Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi has criticised proposed legislation in Britain to ban the import of trophies from hunted endangered animals, including elephant tusks.
The British government says the ban will play an important role in protecting threatened wildlife.
But Mr Masisi defended trophy hunting as a means of controlling the population of elephants, describing UK plans to ban it as “condescending” and “colonial conquest”.
He said there had been no attempt to understand the impact a ban would have on his country.
The Botswana leader described the move as hypocritical as Britain allows the hunting of stags and export of their antlers.
A moratorium on hunting was lifted in Botswana in 2019.
The southern African country says with an elephant population of more than 130,000, there has been an increase in cases of conflict with humans.