So Zimbabwe wants to feed its starving people with elephant meat! Heil Zimbabwe. This is long overdue

Did you know that the sustainable elephant carrying capacity for Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park is, in both cases, no more than ABOUT one elephant per two square miles (or one elephant per five square kilometers). And that, because Hwange is 5 000 square miles (14 300 square kilometers) in extent, that means Hwange can SUSTAINABLY carry no more than 2 500 elephants. Did you know that Hwange annually carries (variably) between 30 000 and 80 000 elephants - average 50 000 (depending on where the first early local rain falls the most - inside or outside the park. That means Hwange is carrying something like 20 TIMES more elephants than it SHOULD be carrying. The Gonarezhou, on the other hand, which is just 2000 square miles in extent, is only able to sustainably support 1 000 elephants; and it is currently carrying 14 000. And Kruger National Park (8 000 square miles or 20 000 sq kilometers in extent) can only carry Some 3 500 to 4 000 elephants (and that it is currently carrrying 34 000).

And, in all these game reserves, the habitats are being trashed as a consequence of them carrying far too many elephants for far too long. Kruger, for example, has had its big trees reduced by "more than" 95 percent since 1960 (and those that remain are still being killed off annually by the game reserve's grossly excessive elephant population).

As a consequence all these national parks' biological diversities are in free-fall decline.

WHAT A DISGRACE! SHAME ON SOUTHERN AFRICA! WHAT KIND OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP HAVE YOU BEEN HARBOURING!

The Zimbabwe Government (and the South African government), therefore, would be doing their national parks a great favour by killing off their excessive elephant numbers (in a responsible manner) just to feed their starving rural people. The national parks would be doing their wildlife resources AND their rural neighbours an even better favour if they would come to some permanent arrangement that would allow the local rural people to benefit, on a sustainable basis and annually, from the sustainable harvesting of ALL these park's wildlife - including elephants - into the foreseeable future.

It is time that the countries of southern Africa began to manage their wildlife natural resources - especially their elephants - in a more responsible manner than they have done for the last sixty years; in the interests of their rural people..

And, if the animal rights extremists don't like that idea, tell them, BOLDLY, to go "shove it". If CITES doesn't like it, tell them, BOLDLY, to "shove it", too. It is because the governments of southern Africa haven't done that in the past that we are in the predicament with our failing national parks, today! The governments of today lost their "TSIBINDI" a long time ago. It is time they found it again. And if they can't find "their Tsibindi " (their "liver"; their courage) then we should elect a new government that HAS "TSIBINDI" and that is prepared to use it for the benefit of the country's wildlife AND its people.

Heil - again - Zimbabwe. You are on the right track!

Ron Thomson. CEO - The True Green Alliance of South Africa

Ron Thomson - worked in Hwange National Park for three years as a young game ranger (1960 - 1964). He was the game warden-in-charge of the Gonarezhou for more than five years (1968 - 74); and he returned to Hwange in 1981 as the Provincial Game Warden-in-charge (1981 - !983.)