Should we kill elephants to save them?

Beyond Today

Botswana is home to the world’s largest population of elephants. And now you can hunt them.

It’s a fascinating debate which pitches the moral question and knee-jerk reaction against killing endangered animals, against the economic and social reality of having more elephants than anywhere else on earth. Elephants can be very destructive when they encroach onto farmland and move through villages destroying crops and sometimes killing people.

But conservationists are angry. They believe the move is political. It could also damage the country's international reputation for conservation and affect its revenues from tourism, the second largest source of foreign income after diamond mining.

Alastair Leathead is the BBC’s Africa correspondent. He has spent a lot of time in Botswana and is caught up in the story. We got him into the Beyond Today studio to find out whether killing some elephants will save many more.

Producer: Duncan Barber Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields