Elephants with calves at a waterhole, Nxai Pan National Park.
Conservation is not measured in quotas, but in whether scenes like this are allowed to persist — across generations.
By Alexandra George
Photos: Alexandra George; lion pride: Jenny Brennan
For years Botswana stood apart as a global leader in wildlife conservation. Its reputation was built on restraint, science and the recognition that intact ecosystems generate enduring value, ecologically, economically and culturally. That credibility was hard-earned, and it mattered far beyond Botswana’s borders.
Today that reputation is under strain.
Following a 2014-2019 hunting ban grounded in conservation and tourism, Botswana adopted a quota-based hunting system whose scientific rationale and governance transparency are now being widely questioned.
Recent trophy hunting quotas reportedly include 97 leopards, 9 lions and approximately 430 large-tusked elephants, with the hunting season now extended to cover most of the year. These figures matter not only because of their scale, but because of what they represent: a return to quota-based killing of apex species under the banner of conservation.
Members of a lion pride in the Okavango Delta.
Pride structure underpins hunting success, cub survival and social learning, making the loss of adult individuals ecologically disruptive.
Leopards and elephants are not commodities
Leopards are low-density, slow-breeding apex predators. Their removal disrupts territories, alters prey dynamics, and can destabilise entire systems. Large-tusked elephants are rarer still — the product of age, genetics and survival across decades. Once removed, they are not replaced within a human lifetime.
Adult female leopard at Pom Pom, Okavango Delta.
Leopards are slow-breeding, low-density apex predators whose survival depends on stable territories and long lifespans.
Leopard with two cubs concealed in dense bush. Cubs depend entirely on their mother for survival. The loss of a single adult can mean the disappearance of an entire lineage.
Treating such animals as quota units misunderstands biology.
The loss is asymmetrical: what is taken cannot be easily restored.
Trophy hunting does not target animals at random. It removes mature individuals with the most prominent traits — a small but biologically critical subset of the population. In elephants, older bulls play a disproportionate role in social stability and breeding success, meaning even small quotas can have outsized and lasting effects.
Where is the science?
Sustainable wildlife policy depends on transparent population surveys, clear methodology and independent scientific review. Yet one of the most troubling aspects of the current policy direction is not merely the existence of hunting quotas, but the lack of publicly available data to justify them.
Similar concerns have been raised in recent conservation commentary, including in Africa Geographic. 1
Dr Audrey Delsink, Senior Director of Wildlife, Humane World for Animals South Africa, working with researchers in Botswana, has also raised concerns about the scale of the proposed trophy hunting quotas, “based on the numbers involved and the resultant ecological consequences — both known and unknown.” 2
Regarding elephant quotas her concerns draw in part on scientific work by Elephants Without Borders, including their 2025 review of Botswana’s elephant hunting programme.
That observation goes to the heart of the problem: conservation policy cannot credibly claim sustainability in the absence of robust scientific justification for their ecological sustainability.
When protection ends at the boundary
Although trophy hunting does not take place inside national parks, many apex species routinely move beyond park boundaries to follow prey, water and seasonal routes. When they do, they can legally be shot in adjacent hunting concessions.
As documented in Mark and Delia Owens’s classic, Cry of the Kalahari, even well-known and long-studied lions have been killed simply for crossing an invisible line on a map. The animal has not changed; only the jurisdiction has. For wide-ranging species, protection that ends at a boundary is often no protection at all.
Rather than building on proven, community-based conservancy models such as Kenya’s, which banned trophy hunting in 1977 and never reversed course, Botswana is moving in the opposite direction, abandoning a ban it once upheld in favour of quota-based killing.
Stripped of euphemism, this is not stewardship, but barbarism dressed in bureaucratic language.
Witness
I have spent long hours in close proximity to lions, leopards, and elephants — not in staged encounters, but quietly, watching them move through their own rhythms. I have seen lions rest in the early light, elephants approach water with deliberation, and leopards wait, sometimes for hours, before choosing when to move. These moments are not spectacles. They are lessons in patience, awareness and continuity, earned only by time and proximity.
What stays with you in such encounters is not dominance or danger, but restraint — the sense of being allowed, briefly, into a life that is not yours.
As South African wildlife photographer Hannes Lochner wrote to me recently, leopards — and the species we share these landscapes with — teach us patience, observation and respect for continuity. 3
These are qualities that demand a long view, not short-term extraction.
A question of standards
Botswana has not lost its conservation capacity. What is being lost is something more troubling: transparency, scientific grounding and long-term thinking. Decisions of this magnitude will shape ecosystems long after political cycles and seasonal revenues have passed.
When conservation language is used to justify outcomes unsupported by transparent science or independent review, the problem is not disagreement but failure of standards.
Without evidence, accountability and restraint, what remains is not conservation but a grotesque distortion of it.
This should end. The ban should return.
Botswana has already demonstrated that it knows where the line is. The question now is why it is choosing to cross it again.
For further information
Readers wishing to better understand current policy, scientific assessments and regional conservation responses may wish to consult the following:
1. Government of Botswana
Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP)
Responsible for setting and administering trophy hunting quotas.
Email: dwnp@gov.bw
2. Humane World for Animals – South Africa
https://www.humaneworld.org
Contact: adeslsink@humaneworld.org
3. Elephants Without Borders
Botswana-based conservation organisation specialising in elephant ecology, movement and
human–wildlife coexistence.
https://elephantswithoutborders.org
Email: info@elephantswithoutborders.org
4. European Union Delegation to Botswana and SADC
Official EU diplomatic mission engaged in conservation, biodiversity and human–wildlife coexistence initiatives.
Email: delegation-botswana@eeas.europa.eu
1 Simon Espley, Editorial, Africa Geographic, 30 January 2026,
https://africageographic.com/stories/comment-teamag-friday-30-january-2026/
2 Email correspondence with Dr. Audrey Delsink, Humane World for Animals South Africa, 5 February 2026.
3 Email correspondence with Hannes Lochner, 2 February 2026.