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GABORONE – Botswana is preparing to fight tooth and nail against the ban of trade in ivory during the upcoming 15th Conference of Parties to Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITIES) scheduled for next week in Doha, Qatar

Speaking to the media ahead of the Doha meeting, Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Kitso Mokaila declared:  “We are going to fight hard,” adding that the number of elephants in the country continues to grow, contributing negatively on both the country’s environment and economy.

Botswana together with its neighbours Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa are expected to shoot down Kenya’s call for the CITIES Conference of Parties (COP) to impose a twenty year moratorium on trade of ivory or re-transfer of elephants.

The freeze will stop the four countries from selling the stocks of ivory which are already accumulating amid the experimental trade that took place in 1999 and 2008 where 104 tonnes of ivory was sold by the four countries.

Mokaila said the ban will have a dent on the country’s diversification efforts that has already identified elephants as a natural resource that can be exploited for both tourism and trade of ivory.

“We want to diversify and elephants are a component of diversifying the economy,” said Mokaila, citing that it is estimated that there are currently 154 658 elephants in Botswana, estimated to be growing at between 5% and 6% per annum.

He said elephants are devastating the country’s vegetation and costing government high revenues in storage of ivory collected from problem animals (PAC), picked ivory (PIC) and poached ivory (POA). Mokaila added that law enforcement on poaching was also straining government reserves.

The government spends P711 273.60 a month on storage costs for ivory and about P32 million every year on law enforcement.