From "Project" To "Context": Community Based Natural Resource Management in Botswana

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From "Project" to "Context": Community Based Natural

Resource Management in Botswana
Article in Global Environmental Politics · August 2005

DOI: 10.1162/1526380054794925 · Source: RePEc
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From “Project”
Larry A. Swatukto “Context”
From “Project” to “Context”:

Community Based Natural Resource
Management in Botswana
•
Larry A. Swatuk*
The ideology of modernist top-down development prevails in Botswana,

and across much of Southern Africa, although it is masked by participatory,
empowering and community-oriented language and images. Coercive con-
servation efforts are undermining the rural populations’ individual and col-
lective actions to manage resources . . . [T]his raises the critical question: are
these Wildlife Management Areas or People Management Areas?1
A development project . . . “starts out as a plan but turns into a context” in
which people are brought together to interact around some activity, bringing
with them diverse forms of knowledge and practice.2
This essay focuses on Community Based Natural Resource Management
(CBNRM) in Botswana. In theory, CBNRM is a rather elegant idea that rural live-
lihoods and key ecosystems in the Third World can be improved and main-
tained through the sustainable utilization of natural resources by local people
supported by states and (global) civil society. Infused with notions such as de-
mocracy, participation and biodiversity preservation, CBNRM programs have
mushroomed throughout the Global South.3 In Southern Africa, these pro-
grams have overwhelmingly focused on wildlife and protected areas manage-
ment. A secondary focus has been on veld and forest resource development for
market production.4 Affected communities generally inhabit remote areas that
either abut national parks and game reserves or that are regarded as inhospita-
ble for large scale farming and livestock development. Thus, this new develop-
ment framework brings an entire machinery involving the state, donors and
powerful conservation organizations into areas that are traditionally the pre-
serve of anthropologists and historians. It is somewhat ironic, then, that people
* Associate Professor, Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre, University of Botswana,

email: swatukla@mopipi.ub.bw.
1. Twyman 1998, 767.
2. Broch-Due paraphrasing Pigg 2000, 47.
3. Vira and Jeffery 2001; and Jeffery and Vira 2001.
4. Jones and Murphree 2004; and Fabricius et al. 2004.
Global Environmental Politics 5:3, August 2005

© 2005 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
95
96 • From “Project” to “Context”
located at the extreme margins of Third World states and societies now ªnd
themselves at the center of global environment and development discourse and
practice.
Understandably, outcomes have been varied. Despite the claim to build
on and strengthen informal, traditional usage of natural resources, formal
CBNRM programs have proved difªcult, divisive and are said to be “in crisis”5 in
Southern Africa.6 While beneªts to communities vary widely and are primarily
economic in nature, there is little evidence supporting the hypothesized link be-
tween these beneªts and either biodiversity preservation or rural development.7
According to Turner,8 “Community project authorities . . . are not going to ªnd
sustainable rural development any easier than the last few decades of civil ser-
vants and consultants. As continuing deep rural poverty in Botswana attests,
money does not automatically unlock rural development.”
Theory
While the problems with CBNRM are well known, explanations regarding cau-
sation are in my view partial at best, almost all of which place the blame for
project failure at recipient country level—e.g., lack of government interest, lim-
ited human resource capacity, stakeholder conºicts within and across commu-
nities. Perhaps reºecting conservation and development practitioner self-
interests9—for example, in the continuation and extension of the “conservation
estate”—the vast majority of studies of CBNRM in Southern Africa rarely reºect
the ªndings of well-known anthropological and historical studies of social orga-
nization and land use over time and space.10
This article attempts to bridge this gap, in part by locating analysis within
a growing body of literature on critical political ecology.11 Political ecology fo-
cuses on access to resources, allocation and management of those resources,
and the physical consequences of those activities, including impacts on human
communities.12 My method is critical in the sense that it is deliberately
reºexive—it begins from the epistemological point that positivist truth claims
mask power relations, and that dominant methods serve dominant interests.13
For example, in the case of CBNRM, blaming the object of development (a re-
cipient government or local community) for failure never challenges the pro-
5. “CBNRM in crisis” is the name of an e-discussion group composed of academics and CBNRM
practitioners in Southern Africa. The site originates out of the Centre for Applied Social Science
at the University of Zimbabwe.
6. Turner 2004, 53.
7. Magome and Fabricius 2004.
8. Turner 2004, 61.
9. Child 2004.
10. Hitchcock 1985; Peters 1994; and Wilmsen 1989.
11. Bassett and Crummey 2003; and Peet and Watts 1996.
12. Bassett and Crummey 2003.
13. Peterson 2003.
Larry A. Swatuk • 97
gram or its purveyors’ motives. More generally, development discourse is wed-

ded to a statist ontology—of donors and recipients—so failing to locate
activities within appropriate socio-historical and geophysical contexts.14
By analyzing the Botswana case through the lens of history and nonstate
social relations, this paper not only provides an alternative explanation of
CBNRM processes and practices there; it also hopes to contribute to a more
nuanced understanding of the motives, methods, processes and outcomes of
participatory development programs in general. It does this by employing two
key concepts: on one hand, Homer-Dixon’s15 resource capture/ecological
marginalization (RC/EM) dynamic; on the other hand, the interrelationship be-
tween global norms and local practices as developed in Acharya.16
The article proceeds as follows. Following a short discussion of RC/EM
and localization processes below, the following section brieºy discusses
CBNRM in Southern Africa. There I show how global norms regarding conserva-
tion and land use have been diffused to the region through time with often un-
anticipated outcomes. The third section focuses on the Botswana case suggest-
ing that CBNRM as a “supply-driven” activity now forms the context for on-
going processes of resource capture. The fourth section provides the historical,
geographical and political economic contexts for analyzing contemporary prac-
tices of CBNRM. The ªfth section returns to a short case study illustrating prob-
lems associated with introducing a development-oriented resource program in
an area fraught with land use conºict and competition. Finally, I offer a short
conclusion.
Resource Capture/Ecological Marginalization

Homer-Dixon argues that renewable resource scarcity initiates a process of re-
source capture by empowered actors within states, and the ecological
marginalization of subordinate groups lacking the power to resist or negotiate
resource access with dominant groups. While accepting the basic deªnitions of
RC/EM, I extend the geographical and historical scope of his framework.
Whereas Homer-Dixon links RC/EM to speciªc social stresses brought about by
speciªc resource scarcities in weak states in the contemporary Global South, it is
my intention to show how RC/EM is a dominant, on-going condition in social
formation. The history of human community—of “civilization”—is movement,
at the heart of which is the search for and struggle over resources.17 Keegan18 has
hypothesized that the history of warfare in the world may equate with perpetual
struggles over prime agricultural land, the “zones of ªrst choice.” If the ªrst
inter-group conºicts were over very basic resources—land, water, living space—
14. Schmitz 1995.

15. Homer-Dixon 1999.
16. Acharya 2004.
17. Crosby 1986; and Ponting 1991.
18. Keegan 1993.
through time, these struggles became as much ideological and discursive as ma-
terial and physical.19 This is no less so in today’s globalizing world. As shown
below, efforts to realize CBNRM in Southern Africa actually seek to reverse the
historical order of things: empower the ecologically marginalized; convince the
empowered to forego resources they have or intend to capture. As such, CBNRM
will continue to face great difªculties.
Participation as Global Norm

In terms of the extension of global norms from center to periphery, Acharya20 ar-
gues that norm diffusion is not simply one-way trafªc: Western policy-makers
pressing Third World governments to accept “good governance,” for example.
Rather, global norms will be “localized,” i.e. bent to ªt the society to whom they
are being extended. In terms of CBNRM, whereas certain elements may be
readily accepted (e.g. the general desire to see that resources are not degraded),
others may be rejected outright (e.g. that local communities nearest the resource
be given the right to use that resource as they see ªt). Formal institutions
developed or reformed to accommodate these various stakeholder interests
will understandably over-represent central state/dominant (political) party
interests21—thus, as noted by Broch-Due above, a particular project turns into a
context as stakeholders “negotiate and renegotiate” roles and resource rights.22
Nevertheless, a fundamental and formidable driver of CBNRM is the per-
ceived promise of participation. In the words of the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, “Effective development can only be achieved where people are
free to participate in the decisions that shape their lives.”23 For Sekhar, “Partici-
patory natural resources management has become the new catchphrase in tack-
ling environmental problems, particularly those arising from the use of com-
mon property resources.”24 This emphasis “arises from the wisdom that local
communities not only understand their problems best, but also have the solu-
tions.”25 So, participation is essential for sustainable development deªned as
sustainable resource use in the service of current and future local livelihood op-
tions. The appropriate organizational form is “the community,” embedded
within an institutional setting that privileges local level interests and capacity-
building.
One must go further than Sekhar in suggesting that “participation” is sim-
ply a “new catchphrase.” It is, it seems to me, an emergent global norm infused
with neo-liberal assumptions regarding the role of the state in development and
19. Swatuk 2000, 149–193.

20. Acharya 2004.
21. See North 1990.
22. Twyman 2000.
23. de Mello quoted in Good 2003, 22.
24. Sekhar 2001, 73.
25. Sekhar 2001, 73.
diffused by transnational “moral entrepreneurs.”26 Tantamount to a new “truth”

of development, “participation” is a political cross-conditionality in current
North-South inter-state relations. In the context of CBNRM, participation is ar-
gued to be the basis for empowerment, good governance, democratic develop-
ment and hence resource sustainability.27 As will be shown below, diffusion
does not take place uncontested. Rather, a congruence-building process called
localization occurs.28 According to Acharya,29 “localization describes a complex
process and outcome by which norm-takers build congruence between trans-
national norms (including norms previously institutionalized in a region) and
local beliefs and practices.” “Norm diffusion ‘is more rapid when . . . a systemic
norm . . . resonates with historically constructed domestic norms.’”30 The out-
come of a speciªc CBNRM project, therefore, may look very different than that
envisioned by donors. It may, in fact, end up as a way of “managing people” as
much as “managing resources” as suggested by Twyman above.
Global/Local Linkages: CBNRM in Southern Africa

As with other global norms—e.g. human rights or gender equality—CBNRM
has local roots in the Southern African region. The ªrst promoters of the con-
cept were individuals working in the Zimbabwe government’s Department of
Wildlife and National Parks. In the post-liberation Zimbabwe context, natural
resource managers recognized that both wildlife and protected areas (national
parks, reserves) would survive only if people living up against/in among the re-
source beneªted from its conservation. Otherwise, it was feared that popular
pressure for land reform would result in rezoning in favor of agro-pastoral activ-
ities—activities thought to be only marginally suited for the ecosystems where
parks and reserves were located—and the wholesale slaughter of wildlife.31
CAMPFIRE (communal areas management program for indigenous resources)
was the result. CAMPFIRE was touted a “success” by its supporters and became
the model for CBNRM throughout the Southern African region.
Given its initial focus on wildlife and protected areas management,
CBNRM sought to bring economic beneªts, in particular income and employ-
ment, to people living in areas of primary interest to tourists and tour operators.
Buffer zones—wildlife management areas designed speciªcally for hunting out-
side the borders of national parks and game reserves—were created to serve im-
portant biodiversity and developmental purposes. Wildlife management was
commercialized through the auction of hunting quotas to safari operators and
26. Nadelmann 1990; and Keck and Sikkink 1998.

27. See also, Schmitz 1995, 57; and Moore 1996, 138.
28. Acharya 2004.
29. Acharya 2004, 241.
30. Acharya 2004, 243 quoting Checkel 1998, 6.
31. See Adams and McShane 1992; and Alexander and MacGregor 2000, for details.
revenues earned by participating communities facilitated tolerance and/or ac-

ceptance of these conservation-oriented land use strategies.
Globally, the 1980s marked a time of rethinking in conservation circles re-
garding management strategies. Terms such as “wise use” and “sustainable use”
replaced outmoded and unworkable conservation approaches based on “no
use.” “People and Parks” was the main theme to emerge from the 1982 Bali
World Parks Congress. Twenty years later, in Durban, the theme was “Beneªts
Beyond Boundaries.” It was a historical Western conceit to think that “nature”
and “people” are separate entities occupying separate physical geographic
spaces.32 This notion formed the basis for initial, early 20th Century approaches
to conservation around the world.33 Equally, Western biases against African land
use and management practices (based on the notion that Africans were “back-
ward” and “inferior”34) facilitated a comprehensive land grab throughout the
continent, including the creation of parks and reserves—i.e. “pristine wilder-
ness” or “royal” game reserves—for the exclusive use of white settlers.35 In the
mind of the average African, “conservation” became code for “exclusion and
dispossession.”36 In industrializing South Africa, parks and reserves served a fur-
ther purpose: by restricting indigenous peoples’ abilities to feed themselves,
“wildlife conservation . . . played a role in creating a proletariat.”37 Post-colonial
indigenous responses to the traditional approach to conservation were predict-
able: opportunistic use of resources at best; deliberate extermination of species
at worst.38 CBNRM was intended as a compromise.
As shown quite clearly by Alexander and Macgregor,39 however, achieving
“buy in” for CAMPFIRE at all levels of Zimbabwean society was not easy, the
long list of hypothesized “beneªts” articulated above notwithstanding. “Com-
munities” were by no means groups “characterised by shared beliefs, stability of
membership and complex, multilayered, long-term interaction.”40 To the con-
trary, people living in Zimbabwe’s so-called marginal lands were an unsteady
mix of long-oppressed indigenous hunter-gatherers and agro-pastoralists dis-
placed from their own lands by colonial policy. At the same time, CBNRM im-
plies devolution of power and authority to local people: a policy approach
anathema to post-colonial Zimbabwe’s centralizing state. Often times, the end
result, as shown by Hasler, was resource capture by some and continuing and/or
extended marginalization of others.41 At best, CAMPFIRE was akin to bribery:
local people were allowed to share photographic/hunting safari revenues in ex-
32. Thomas 1984.

33. Grifªths and Robin 1997.
34. See Grovogui 1996; and Bassett and Crummey 2003.
35. Carruthers 1997, 126.
36. Swatuk 1997.
37. Carruthers 1997, 127.
38. Schroeder 2000.
39. Alexander and Macgregor 2000.
40. Vira and Jeffery 2001, 5 citing work by Conroy et al.
41. Hasler 1995.
change for preservation of the status quo, i.e. their continued uneasy coexistence
with wildlife and limited access to the local resource base.42 Oftentimes these
revenues were substantial, but their distribution at local level—when any trick-
led down that far—was far from equitable.43
Nevertheless, a network of stakeholders emerged in support of CBNRM—
donors, conservation organizations, departments of wildlife and national parks
and tourism, inºuential persons in central, provincial and district government.
The emergent narrative touting CBNRM’s success reºected not local, resource
level realities but the interests of this exclusive, empowered network. Revenues
generated became the measure of success. Whereas the language was often con-
sensual—as revealed in key policy documents—the material and non-material
goals pursued often diverged. The practice of CBNRM reºected more clearly the
difªculties in norm diffusion and localization.
CBNRM in Botswana
From the beginning, CBNRM in Southern Africa was “supply driven.”44 Donors
found the purported conºuence of rural development, popular participation,
environmental sustainability, and private sector growth to be irresistible. Sup-
porters such as those found in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia
constituted local nodes of a global epistemic community fully behind “sustain-
able utilization,” i.e. conservation ofªcers less concerned with neo-liberalism
and more concerned with environmental governance.45 Botswana was no excep-
tion to this pattern.
In Botswana CBNRM was ªrst utilized as part of the USAID-funded Natu-
ral Resources Management Project (NRMP).46 A number of government depart-
ments are currently involved: DWNP, especially the Community Extension and
Outreach Division; Agricultural Resources Board and Forestry Department; Na-
tional Museum, Monuments and Art Galleries; Department of Environmental
Affairs; Department of Lands; Department of Tourism; and Rural Development
Coordinating Division. Local and international NGOs provide technical advice
and help with management plan development, fund raising, and organizational
development. A wide range of private sector institutes and donor organizations
are also involved.
In terms of intellectual and material support for CBNRM, the linchpin be-
tween the local and global was and remains the World Conservation Union
(IUCN), particularly its Regional Ofªce for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA). In
42. Katerere 2002, 30.

43. Hasler 1995.
44. Katerere 2002, 30.
45. Adams and McShane 1992.
46. Rozemeijer 2004, 27. The Botswana-USAID bilateral initiative was part of a larger USAID
NRMP for SADC, the Southern African Development Community. Other countries included in
bilateral initiatives were Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. SADC 1998.
Botswana, the IUCN country ofªce acts as the secretariat for the National
CBNRM Forum. The Forum has been in existence since 1999 and is funded
jointly by IUCN, Global Environment Facility (GEF), and a Netherlands NGO,
Foundation of Netherlands Volunteers (SNV), through the CBNRM Support
Program. These international actors also helped establish BOCOBONET, the
Botswana Community Based Organization Network, which centralizes in one
ofªce documentation pertaining to CBNRM activities and experiences and acts
as an information clearing house. It also acts as an advocate for CBNRM at gov-
ernment level. Its key publication, The CBNRM Services Directory for Botswana, is
designed to facilitate smart partnerships. The CBNRM Support Program also
publishes its own studies regarding community based natural resources.
The physical base for CBNRM in Botswana is the protected area—national
parks, national monuments, game reserves, and specially designated zones
known as Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs). Together, this land constitutes
39 percent of Botswana’s entire surface area—a massive amount given that Bot-
swana is the size of France—much of it concentrated in the arid/semi-arid
Kalahari (see map).47 In addition, government has divided the entire country
into 163 Controlled Hunting Areas (CHAs), which overlay other forms of land
use, thus one WMA may contain several CHAs or parts thereof. Government has
zoned 42 CHAs for community management, of which 14 leases have so far
been issued.48
A community in a particular CHA interested in CBNRM may apply for a
lease to manage wildlife (hunting and game capture), engage in tourism activi-
ties (photographic and cultural tourism), and use veld products commercially
(e.g. morula, grapple, thatching grass). If the CHA lies in a WMA, “manage-
ment” must exclude non-designated forms of land use or severely curtail those
not centered on wildlife (e.g. grazing, crop production). If the CHA lies outside
a WMA, a lease may be awarded and the area designated “multi-purpose” with
strict limits placed on the number of livestock that may be raised there.
The “Community Natural Resources Management Lease” or “head lease”
is the legal basis for CBNRM in Botswana. The “head lease” is for 15 years and is
an agreement between the legally registered community entity—usually a
Trust—and the appropriate Land Authority, in most cases the Land Board, but
in some cases central government where the CHA lies inside a national park or
game reserve (e.g. the Chobe Enclave Trust made up of ªve villages inside
Chobe National Park).
CBNRM is hampered by the absence of an over-arching policy document,
vision statement, and integrated legislative framework. A draft Joint Depart-
ment of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) and Agricultural Resources Board
(ARB) CBNRM policy document has been with government for almost a dec-
47. According to Broekhuis 1998, 44, this vast amount of land set aside as “protected area” is “due
to the absence of humans and cattle and the presence of veterinary fences, not an assessment of
biodiversity values and ecosystem functioning.”
48. Rozemeijer 2004, 28.
Map 1
Wildlife Management and Controlled Hunting Areas in Botswana
ade. Government’s apparent reluctance to ªnalize this document helped lead

USAID to end its support for the program in Botswana. Ofªcially, USAID was
frustrated by the government of Botswana’s reluctance to devolve power to rural
communities.49 Unofªcially, the view was, in the words of one high-ranking
USAID ofªcial, “they are simply not interested.”50 Upon learning that a high-
ranking government ofªcial had blocked acceptance of the ªnalized policy doc-
ument, one delegate to the 2005 biannual national CBNRM forum declared,
“CBNRM is dead in Botswana.”51
49. Hasler 2000.
50. Personal communication, name withheld.
51. Personal communication, name withheld.
In the absence of integrated legislation, CBNRM continues to be overseen

by the DWNP, in cooperation with the various Land Boards and in consultation
with other interested parties, such as District Councils. Decisions taken in the
interest of CBNRM affect other government departments and ministries whose
own mandates and/or interests may run counter to the spirit and method of
CBNRM. Moreover, CBNRM is subject to and impacted by numerous policies
and laws not all of which are complementary. Thus, decisions taken vary across
Community Based Organizations (CBOs), resources, districts and contexts and
are dealt with in an ad hoc way.
Given this difªcult legal, policy and institutional framework, CBNRM in
Botswana overwhelmingly focuses on generating revenue through sale of
DWNP-determined wildlife quotas: a seemingly non-controversial activity. Even
so, Clauses 9.2 and 9.3 of the Head Lease52 clearly state that government (i.e.
“The Lessor”) may terminate the lease with six months’ notice if the area is “re-
quired for public purposes” (9.2) deªned as any of the following (9.3):
a) in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality, pre-
vention of crime, public health, town and country planning or land settle-
ment; or
b) in order to ensure the development of that or another area for a purpose
beneªcial to the community.
These sweeping clauses, parroting Section 32 of the Tribal Land Act, ensure
the continuing role of government as ªnal authority in any land use decisions,
conªrming the widely held view that CBNRM consists of the decentralization of
management as opposed to the devolution of rights and authority over the re-
source itself.53 At the same time, purveyors of CBNRM who envision or intend a
condition of community decision-making autonomy misunderstand the im-
portance of the state. For Hasler, the state development process—from drought/
disaster relief to support for economic development—is “as important as any
local community production process . . . Communities are increasingly becom-
ing extensions of the state apparatus to facilitate local production.”54
Driven by the actors involved in the support program, an increasing num-
ber of communities express interest in CBNRM. From a single CBO registered as
a wildlife management Trust operative at the local level in 1993, the number of
active (83) and registered (67) CBOs has mushroomed over the course of the
last ten years. Similarly, the number of villages engaged in CBNRM has in-
creased from ªve in 1993 to 30 in 1997, 91 in 1999 and 120 in 2003. This trans-
lates into 103,000 people involved in CBNRM at the village level.55
The focus of activity of these CBOs principally divides into two categories:
Trusts engaged in “wildlife management” through auction or joint venture
52. Reproduced and annotated in Cassidy 2000, 41–64.
53. Hasler 2000; Twyman 1998; and Rozemeijer 2004.
54. Hasler 1999, 95, 97.
55. Rozemeijer 2004, 31. The percentage of District populations involved in CBNRM varies greatly,
e.g. Chobe 44 percent; Ngamiland 20 percent; Kgalagadi 17 percent; Ghanzi 14 percent.
Rozemeijer 2004.
agreements with private hunting safari companies; and Trusts engaged in small
scale exploitation of veld products through partnership with (international)
NGOs and private companies. In the case of the former, the Trust sells all/some
of its awarded wildlife quota to the safari operator in exchange for cash. In the
case of a Joint Venture Agreement (as opposed to a straightforward auction), the
private company is awarded a ªve year lease (renewable) by the community
whereby it is “assessed” at the end of each of the ªrst two years before being
granted a further three years (1–1–3). Two further ªve-year leases interspersed
by a mid-term review follow successful completion of the initial ªve year rela-
tionship.56 In some cases, the local communities may purchase for a token price
meat and skins resulting from a kill. An example of this type of CBO is Sankuyo
Tshwaragano Management Trust, registered since November 1995, and located
in the lower reaches of the Okavango Delta in Ngamiland. In partnership with
HCH Safaris, STMT earned P1.25 million in 2002.57 For a village of 372 people,
this revenue constitutes a signiªcant windfall gain.
An example of the latter, veld product-oriented CBO, is Teemacane Trust,
representing 4 villages and 1,500 people in the upper Okavango Delta area of
Ngamiland. Membership in the Trust is limited to members of the San
(Bushmen) communities. In cooperation with the Trust for Okavango Cultural
and Development Initiatives (TOCaDI), 278 collectors earned a total of
P80,000 in 2001 and P40,000 in 2002 selling thatching grass.58 The difference
between the two CBOs in revenues earned and number of beneªciaries is very
great. For illustrative purposes only, assuming perfect distribution of revenues
means P5,000/person/year in STMT, but only P143/person/year in Teemacane.
Virtually all CBOs involved in CBNRM intend to diversify into other tour-
ism related activities, e.g. cultural and photographic tourism, craft manufacture
and marketing, and veld product development. However, human resource ca-
pacity is limited and most CBOs are passive participants reacting to external in-
terests. Windfall revenue gains do not encourage diversiªcation; indeed, they
lead to complacence. Where some members of a CBO may be very interested in
undertaking a new activity, it is often the case that the Trust cannot agree on the
proposed project.59 In the 14 communities engaged either in joint venture
56. At the 2005 Ngamiland District CBNRM forum, DWNP announced new procedures whereby
private sector involvement in lease arrangements with CBOs must be open to tender at the end
of each 5 year period. This raised serious questions among participants regarding the willing-
ness of private sector actors to invest in activities with no guarantee of continuance beyond 5
years.
57. There are approximately 6 pula to 1 US dollar.
58. CBNRM Status Report 2003 reprinted in CBNRM Forum Botswana 2004, 64, 65, 69.
59. Several CBOs constitute “disunited communities”—as government zoned areas, CHAs often in-
clude a number of villages whose inter-relations may be limited at best. Other CBOs are domi-
nated by a small group of inter-competitive individuals. Some have been forced by tradition to
elect representatives who have no skills in running a CBNRM project. Such conditions have
marred the ability to go forward with projects in, for example, STMT NG 34, Mababe
Zukutsham Trust NG 41, the Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust CH1/2, and the Okavango
Kopano Mokoro Community Trust NG 32. Information based on personal interviews.
agreements with or who auction of part of their quota to hunting safaris, reve-
nues amounted to P8.45 million in 2002.60 Non-hunting activities in these
CBOs generate very little total income. Total job creation is estimated at 500–
700.61 Moreover, these revenues vary greatly across CBOs, with those located in
Kgalagadi and Ghanzi districts suffering from extremely low quotas allocated by
DWNP.62
The capacity to generate income in those CBOs not engaged in hunting is
extremely limited. In only one case—the Okavango Polers’ Trust which gener-
ated P1 million in 2002—was a substantial amount of revenue generated from
photographic tourism alone. In most cases, revenues were meager—in one case
only P1,000. Rozemeijer estimates 2002 total income for all communities in-
volved in CBNRM projects to be P24,780,000, of which 12,432,000 derives
from the “subsistence value of natural resources in CBNRM project areas,”63 and
the balance deriving from trophy hunting, photographic tourism, craft produc-
tion, marketed veld products and game meat value. However, as suggested
above, most of this income accrues to a small number of CBOs located in prime
hunting/photographic tourism areas. Total employment from all projects is esti-
mated to be 1000–1500 people.
Of the 38 CBOs providing information for the 2003 Status Report, 13 (i.e.
33 percent) recorded no revenue at all—some due to the fact that they were
newly formed; but others had been registered for several years. In addition, 29
registered CBOs (3 in Ngamiland, 2 in Kgalagadi, 5 in Central, 2 in Southern,
1 in Southeast, 2 in Kgatleng, 14 in Kweneng Districts) provided no informa-
tion for the Status Report. Another 16 CBOs were said to be “in formation.”64
During the Third National CBNRM Conference held in Gaborone in 2003,
the IUCN Country Director for Botswana, Masego Madzwamuse, reported that
there is a very clear sense among all participants that income from CBNRM can
only supplement on-going livelihood strategies. She also reported that, despite
hopeful signs of interest and activity, “there are no successful CBNRM enter-
prises, where sales income exceeds costs, in Botswana at present.”65 These views
were reiterated at the Fourth National CBNRM Conference held in April 2005.
Hasler goes one step further: If funding evaporates, “there are no resource utili-
zation activities or trusts that would run on their own.”66 Even where signiªcant
revenues have been generated, the “break even” point has not been reached. For
example, the D’Kar Kuru Trust in Ghanzi, representing a CBO with 943 mem-
bers, while earning P631, 500 from its game farm over the ªve year period be-

62. According to the Status Report, “the 2002 and 2003 quotas were exceptionally low for unclear
reasons. This is damaging the intention of the Trust[s] to go into a joint venture with a safari
company” (CBNRM Forum 2004, 88, 89).
64. CBNRM Status Report 2003, 100–101.
65. Personal observation, 25/11/2003.
66. Hasler 1999, 99.
tween 1999–2003, has not yet managed to recover sunk costs.67 In the case of
Kgetsi Ya Tsie, a veld product-oriented CBO representing 1100 people in the
Tswapong Hills, donor support amounted to roughly P2.5 million between
1998–2001 while income generated for 2002 was reported to be a lump sum of
P43,333.00 paid by the Trust to its members, plus P54/month for each of the
(at the time) 693 members. 2002 was the ªrst year income was reported since
the Trust was registered in 1999.
As for sustainable natural resource management, Madzwamuse also stated
that the environmental impacts of CBNRM projects are “generally positive,”
that local resources are more appreciated and that illegal use is minimal.68 Pe-
ters reminds us, however, “there is no neat relation between local control over
resources and sustainable use.”69 Whereas rural people are now portrayed by
many donors as repositories of “indigenous knowledge,” government still re-
gards them as ignorant resource degraders engaged in unsustainable forms of
agro-pastoralism at best70 and “stone age creatures” doomed to “die out like the
dodo” at worst.71 The truth, of course, probably lies somewhere in between
these extreme positions. Yet such contradictory portrayals of poor and
marginalized people point to the perceived importance of what is at stake—lim-
ited natural resources with possibly incompatible use values. There is no clear
evidence that central and local government, marginalized groups, powerful do-
nors and INGOs, global lobby groups and resource raiding companies can all
have the resource cake and eat it too.
Historical and Socio-Political Setting

CBNRM outcomes in Botswana, in my view, reºect the historical complexity of
the society and its diverse land use policies, plans and practices. They reºect,
also, the serious difªculties encountered by global/local moral entrepreneurs,
convinced of the rightness of their approach, in achieving localization beyond a
narrow band of direct beneªciaries. This contrasts sharply with explanations
privileging various local resource incapacities or recipient government resis-
tance.
To understand the importance of CBNRM to the governing elite, and to ac-
count for its varied outcomes across the country, some background on the na-
ture of the Botswana state and society is necessary. It is important to recognize
that CBNRM is being folded into existing social relations, in particular local
conºicts over land use and tenure,72 and global approaches to development and
democratization. In metaphorical terms, CBNRM is not like a piece of fresh
67. CBNRM Status Report 2003, 93.

68. Personal observation.
69. Peters 2002, 14.
70. Ministry of Agriculture 2000, 1–6.
71. Then-Vice President Mogae, quoted in Good 2003, 16.
72. Twyman 2000.
chalk encountering the blank slate of society; rather, it is a few drops of ºuid
dripped onto and absorbed by a well-soaked societal sponge.
Botswana has been accurately described as an “authoritarian liberal”
state.73 In contrast to the generally held (and deliberately cultivated) impression
in the international community of “Africa’s shining democracy,” Botswana is
governed by a small elite whose political and business interests are mutually re-
inforcing.74 Among other things, these economic interests extend primarily to
mineral exploitation and cattle. More recently, high level interest has been
shown in the tourist industry, with seats on Boards of Directors of international
companies rather than direct business creation the preferred avenue of involve-
ment. Of primary interest to all Batswana75 is the ability to cope with drought;
of secondary interest is the ability to effectively deal with livestock disease.
These issues are deeply ingrained in Tswana society. Wildlife and conservation,
in contrast, are very much tertiary or specialist interests.
Diamond Dependent Development

A succession of conservative development plans has resulted in sustained eco-
nomic growth over nearly 40 years of independence. However, the country is
heavily dependent upon revenues from diamonds, constituting some 32.4 per-
cent of total GDP, 58.6 percent of government revenue in FY 2002/0376 and
consistently more than 80 percent of total export revenues since 1984.77 This re-
source dependency has facilitated single party predominance and a concentra-
tion of wealth almost unequaled in the world as signiªed by a Gini Coefªcient
of 0.54.78
The narrow revenue base reinforces a patrimonial system dominated by
members of the Bangwato tribe, the Tswana ruling elite.79 Patrimony manifests
itself in state-based development activities, in particular construction activities
73. Good 1996.

74. Good 2003, 17; and Peters 1994.
75. A brief note on terminology: Tswana refers to the general tribal category; Botswana refers to the
Tswana people (as in a nation); Motswana refers to a single Tswana person; and Batswana is the
plural form. These preªxes obtain for all ethnic/tribal groups of Bantu origin found in Bot-
swana.
76. GOB 2003, 32, 37.
77. Harvey and Lewis 1990, 121; SADC 1998, 26; and Good 2004, 1.
78. SADC 1998, 47.
79. Although home to many tribal and ethnic groups, only eight tribes have ofªcial political status
in Botswana. The Bangwato, Bakwena and Bangwaketse are all off-shoots of the Bahurutshe (it-
self not recognized), the tribes taking their names from the sons of the same mother. The
Batawana were a later breakaway tribe from the Bangwato. Together, these ªve constitute some
70 percent of Botswana’s population. The Bakgatla (8 percent) owe their origins as a recognized
tribe in Botswana to an 1872 agreement with the chief of the Bakwena, Sechele, to build a set-
tlement at Mochudi. The Bakgatla, to this point in time, “lacked coherence as a group” and were
ºeeing Boer oppression in the newly created Transvaal (Morton 1998, 44). Three smaller tribes,
the Barolong, Batlokwa and Bamalete, constitute less than 10 percent of total population.
Batswana nationalism derives in part from the coherence gained from collective defense, a pro-
cess sometimes called “defensive nation-building” (see Denoon and Nyeko 1972) against the
incursions of the Ndebele, Afrikaner and British.
(roads, clinics, schools, hospitals, boreholes), emergency/drought relief in rural

areas, a wide variety of subsidies (education, agriculture) and direct employ-
ment. Activities of the state accounted for more than 16 percent of GDP in FY
2002/03 and accounted for 39.2 percent of formal employment.80 The so-called
private sector is said to account for 55 percent of employment; however, much
of this sector owes its existence to government contracts and grants. To the out-
sider, Botswana resembles a modernizing, developmental state—an impression
cultivated by the ruling elite and its supporters.
“Democracy” and Civil Society

What matters most to donors is the unblemished record of open, democratic
elections since independence. Yet, the elite are unchallenged. According to
Good, “the country has been manifestly without a credible opposition, and, in-
deed, without a credible alternative government too.”81 Minor parties are built
around minor Tswana tribes and have a regional character. There is a strong,
particularly urban-based undercurrent interested in change, but with a multi-
party system in place, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) continues to domi-
nate.
At the same time, public opposition to the ruling party is frowned upon,
as is aggressive, confrontational styles of political activism. Civil society as com-
monly understood in Western democratic systems is weak—its strength gener-
ally associated with deepening levels of capitalist development.82 The BDP is a
patrimonial elite actively cultivating a rentier economy, claims to commitments
to “diversiªcation” notwithstanding.83 Civic groups court the favor of govern-
ment. Many owe their existence to donor funding and would collapse without
it. Groups such as the independent media who openly challenge government
often ªnd themselves in court facing charges of “treason.”84 As a result, politics
in Botswana resembles African village democracy, where the kgotla (public gath-
ering) allows for the illusion of inclusion and open (though limited) expression
of opinion by the citizenry, but where the agenda is set and key decisions are
taken by the ruling class.85 In effect, the kgotla marks the point where govern-
ment announces how it will deliver development. Open opposition in kgotla is
stiºed by, for example, non-recognition of a person’s right to speak.
This impacts on CBNRM and its stated desire to facilitate poverty allevia-
tion and resource conservation in two ways: (i) the way patrimonialism binds
everyone to government policy; (ii) the way generated wealth has translated
into resource access, allocation and use over time.
80. GOB 2003, 34, 37.

81. Good 2003, 8; and Darnolf and Holm 1999.
82. Holm, Molutsi, and Somolekae 1996; and Good 1997.
83. GOB 2003.
84. Sechele 2000.
85. Holm and Molutsi 1992; and see Peters 1994.
Urbanization and Consumption

“Development” in Botswana is, to use Schmitz’s phrase, “modernization in a
hurry.”86 Unlike historical forms and patterns of modernization—in Europe, in
North America, in the Soviet Union, in East and Southeast Asia—development
in Botswana revolves more around consumption than it does production.
Among the elite, rent from diamonds has facilitated heightened levels of materi-
alism. In addition to the usual trappings of wealth (houses, automobiles), it
also includes greater numbers of cattle, boreholes and private land holdings, i.e.
the classic patterns of urban growth and rural enclosure. Peters terms this the
privatization of the commons.87 In signiªcant ways, it mirrors a phenomenon
described by Calvert as “internal colonization.”88
Eighty percent of the population resides in a fast-urbanizing ªfty kilome-
ter-wide belt along the eastern land border. “In 1981, approximately 50 percent
of the population was within 200 km of Gaborone [the capital city]. By 1991, 50
percent of the population was enumerated within 100 km of Gaborone.”89 Pop-
ulation densities in the main urban centers of Gaborone and Francistown are
“at least 1,000 people/km2”; whereas for the whole of the country the average is
3 people/km2.90 This urban-based population is ever more dependent—for in-
come, employment, services—on revenues from diamond exploitation. Put
simply, diamond rents make Botswana’s urban life possible.
Cattle, Mobility and Land Use Strategy

The national cattle herd now stands at roughly 3 million beasts. This has led to
massive overcrowding in the eastern hardveld where water and grazing land are
more plentiful. In consequence, urban-based Batswana have pushed their herds
well beyond their traditional tribal boundaries into the remotest parts of the
country. The dominant philosophy among this group of cattle keepers is more
borehole development, not fewer head of cattle: if it appears that there is over-
stocking, then drill another borehole.91 At the same time, the percentage of
households having 0–10 cattle has risen steadily over three decades. According
to White,92 “many poorer households have dropped out of agriculture alto-
gether relying instead on itinerant casual laboring for their subsistence.”93 While
Peters argues that investment in cattle in home villages constitutes important
developmental resources—employment and income—for marginal areas,94 the
86. Schmitz 1995, 55.

87. Peters 1994.
88. Calvert 2001.
89. GOB 1997, 11.
90. GOB 2003, 17.
91. Boreholes are supposed to be spaced 8 kilometers apart. Often times, however, the distance is
no more than two or three kilometers. Swatuk and Rahm 2004.
92. White 1998.
93. In Cullis and Watson 2003, 17.
94. Peters 1994.
negative impacts far outweigh the positives: land degradation is widespread

hence elevating competition for scarce resources.
The Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP), initiated in 1975, facilitated en-
closure of the commons in the purported effort to reduce range degradation on
communal lands. It also contained the basis for CBNRM. Tribal grazing land
was rezoned into three categories: commercial (freehold and leasehold land
with ranch development); communal (traditional common property area with
improved range management techniques encouraged); and reserved areas (orig-
inally set aside as a safeguard for the poorest members of society).95 Reserved ar-
eas are today known as “wildlife management areas” constituting 22 percent of
the country. It is in these areas (and occasionally on state land) that CBNRM is
being implemented and where resource use conºicts are highest.
Large cattle holders were encouraged to acquire TGLP farms, theoretically
restricting their animals’ movements so decreasing pressure on the commons.
In practice, however, the result was dual grazing rights: large cattle holders ex-
cluded others from grazing on their farms, but continued to graze their cattle on
communal lands.96 At the same time, de facto private ownership of communal
lands continued outside TGLP designated areas: as boreholes were developed by
richer herders (individually, and collectively as syndicates), these were consid-
ered private property as were grazing lands around them.97 Land Boards, func-
tional since 1970, have become sites of political contestation and servants of
powerful local elites. They have facilitated the accumulation of land by the few.
Historically, Tswana households have been spatially organized by multi-
ple dwellings: the village, the cattle post and the lands (and now, for a majority,
the town or city). Occupation is seasonal, reºecting the movement of the inter-
tropical convergence zone and, with it, the division of seasons into wet summer
and dry winter. Responding to limited surface water availability, and predomi-
nantly arid soils, subsistence-oriented rural Tswana societies have and continue
to pursue multiple resource use livelihood strategies, combining trade, agricul-
ture and pastoral practices and hunting “for the pot” with cattle long being the
primary measure of wealth. Remittances from migrant labor—within and be-
yond the borders of Botswana—are also an important supplement to house-
hold income. “For the subsistence farmer, beneªts of a live adult animal are
more than the sale of beef from that animal.”98 Among the various material uses
of cattle are the following: milk production, live animal sales/gifts, meat,
draught power, manure, store of value.99 Cattle also have a primary cultural
value—as symbol of the health of the agro-pastoral community itself and the
power of its dominant members. Thus, annual off-take rates are very low,
95. GOB 1975.

96. Peters 1994, 149, 195.
97. Peters 1994, 205.
98. Raborokgwe 1998, 7.
99. Barnes 1998, 59.
amounting to 17 percent among commercial producers, and 10 percent in the

traditional sector.100
Mobility was dictated not only by climate and geography, but also by com-
mon property regimes overseen by chiefs, village headmen and governed, in
part, by inter-tribal relations. This seasonal sedentarism, ensured the overlap of
agro-pastoral communities—reaching the natural limits of expansion (now ex-
tended by technology)—with hunter-gatherer communities (commonly known
as “Bushmen”)—who, with the expansion of agro-pastoral communities, found
themselves increasingly conªned to the Kalahari sandveld.101
Resource Allocation: Capturing “Empty Spaces”

A very clear hierarchy emerged among agro-pastoral groups and between these
so-called “dominant tribes” and subordinate hunter-gatherers. Nomadic peo-
ples have fared poorly in world history.102 Tswana treatment of Bushmen is no
exception, with millennial-long interactions between the San and Bantu result-
ing in a “pre-colonial system of servitude and hierarchical social relations
[which] endures today.”103 A general feature of Botswana “nationalism”—draw-
ing together not only dominate tribes but also other cattle-keeping tribal groups
such as the Baherero, Bakalanga and Afrikaner settler communities—is the col-
lectively held perception of the Bushmen as a subordinate social group to be ex-
ploited at will. All cattle owning groups in Botswana use Bushmen as an unpaid
labor reserve.104 When and if they are paid, it is either in kind or well below min-
imum wage. Even these meager wages—as little as P25/month plus milk and
food—are often not paid for months at a time.105 Whereas Bushmen groups are
highly differentiated social forms with readily discernible variations in language
and culture,106 the general Tswana designation of them as Basarwa is a pejorative
term meaning, in certain social contexts, “someone whose behavior is unaccept-
able.”
These various social hierarchies were complicated further by British colo-
nial policy. Nine tribal reserves were designated between 1899 and 1929 re-
stricting movement among the Batswana, who were themselves considered “no-
madic” by the Brits and therefore less inclined to settled civilization. Tswana
chiefs played a delicate game in currying favor with the colonial masters, includ-
ing adopting Western-style dress, religion and mannerisms.107 Bushmen, then as
now, were regarded “fundamentally [as] nomads, roaming randomly over the
100. GOB 2003.
101. Contrary to popular belief, the “Bushmen of the Kalahari” ranged across the entirety of South-
ern Africa—not just the sandveld—as evidenced by, for example, myriad sites of rock paintings
along the length and breadth of the eastern hardveld.
102. Giles-Vernick 2000; and Grifªths and Robin 1997.
103. Sportan, Twyman, and Thomas 2001, 142; also, Madzwamuse and Fabricius 2004; and
Twyman 2000.
104. Ramsay 1998.
105. Good 2003, 15.
106. VanderPost 2000.
107. Morton 1998.
dry areas of the Kalahari. This notion implies that such people do not “have”
any territory and are thus not attached to any speciªc location or area. Conse-
quently, they can be (re)settled to other locations at any time to make room for
“modern development” such as cattle ranching and game reserves.”108 Areas
originally designated as Bushmen reserves, especially the Central Kalahari Game
Reserve, have been regazetted as the interests of government have evolved.109
Regarding the Bushmen as landless and wildlife-dominant ecosystems as
“empty spaces” constitute the ideological basis for on-going resource capture.110
With government’s grudging acceptance of intellectual arguments regarding
the value of wildlife and protected areas,111 the “landlessness” and “back-
wardness” of Bushmen are the last intellectual defense in support of cultural
oppression.
Protected area development in Botswana mirrors that of the rest of Africa,
with the colonial government creating wildlife preserves in areas of human set-
tlement or used seasonally for grazing. This was done sometimes in full knowl-
edge of residence, and sometimes—as with the Central Kalahari Game Reserve
designated in 1961—in ignorance of the importance of this territory to hunter-
gatherer communities. The 1925 Land Apportionment Act, which divided then-
Bechuanaland into crown land, freehold concessions for white settlers, and
tribal reserves was “a stumbling block to national park development.” The 1929
Pim Economic Report argued that agro-pastoral enterprise should be the focus
of activity and that game reserves were a waste of time and effort. Nevertheless,
in line with global thinking following the 1933 London Convention, Britain’s
Colonial Administrator for Bechuanaland, Charles Rey, keenly pursued reserve
development. His focus was on Chief’s Island, in the Okavango Delta. This area
was part of the traditional hunting preserve of the Bangwato Paramount Chief.
Rey banned hunting on Chief’s Island for three years before declaring it a re-
serve in 1940.
From that time forward, the strategy of the Department of Wildlife, ac-
cording to one of its ªrst directors, was “to grab as much land as possible, then
barter with it,” with the result being “We got a lot of land but had no money or
staff.”112 According to Campbell, “the veterinary department complained every
step of the way.” The Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Moremi Game Reserve
followed in the early 1960s. A formal wildlife conservation policy was devised
in 1966 after which ecological surveys were conducted and boundaries set.
These boundaries have continued to shift and change through time. From the
beginning, then, protected areas were sites of contestation over appropriate use
108. VanderPost 2000, 32.

109. Hitchcock 1999.
110. Twyman 2000.
111. Yet even here government argues that all resources may be used to beneªt the “nation,” so no
current land use is ªxed in stone. Over time this has meant the continual shrinkage of Chobe
National Park, and the awarding of mining concessions over the length and breadth of the
CKGR.
112. Alec Campbell, personal communication.
between colonial overseers and African populations. This historical struggle per-
meates CBNRM today.
The discovery of diamonds in formerly “remote” areas has provided the
government of Botswana with the requisite resources to realize their own “de-
velopment” goals—at the expense of the Bushmen who have been pushed
around, enslaved and exterminated through time. This is a classic example of re-
source capture by dominant groups and the ecological marginalization of the
politically and economically weak.113 However, Batswana themselves were act-
ing in response to similar processes: Tswana settlements extended much farther
south than today’s international border. Large portions of Tswana land was ex-
propriated by the British (with the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in 1871)
and Afrikaners (particularly after the 1913 Land Act). This process continued in
Bechuanaland itself, with the awarding of freehold concessions in the southeast
and northeast, as well as the far west.
In summary, the present day Botswana state—as “idea,” physical base, and
institutional expression114—reºects this complex history of resource use and its
resultant cultural (race, class, tribe, gender, age) hierarchies and biases. The
dominant modernization discourse privileges Western ways of knowing (sci-
ence) and being (permanent settlement; private property holding; Roman-
Dutch law; a hierarchy of states in an international state system) to which domi-
nant powers in Botswana have adapted over time. Vestiges of the past endure in
the form of communal property relations, patrimonial social structures (where
inequality is accepted but where the wealthy are culturally bound to help the
poorest members of society), patriarchal gender relations, and prejudice toward
the Bushmen. The Batswana elite accept an historical Western construction of
“development” (1950s-style “man over nature”; unquestioned faith in technol-
ogy) because it resonates with their own interests in urbanism and enclosure of
the commons—resource capture writ large. Comments such as that made by
Botswana’s President Festus Mogae (at the time Finance Minister)—”How can
you have a stone-age creature continue to exist in the age of the computer?”115—
echo Western approaches to development through time and space, and should
come as no surprise to development practitioners who are, themselves, engaged
in “socio-ecological engineering.”
Enclosing the Past: Xai-Xai

Limited success and continuing problems with CBNRM in Botswana, it seems
to me, reºect not only the human resource limitations of “remote area dwell-
ers,” but the under-stated agenda driving interested groups using the same lan-
guage—conservation and development—but having fundamentally incompati-
113. Unlike Homer-Dixon 1999, who links these processes to particular identiªable societal crises,
I regard resource capture and ecological marginalization as an historical process whose pa-
rameters vary from the global (Crosby 1986; and Dalby 2002) to the local (Good 2003).
114. Buzan 1991.
115. Sunday Independent (Johannesburg), 31 August 1997.
ble goals.116 Nothing illustrates this better than the on-going debate over fencing
in Botswana.
In a 1998 study, Broekhuis117 identiªed numerous “hot spots” in WMAs in
Botswana. Most of these hot spots reºect the imposition of boundaries, between
game reserves and communal areas for example, which may or may not also in-
clude physical barriers to movement. Numerous veterinary cordon fences run
across large swathes of Botswana. Their primary aim is to separate livestock
from wildlife in order to prohibit the transmission of disease from the latter to
the former. In 1997, an outbreak in Ngamiland of contagious bovine pleuro
pneumonia (CBPP), commonly known as cattle lung disease, resulted ulti-
mately in the destruction by Government of approximately 320,000 head of cat-
tle. At the time, an Ad Hoc Committee on Fencing was formed by four govern-
ment departments and ªve NGOs to consider stakeholders’ concerns over
fencing. Government practice has been to erect fences when and as needed, with
little or no consultation of the public. Such fencing policy has not only failed to
curtail outbreaks of contagious diseases like CBPP and foot and mouth, it has
also led to the widespread destruction of wildlife whose migration patterns
have been disrupted by the fences.
Rural peoples’ livelihood strategies have been impacted as well.
Madzwamuse and Fabricius and Twyman118 document the importance of mo-
bility and multiple livelihood options to San households in the Kalahari.
Through time, as described above, these options have been severely curtailed
through processes of resource capture—by white settler farmers, by the state cre-
ating TGLP farms, national parks and game reserves, and by Tswana groups ex-
panding west into San traditional areas. One impacted group of people are the
400 San (correctly called the Ju/’hoansi) (70%) and Herero (30%) resident at
Xai-Xai located in CHA NG 4 (see map) near the Namibia-Botswana border,
some 300 km from Maun. Neither of these groups are included among the eight
recognized Tswana tribes. Whereas Herero are primarily cattle-keepers, the Ju/
’hoansi pursue a number of different livelihood activities, from hunting and
gathering to working as herders for the Herero. In the early 1990s, the Nether-
lands NGO, SNV, assisted the community in establishing a Trust for the utiliza-
tion of its natural resources.
Although physically located at the northwest corner of CHA NG 4, the
Cgaecgae Tlhabololo Trust (CTT), legally registered since 1997, utilizes the gov-
ernment-determined hunting quota for the adjacent NG 5. This is due to the
seasonal migration of wildlife between these two areas. Utilization of the quota
involves auctioning the majority to private hunting operators and withholding
a small number of animals for the community to hunt itself. In 2002, CTT re-
ported an income of P150,000.00 from this auction. As with the majority of
CBNRM projects, NG 4/5 are designated multi-purpose WMAs located on tribal
116. Twyman 2000.

117. Broekhuis 1998.
118. Madzwamuse and Fabricius 2004; and Twyman 2000.
land, in this case Batawana tribal land. This means that livestock and wildlife
co-exist in this space. However, they are as yet not formally gazetted WMAs. In
2002, CTT also earned P30,000 from a small cultural tourism enterprise opera-
tive in the Aha Hills of NG 4.
With the outbreak of CBPP, the Setata Fence was erected to separate live-
stock from wildlife. This fence cut across the southwest corner of NG 4 and the
top half of NG 5. Its impact on the CTT was signiªcant not only because tradi-
tional migration patterns of wildlife were curtailed, but so was the mobility of
the San. The Headman of Xai-Xai stated that “although the community was con-
sulted about the fence, members did not realize the effect it would have on
wildlife.”119 More to the point, the international media dubbed these “fences of
death.”
According to a senior ofªcial in the Department of Lands, NG 4/5 were
zoned “a WMA under the western communal remote zone land-use plan in
1994.”120 They were never gazetted, however, as the Ngamiland District Land
Use Planning Unit argued that many livestock watering boreholes and farmers
were present in NG 5, so DLUPU suggested leaving it a mixed-use area. DWNP,
however, arguing in support of the local community, stated that the cattle own-
ers “are not from the community in the area, they are from Maun.”121 At the
same time, the Ministry of Agriculture wants NG 5 for livestock—despite ex-
tremely saline borehole water122 and the widespread occurrence of the toxic
plant mogau—and has designated it as one of three areas of Ngamiland suit-
able for commercial/export-oriented fenced livestock farming.123 Batawana
farmers are clearly in favor of expanded livestock grazing area. One member of
the Xai-Xai community employed as a project assistant by SNV, argues “there is
no NG 4 without NG 5. Animals depend on NG5, and would be killed if the
area was fenced. It would be very drastic for Xai-Xai. NG 5 has more animals
than NG 4 . . . There are big pans in NG 5, which gather water, and the animals
depend on them during the dry season.”124 Whereas residents of Xai-Xai were re-
luctant to have their area (NG 4) designated a WMA—understanding it to mean
having to give up livestock and crop production125—”they were all very strongly
opposed to the idea of the fencing and livestock development of NG 5.”126
Government, for its part, remains reluctant to gazette the land as WMA.127
According to Andrew Pitse of the Tawana Land Board, “It is not easy to overturn
gazettement of a WMA because prior to gazettement a thorough study and
119. Conservation International 1998, 39.

120. Tema, quoted in Gujadhur 2000, 21.
121. Mughogho, quoted in Gujadhur 2000, 21.
122. Broekhuis 1998, 52.
123. Mughogho, in Gujadhur 2000, 21.
124. Taunyane, in Gujadhur 2000, 24.
125. Draft WMA regulations state that primary wildlife needs are the foremost consideration for a
WMA, but that limited livestock grazing is permitted. Subsistence producers such as the
Herero, therefore, would be allowed to continue to hold livestock.
126. Gujadhur 2000, 25.
127. A situation that obtains in other areas as well. The DWNP has identiªed 11 areas zoned as
WMAs which remain mired in land use conºicts: between and among local groups; between
consultation are taken. It’s based on the understanding that all the parties
were in favor of the gazettement.”128 Gazettement as a WMA would enable
the local community to manage its resources with some certainty. In the ab-
sence of gazettement, these non-Batawana remote area dwellers are vulnerable
to the interests and decisions of a Batawana Land Board dominated by cattle
owners.129
For seven years, conservationists lobbied for, at minimum, the realign-
ment of the Setata fence along the northern boundary of NG 4—a suggestion
made by the AHCoF in 1998—but were adamant that with the northern buffalo
fence and the boundary fence with Namibia in place, the Setata fence itself was
irrelevant. Only in late 2004 did government take a decision to remove the
fence based on recommendations in the UK Department for International De-
velopment (DfID)-funded report on Veterinary Cordon Fences for Ngamiland.
There are various ways to interpret this action. In light of the fact that govern-
ment coincidentally decided to fence the Makgadigkadi Pans against the wishes
of conservationists, and to strengthen other fences regarded as harmful to both
wildlife and remote area dwellers, removal of the Setata fence appears, at best, a
sop to those interested in CBNRM development. While restoring traditional mi-
gratory routes for wildlife, pressure to go ahead with fenced cattle ranching in a
mixed-use area remains.
CBNRM service providers continue to work with the Trust with a strong
emphasis on diversiªcation. Members of the Xai-Xai community demonstrate,
in almost equal measure, good faith in government and naïve understandings
of the nature of what is at stake:
The government thinks it knows too much. The community knows how to
manage the area. They have lived here for thousands of years, and the re-
sources are still here, so what does that show you? Government should com-
bine expectations with those of the community . . . I also think that the gov-
ernment should adopt the bottom-up approach. You see the government
imposes project plans on the community, which may conºict with what the
community is doing. If the government adopted a bottom-up approach it
would be easy for them to work together. The community could present
their plans and ideas to the government, and they can work together.130
local residents and outside interests; between government ministries and departments; be-
tween central government and conservation groups (see Conservation International, 1998).
These conºicts have led to a wide variety of alliances between, for example, marginalized rural
peoples such as particular Bushman groups and Survival International, an international hu-
man rights oriented NGO whose particular approach may not mirror Bushmen concerns, but
whose global network helps gives voice to people otherwise at the mercy of government and
Tswana mainstream society.
128. In Gujadhur 2000, 19.
129. While not illegal for non-tribal members resident in a tribal area to be awarded land by the
Land Board, there are no examples where Bushmen have been awarded land by the Land
Board in Tswana tribal territory. See Peters 1994, for an interesting case in Kgatleng.
130. Taunyane, in Gujadhur 2000, 29–30.
This short case study demonstrates the difªculty of successfully introduc-

ing a rural development program such as CBNRM into an area already rife with
land use competition and conºict. In terms of the formal CBNRM program,
members of historically marginalized communities, in partnership with partic-
ular Botswana government and international actors, have combined to articu-
late a management plan for a relatively remote rural area. Revenues are being
generated through the sale of hunting quotas. These revenues augment house-
hold income and provide the means for diversifying into cultural tourism and
craft marketing. However, many residents do not fully understand the legal ba-
sis for their activities; neither do they understand their formal relationship to
the land. So, while they may “feel” that the land is theirs, the facts are consider-
ably different: central government will do whatever it feels is in its own best in-
terest—an “interest” historically most satisªed through mineral revenues and
cattle holdings.
Nevertheless, government, at district and national levels, is pulled in dif-
ferent directions by various actors, forces and factors: from Tswana farmers in-
terested in new land to the European Union as a market for exported beef. Pow-
erful international NGOs, such as Conservation International, seek to act as
“honest brokers,” but it is clear where their primary interest lies: preservation of
wildlife and the removal and/or realignment of cordon fences. While tourism
may generate signiªcant revenue (in the ªrst instance, from trophy hunting),
private companies seek security if they are to make more than token invest-
ments in tourism areas. Given these myriad and conºictual positions, govern-
ment pursues a “go slow” policy, recognizing that, on the basis of Clause 32 of
the Tribal Land Act, it is not bound in perpetuity by any decisions it makes.
However, continued wafºing may send these operators somewhere else: to Zim-
babwe, Zambia or Namibia—all countries desperate for employment, income
and foreign exchange. Members of the Trust remain hopeful; donors are skepti-
cal; and Tswana cattle keepers would like to see the whole WMA project in NG4/
5 collapse like a house of cards. The situation is ªnely balanced. Government
will take a decision if and only if elite interests are threatened, or new opportu-
nities present themselves: the Setata fence was expensive to maintain and cre-
ated an unnecessary source of tension among stakeholders. Even so, it took gov-
ernment seven years to agree to its removal. Gazettement of NG 5 as a WMA,
however, would shake the bonds of important coalitions of power. It is likely,
therefore, that government will continue to pursue its present course of no deci-
sion.
Conclusion
CBNRM, as one element of the global good of environmental governance, con-
stitutes for Tswana policy-makers, not a “developmental truth” but another
shifting of the political economic “goalposts”: it is a new context within which
to maneuver in support of particularistic interests. As agro-pastoral moderniza-
tionists, Tswana policy-makers are understandably puzzled by the focus on re-

source conservation through the preservation of “primitive” ways of life. While
accommodating various global narratives—sustainable development, poverty
alleviation, good governance, participation—in ofªcial policy documents, elite
interests lie in consolidation and extension of their power ªrst and foremost at
national level. Recognizing that the Botswana state exists as a weak actor in an
international system of states dominated by Europe and the United States, cer-
tain decisions will be taken regarding environmental governance that satisªes
these global actors. On occasion, these decisions will coincide with both global
“best practice” and local best interest. We should not read too much into this,
however. As stated earlier on, global norms will be most readily localized where
they already resonate with the dominant political culture of the target society.
CBNRM demonstrates elements of this. But, overall, as an approach which seeks
to overturn extant social relations—to empower the disempowered—it will be
resisted, twisted and rearticulated by the powerful and embraced, in whatever
form and for want of options, by the marginal. CBNRM is better understood as
a discursive site wherein a wide variety of actors exercise different forms of
power/knowledge to achieve narrowly deªned goals. As an activity fundamen-
tally concerned with natural resource access, allocation and management in ar-
eas formerly of marginal interest to powerful local actors, but increasingly cen-
tral to global development practitioners and conservationists, CBNRM cannot
be understood outside of on-going global/local political economic processes.
Put differently, participatory development discourse forces powerful stake-
holders within recipient countries to rethink strategies for resource capture and
the consequences of pursuing unapologetic ecological marginalization of mi-
norities. To this end, they will actively seek to manipulate the character, content
and effects of global norms diffused to the world’s periphery: participatory nat-
ural resource management programs such as CBNRM will be localized when
and where they serve or do not threaten dominant interests.
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From "Project" to "Context": Community Based Natural

Article in Global Environmental Politics · August 2005

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From “Project” to “Context”:

The ideology of modernist top-down development prevails in Botswana,

* Associate Professor, Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre, University of Botswana,

Global Environmental Politics 5:3, August 2005

gram or its purveyors’ motives. More generally, development discourse is wed-

Resource Capture/Ecological Marginalization

14. Schmitz 1995.

Participation as Global Norm

19. Swatuk 2000, 149–193.

diffused by transnational “moral entrepreneurs.”26 Tantamount to a new “truth”

Global/Local Linkages: CBNRM in Southern Africa

26. Nadelmann 1990; and Keck and Sikkink 1998.

revenues earned by participating communities facilitated tolerance and/or ac-

32. Thomas 1984.

42. Katerere 2002, 30.

ade. Government’s apparent reluctance to ªnalize this document helped lead

In the absence of integrated legislation, CBNRM continues to be overseen

60. Rozemeijer 2004, 29.

Historical and Socio-Political Setting

67. CBNRM Status Report 2003, 93.

Diamond Dependent Development

73. Good 1996.

(roads, clinics, schools, hospitals, boreholes), emergency/drought relief in rural

“Democracy” and Civil Society

80. GOB 2003, 34, 37.

Urbanization and Consumption

Cattle, Mobility and Land Use Strategy

86. Schmitz 1995, 55.

negative impacts far outweigh the positives: land degradation is widespread

95. GOB 1975.

amounting to 17 percent among commercial producers, and 10 percent in the

Resource Allocation: Capturing “Empty Spaces”

108. VanderPost 2000, 32.

Enclosing the Past: Xai-Xai

116. Twyman 2000.

119. Conservation International 1998, 39.

This short case study demonstrates the difªculty of successfully introduc-

tionists, Tswana policy-makers are understandably puzzled by the focus on re-

Broch-Due, Vigdis. 2000. Producing Nature and Poverty in Africa: An Introduction. In

Schmitz, Gerald. 1995. Democratization and Demystiªcation: Deconstructing “Gover-

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