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The draft strategy is skewed in favour of anthropocentric benefits - economic, spiritual and cultural - and cannot function in practical terms. South Africa's Draft National Elephant Heritage Strategy, which closed to public comment at the end of February, demands that South Africa's elephants must depend on human social and economic development for their future survival.

Namibia intends to "cull" 21 elephants in the dry north-west of the country where a small population of desert elephants roam In a statement issued on Monday, the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) said they plan to cull 723 wild animals, including 83 elephants, across the country and to distribute the meat to local people as a drought relief program. The so-called cull will take place in national parks and communal areas where authorities believe animal numbers exceed available grazing land and water supplies amid the ongoing drought.

“Navara”, the codename used by Simon Ernesto Valoi, first appeared in our crosshairs in 2013 when we were researching rogue South African trophy hunters directly involved in rhino poaching and trafficking in the Kruger National Park. The article Rhino trafficking: Down the rabbit hole at Kruger did not mention Navara, but intelligence agents we spoke to did. Oxpeckers journalists kept pecking away at Navara over the years.

There has been a dramatic increase in elephant poaching in northern Botswana, with little official concern about reports of the poaching. An aerial survey in July revealed 19 poached carcasses, bringing the total to 105 since October2023. Mary Rice, Executive Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), warns that "the increasingnumber of elephant poaching incidents being documented inBotswana should be of real concern to the widerconservation community".

An aerial survey has revealed a dramatic increase in elephant poaching in northern Botswana, with little official concern about reports of the poaching. There has been a sharp spike in elephant poaching in northern Botswana. However, there seems to be little official concern over reports of the poaching. An aerial survey in July revealed 19 poached carcasses bringing the total to 105 since October 2023.

The Minister of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, provided a detailed overview of ongoing efforts in wildlife protection and law enforcement at the 2024 Annual National Stakeholder Forum held this week. According to Shifeta, Namibia has long been recognized for its successful conservation strategies, which have significantly reduced poaching rates since the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly targeting iconic species such as rhinos and elephants.

Namibia's precious wildlife is under threat from criminals, as illegal wildlife trade has become the world's fourth-largest form of transnational crime. This was said by Ana Beatriz Martins, the European Union's ambassador to Namibia, at a press debriefing for 'Operation Saving Wildlife through Multilateral Cooperation in Africa' (Sama) in Windhoek yesterday. She said dozens of wildlife species have been pushed ever closer to extinction by habitat loss and illegal trade.

Chief of the Namibian Police, Lieutenant General Joseph Shikongo confirmed a deadly encounter between poachers and members of the anti-poaching operation in Etosha National Park. According to Shikongo, the incident occurred on 1 May between 12:00 and 13:00 at Scorpionbelt – Western Zone within the confines of the park. While conducting patrols alongside the park's fence, members of the poaching unit spotted shoeprints indicating the illegal entry of individuals into the park.

In less than eight years, white sharks in South Africa have all but disappeared from their historical hotspots in False Bay and Gansbaai, on the Western Cape coast. These areas were once known as the "white shark capital of the world" and were home to a flourishing ecotourism industry. One possible explanation for this change would be a declining white shark population. We are part of an international research team with expertise in shark ecology, genetics, fisheries and conservation, researching sharks for more than 20 years.

A furious row has blown up in the UK's leading succulent society over the practice of taking desirable specimens from the wild, with the chair resigning in protest over the behaviour of his fellow enthusiasts. Succulents have risen in popularity in recent years: they are attractive and hardy. A succulent won the Royal Horticultural Society plant of the year award in the UK in 2022, while the plants have also become wildly popular in Asian countries, leading to a massive boom in demand. However, the drought-tolerant plants are often sourced from the wild.

The Namibian Chamber of Environment has launched an outreach programme to educate Namibians about the precarious status of the pangolin. The initiative, which involves producing large posters and thousands of business card-sized mini-posters for distribution countrywide, is to raise awareness and appeal to every Namibian to help stop the illegal trade in the animal.

The Namibian Chamber of Environment has launched an outreach programme to educate Namibians about the precarious status of the pangolin. The initiative, which involves producing large posters and thousands of business card-sized mini-posters for distribution countrywide, is to raise awareness and appeal to every Namibian to help stop the illegal trade in the animal.