The story of conservation vs survival explained | AFP
Botswana is home to about a third of the world's elephant population. | AFP
Botswana's elephant population is a lot more than what it has space for -- causing man-animal conflict. | AFP
Elephant herds attack human settlements eating crops and trampling residents. Children often fall victim to such raids. | AFP
To bring the elephant population under control Botswana let rich foreigners hunt animals on its soil for money. | AFP
They let the Western hunters take back the skin or head of their hunts as trophies. | AFP
FYI, has previously given 8,000 elephants to neighbouring Angola, and several hundred to Mozambique. | AFP
Botswana and other southern African countries make a lot of money from rich Westerners who pay thousands of dollars for a permit to shoot an animal and then take its head or skin back home as a trophy. | AFP
However, conservation groups argue that the "cruel" practice promoting poaching needs to be banned. | AFP
However, the African nations maintain that the money thus earned is used for development works as well as for conservation activities. They say illegal poaching is in no way part of the equation. | AFP
According to reports, Germany is the EU's largest importer of African elephant trophies, and hunting trophies overall. | AFP
So when Germany's environment ministry earlier this year vouched for stricter limits on importing hunting trophies, Botswana was aggrieved. | AFP
This prompted Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi to threaten Germany with sending 20,000 elephants to the EU country. | Official Facebook page