed just over 3 million people, the $429 million required still leaves 4.6 million hungry Zimbabweans in the lurch. 

Minister Nyoni additionally noted the impact of human-wildlife conflict, which "causes lack of resources," and when elephants begin seeking resources outside of their parks, they "become very violent; there are some cases where they kill people." 

"Some of the residents in the communities go into the parks for resources there. We need to make sure that there is a separation through using appropriate fences and also through making sure that water is available in the parks and in the communities so that people would not have to be going into the parks or animals coming into the community to find resources that do not exist where people and animals reside," said Nyoni. 

When asked about the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international agreement among 180 governments, including Zimbabwe, to regulate or ban international trade in species under threat, Nyoni noted, "We would sell our elephants or our ivory like yesterday, but CITES is a convention of many countries. We cannot make our own decisions." 

Hitting Botswana in October 2023, the drought has moved to slowly envelop most of Southern Africa, with Zimbabwe declaring a nationwide state of disaster in April of this year. The United Nations has predicted the 'peak hunger period' to occur between January and March 2025. However, there are hopes that the proposed culling may bring welcome relief to those already suffering heavily in the rural areas.

So, How Did Zimbabwe Get Here?

In the 1980s, President Canaan Banana implemented a land reform policy that resulted in the forcible seizure of many white-owned farms. This policy continued through the reign of President Robert Mugabe, who claimed the policy aimed to alter the ethnic balance of land ownership.

The policy quickened the nation's economic collapse, leading to hyperinflation, starvation, and famine in the mid-2000s. With violence accompanying the land grabs, many regional workers were left without employment, which further fueled the unemployment crisis. As of July 2020, inflation in the country had reached 737 percent.

In the current period, many farms are not producing at their potential as a result of compounding failures within governance and agricultural regulation, with the country now at a point of culling their local wildlife to provide for its millions of hungry citizens. However, proponents of the elephant cull claim that since the 1990s the elephant population in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola, Zambia, and Namibia has exploded, accounting for an estimated 50 percent of the African bush elephant population. Thus, proponents claim a culling policy is required to bring the population down to sustainable levels.