The MEFT expects bids for 170 elephants from four regions, including 23 bulls, by the end of January 2021.

The animals are to be torn from their natural habitats, sold, relocated and even exported.
 
Many questions remain open:

- Why are the various successful, tested options for solving Human Elephant Conflicts (HEC) not used?
- Money for such solutions should be available: not only Germany has transferred aid for nature conservation to Namibia (ca. 70 million US $ tax money since September 2019)
- In 73 protected areas in Africa there is space for another 730,000 elephants. Why is there not more urgency in developing and protecting corridors for the jumbos? Why isn't the KAZA project doing more?
- Why did Namibia not take part in the Great Elephant Census 2016 - and simply extrapolates theoretical elephant numbers that are more than questionable due to droughts and poaching and hunting: where is an independent current elephant count? The numbers given by Namibia are repeatedly questioned by local observers.
- If drought is the reason given for selling 170 elephants from this region, why is Namibia permitting exploration for oil and shale gas in the same area? 
 
 
We call on the MEFT to end these sales and to promote long-term solutions for nature conservation including elephant conservation that attract tourists (80% of visitors come to watch animals, especially elephants). Development aid flows precisely for this purpose.

Sources:

https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/tourism-gets-us15m-fillip-from-germany

https://www.namibian.com.na/198037/archive-read/Germany-commits-N$72m-to-human-wildlife-conflict

https://www.kfw-entwicklungsbank.de/PDF/Entwicklungsfinanzierung/Länder-und-Programme/Subsahara-Afrika/Projekt-Namibia_NamParks-DE-2016

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0175942

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-09-30-op-ed-namibia-ducks-elephant-census/

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1882unwtowildlifepaper.pdf