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There is currently uncertainty
regarding the future of wildlife
management policy in Botswana,
which has some of the largest populations
of wildlife in southern Africa, including
Africa’s largest national elephant herd.
During late 2008, the government
of Botswana expressed an intention
to prohibit safari hunting in several
Controlled Hunting Areas (CHAs)
adjacent to national parks in the north of
the country, following the expiry of current
leases. Specically, the government plans
to establish a 25 km buer zone around
protected areas in northern Botswana,
in which safari hunting is not permitted.
is article briey discusses the potential
implications of such recommendations
in terms of sustaining Botswana’s wildlife
populations.
Historical Context
During the 1960s and 1970s, a small group
of southern African nations (including
Botswana) introduced two key changes to
wildlife management practice which had
a dramatic impact on the prospects for
conservation: landowners were granted
user rights over wildlife through legislative
reforms, and safari hunting of wildlife was
promoted. ose changes resulted in a large-
scale switch from livestock to wildlife-based
land uses on private land, and stimulated
development of Community-based Natural
Resource Management (CBNRM) in
a variety of communally-owned areas.
As a result of nancial incentives for
conservation resulting from sustainable use,
and safari hunting in particular, southern
Africa experienced signicant increases in
the abundance and distribution of wildlife
outside of protected areas and the recovery
of a number of endangered species. e
expansion of wildlife populations was
particularly pronounced on private land.
For e.g., over 200,000 sq. km of private
land has been converted to game ranching
in South Africa. In parts of southern
Africa, the achievements are increasingly
extending to communal land. In Namibia,
for example, wildlife populations are
booming on communal land due to the
development of communal conservancies.
On both private and communal land,
safari hunting typically provides the entry
point for former livestock farmers to
adopt wildlife-based land uses because it
enables the derivation of nancial returns
from small and low diversity populations
of wildlife. Botswana has traditionally
been a strong proponent of the principles
of sustainable use, and the wildlife sector
relies heavily on returns from safari
hunting. Approximately 74% of the vast
(~227,000 sq. km) wildlife estate (and
81% of community land used for wildlife
production) is dependent on returns from
consumptive wildlife utilisation.
Implications of Restricting Utilisation
1. Community Benets
Safari hunting currently generates 72%
of income for CBNRM programmes in
Botswana, and restricting the industry has
the potential to severely curtail nancial
incentives for conservation. e proposal
to limit safari hunting represents one
component of a broader trend towards
centralisation of control of management
over wildlife resources in Botswana (as
has also occurred in several other parts of
southern Africa in recent years). For e.g.,
a clause in the Botswana CBNRM policy
(nalised in 2007) suggests that 65%
of wildlife revenues will be centralised
into a national trust fund. Similarly, a
moratorium was placed on lion hunting
(despite the absence of evidence of negative
impacts associated with the practice in
Botswana), signicantly reducing the
potential returns to communities from
safari hunting. e clearest successes in
promoting wildlife conservation outside
of protected areas in Africa have been
achieved where authority to manage and
utilise wildlife has been devolved to the
landholder level. In Botswana, by reducing
the freedom of communities to manage
wildlife and imposing restrictions on safari
hunting, the government risks reducing
community buy-in to natural resource
management and reducing incentives for
conservation.
2. Hunting and Tourism Trade-os
Safari hunting generates 15% of tourism
revenues from only 1% of tourist arrivals,
making it one of the lowest impact forms
of tourism in Botswana. Safari hunting
typically focuses on male animals and
results in the removal of 2-5% of ungulate
populations and generally has minimal
impact on the viability of wildlife
populations. e trophy quality for most
species has been fairly constant over time
in Botswana, indicating that the quotas for
most species are sustainable.
Photo-tourism is an important contributor
to GDP and to conservation eorts in
Botswana. However, there are a number of
drawbacks associated with photo-tourism
that prevent it from being a panacea for
natural resource management and rural
development. Most signicantly, photo-
tourism is generally only viable in areas
with very high densities of visible wildlife,
and/or spectacular scenery and large
areas of Botswana’s wildlife estate are not
suitable. Photo-tourism relies on visitation
by far greater numbers of tourists than
safari hunting, resulting in environmental
impacts through fossil fuel use and habitat
conversion for the creation of tourism
infrastructure. Furthermore, inequity
in receipt of benets can undermine the
conservation and development benets of
photo-tourism. Phototourism generates
relatively little direct employment in
Botswana, and most jobs created are
in menial support services. Leakage of
revenues from the photographic industry
is also a serious problem. Approximately
73% of photo-tourism revenues are leaked
from Botswana overseas, compared to 25%
of safari hunting income. e majority of
earnings from photo-tourism in Botswana
e Future of Wildlife-based
Land Uses in Botswana
Peter Lindsey
24
are generated via ‘enclave’ tourism
(i.e., tourism operations run by foreign
companies with a weak benet stream to
local communities), and comparatively
few benets accrue to CBNRM tourism
ventures.
3. Regional Conservation Alliances
During recent decades, Botswana has
been a strong advocate for the principles
of sustainable use. Unity among southern
African nations has been crucial in
preventing and limiting the impact of
proposals tabled at CITES meetings
designed to limit the sustainable use of
wildlife in southern Africa. If Botswana,
a country traditionally so resolute in its
support of the principles of sustainable
use, was to impose stringent restrictions
on hunting, the impression among other
countries may be that such a decision
was based on negative environmental
consequences associated with hunting
(despite a lack of evidence to support such
assumptions, and regardless of the clear
conservation gains resulting from nancial
benets from hunting). Such nations may
then be persuaded to vote for proposals
designed to curtail sustainable utilisation
of southern African wildlife resources at
CITES meetings.
In addition, Botswana is a signatory
to the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) Protocol on
Wildlife and Natural Resources, the
primary objective of which is to: “establish
within the region and within the amework
of the respective national laws of each state,
common approaches to the conservation
and sustainable use of wildlife resources”.
Increased centralisation of control over
wildlife management, and restrictions on
the freedom on communities to derive
benets from wildlife via safari hunting is
contrary to both the SADC Protocol on
Wildlife and Natural Resources, and to
harmonised trans-boundary management
of wildlife populations.
Conclusion
Botswana’s conservation policies
during recent decades have been largely
progressive and eective, resulting in
the conservation of a vast wildlife estate
and increasing community involvement
in wildlife-based land uses. is success
has been achieved through a blend of
protection and sustainable use. Restricting
consumptive wildlife utilisation would
represent a retrogressive step and a top-
down imposition that would reduce the
protability of wildlife-based land uses in
many rural areas, and reduce community
earnings and buy-in to natural resource
management. Restricting hunting would
not likely be associated with compensatory
increases in earnings from photo-tourism
and the net impact would probably be
reduced incentives for people to conserve
wildlife. Instead, policy-makers in
Botswana should maximise the diversity
of options for generating income from
wildlife; allow market-forces, community
preferences and the characteristics of
individual areas to determine the ideal
form of wildlife uses outside protected
areas; and focus attention on key issues
aecting conservation in Botswana such as
blockages to migration routes created by
veterinary fencing, and livestock subsidies
which discourage wildlife-based land uses.
Further Reading
Barnett, R. and C. Patterson. 2006.
Sport hunting in the SADC Region:
An overview. TRAFFIC East/Southern
Africa. South Africa: Johannesburg.
Bond, I., B. Child, D. de la Harpe, B. Jones,
J. Barnes and H. Anderson. 2004. Private-
land contribution to conservation in South
Africa. In: Parks in transition (ed. Child,
B.). Pp. 29-62. UK: Earthscan.
Child, B. 2008. Community-conservation
in southern Africa: Rights-based natural
resource management. In: Evolution and
innovation in wildlife conservation (eds.
Suich, H., B. Child and A. Spenceley). Pp.
187-200. UK: Earthscan.
Jones, B. and M. Murphree. 2004.
Community-based natural resource
management as a conservation mechanism:
Lessons and directions. In: Parks in
transition (ed. Child, B.). Pp. 63-103. UK:
Earthscan.
Jones, B. and C. Weaver. 2008. CBNRM
in Namibia: Growth, trends, lessons and
constraints. In: Evolution and innovation
in wildlife conservation (eds. Suich, H.,
B. Child and A. Spenceley). Pp. 223-243.
UK: Earthscan.
Kalahari Conservation Society. 2009.
Hunting and the future of wildlife
conservation in Botswana. Kalahari
Conservation Society report. 76 pp.
Lindsey, P., R . Alexander, L. Frank and S.
Romañach. 2006. e potential of safari
hunting to create incentives for wildlife
conservation in Africa where alternative
wildlife-based land uses may not be viable.
Animal Conservation 9: 283-298.
Lindsey, P., P. Roulet and S. Romañach.
2007. Economic and conservation
signicance of the safari hunting industry in
sub-Saharan Africa. Biological Conservation
134: 455-469.
Martin, R.B. 2008. Review of safari hunting
in Botswana: Financial and economic
assessment – dra report. Consultancy
for e Botswana Wildlife Management
Association. 40 pp.
Mbaiwa, J. 2008. e realities of ecotourism
development in Botswana. In: Responsible
Tourism (ed: Spenceley, A.). Pp. 205-224.
UK: Earthscan.
National Agricultural Marketing
Council (NAMC). 2006. Report on the
investigation to identify problems for
sustainable growth and development in
South African wildlife ranching. NAMC
Report, 2006-03.
Spenceley, A. 2008. Impacts of wildlife
tourism on rural livelihoods in southern
Africa. In: Responsible Tourism (ed:
Spenceley, A.). Pp. 159-186. UK:
Earthscan.
Peter Lindsey (palindsey@gmail.com) is at
the Mammal Research Institute, University of
Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.