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Botswana is a land locked country located between South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Its surface area is slightly over 580,000 km2 and it has a population of 1.5 million people. Botswana is primarily a flat country of endless savannah with rocky outcrops here and there, ephemeral rivers in the east and rolling dunes in the south west. It is one of the few countries in the world that still has abundant and diverse wildlife population. The animal species of Botswana include 550 birds, 157 reptiles, 38 amphibians and 164 mammals that range in size from the mice to the elephant. The wildlife estate totals 37% or 210,000 km2 of Botswana's surface area comprising National Parks and Game Reserves (17%) and Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs 20%) in which the primary form of land use is consumptive wildlife utilization, whereas Parks and Reserves are areas for non-consumptive activities. The wildlife estate is administered by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks which draws its mandate from the Wildlife Conservation and National Parks (WCNP) Act of 1992 and before it the Fauna Conservation Act and National Parks Act. There are a number of policies that complement the WCNP Act, namely the Wildlife Conservation Policy of 1986, the Tourism Policy of 1990 and the National Conservation Strategy of 1990. Wildlife has played and continues to play an important role in the economic and cultural development of the country and because of this, Government development programmes and policies always emphasize the sustainable and rationale utilization of this renewable natural resource. Wildlife based tourism is now recognized as an engine for economic growth which will lessen the dependence on the non-renewable mineral sector. The history of wildlife conservation (which in this context means both protection and wise use) in Botswana, like that of many countries in Africa was inherited from the colonial masters, in which the interests and welfare of communities that lived with the wildlife was of no effect or consequence. It is therefore not surprising that communities that live adjacent to wildlife conservation areas resent wildlife institutions and feel alienated from conservation in general. The trend in conservation thinking, following publication of the World Conservation Strategy in 1980, has changed, with a shift towards integrating and reconciling human needs and conservation practices. This has given rise to what has come to be known as Community Based Natural Resources Management or CBNRM for short. This approach to natural resources conservation is now recognized as a conservation strategy in the Southern African Development Community (an economic grouping of Southern African countries) Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement, which was approved by the Heads of States/Governments Summit held in August, 1999. |
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