Trophy hunters will in Botswana starting in January 2014, the country’s environment ministry announced. In a statement, the ministry said that it would continue to distribute special licenses for “traditional hunting” in some areas, but would ban the sale of licenses to sport hunters. Under the terms of the plan, current hunting concessions in the Okavango Delta and the Kalahari will be transformed into “photographic areas.” While wealthy Western hunters pay up to $30,000 for elephants or $29,000 for a lion, the environment ministry says they contribute only a “minimal amount” to Botswana’s tourism industry, which ranks second behind its diamond mining industry in revenue.
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