Threats of "war" against Germany, but with elephant blows

Botswana threatens Germany and, in this period of strong international tensions due to the wars in Ukraine and the Holy Land, the news at first glance should be included among the geopolitical fibrillations that have been ongoing for some time.
Mokgweetsi Masisi, president of Botswana, an African state nestled between South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, instead pointed the finger at Berlin by threatening to send 20,000 elephants to Germany.
It all arises from criticism made by the German government regarding elephant hunting and the related export of trophies, with Germany ready to crack down on the import of hunting trophies.
“We would like to offer a gift of 20,000 elephants to Germany and it is not a joke – declared President Mokgweetsi Masisi in an interview with Bild – I will not take no for an answer”.
The fact is that Botswana is home to over half of the elephants present in the world, so now it would have a problem of overpopulation of pachyderms so much so that it has also "offered" them to Angola and Mozambique.
Germany, Botswana and elephants The casus belli of this sort of diplomatic crisis between Germany and Botswana are elephants, or rather the hunting of these animals and the import of what are defined as hunting trophies.
The German Ministry of the Environment has long been critical of the matter and is now ready to introduce more restrictive laws for the import of hunting trophies into Germany.
However, this stance would not have pleased Mokgweetsi Masisi at all, who explained to the German newspaper Bild the reasons that pushed Botswana to cancel the law banning trophy hunting in 2019.
“It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion on our affairs in Botswana – explained Masisi -.
We are paying the price to preserve these animals for the world.
Germans should live together with animals, the same way you want us to do." In fact, there are currently around 130,000 elephants living in Botswana, a very high number which is causing problems for local communities.
Since 2019, the government has been offering hunting permits to companies who then resell them at a markup to trophy hunters, thus increasing hunting tourism, especially from the United States.
In essence, the government periodically organizes big game hunting trips open to private individuals, especially foreigners – based on the possible excess of heads of the various species, especially elephants, compared to the available resources.
The African country is not the first time that it has threatened a European state to deliver thousands of elephants to its home: previously it had happened to the United Kingdom which, like Germany, had expressed the same complaints.