"Look at the land--it is sick and dying now that we are not allowed in it anymore," commented Kebuelemang, the 70-year-old headman of Mababe village, as he pointed westward. Within a kilometer of their village lay the vast Chobe National Park, established by the colonial government in 1960.
Kebuelemang and his people call themselves Ts’exa, but are more commonly known to the world as Bushmen, or San. The land now encompassed by the Park was used by Kebuelemang and his ancestors every year as they followed the seasonal migrations of wildlife and visited abundant fruit groves. Since the Park’s creation, they have not been allowed to cross its boundary.
Like virtually all of Botswana’s protected areas, which make up one-fifth of the country, Chobe National Park was created with little sympathy to local people, the majority of whom are San. The guiding assumption behind this form of "fortress" conservation--that human activity is necessarily detrimental to the natural environment--stands in stark contrast to opinions the San hold: that a healthy environment is one in which people have an integral place.
Natural resources, particularly wildlife, are central not only to the subsistence strategies of many San, but also to their sense of identity (in contrast to their agropastoralist neighbours). And because of their intimate association with wildlife and other natural resources, San have most keenly felt the human costs of conservation policy in Botswana. But San communities are becoming increasingly organized in their demands for a more meaningful sense of control over land and natural resources in their vicinity.
The Botswana government introduced the Community-Based Natural Resources Management Programme (CBNRMP) partly in response to San discontent with conventional approaches to conservation. With the claim that they give local people a greater role in the management of local resources, such programs are gaining ground throughout Africa. Based on the assumption that decentralizing the management of natural resources improves the efficacy of conservation, they also provide opportunities for local development initiatives based on these resources.
Under CBNRMP, villages such as Mababe can form a community trust, which can then apply to the government for rights of use to the concession area in which the village is situated. These concession areas can be very large--up to 20,000 square kilometers--and are often adjacent to national parks. Alongside rights of use, the community trust is also given an annual quota of certain wildlife species (determined by the government) available for hunting.
Despite its claim to address problems facing the San, the way CBNRMP has been implemented has frustrated residents of Mababe and many other San communities (for an overview of community-based natural resource management programs, see page 37). Designed by bureaucrats and Western "experts," CBNRMP is based above all on the commercialization of natural resources. Officials encourage the newly-formed trusts to simply lease out their land and hunting quotas to a commercial tourism company in return for an annual lease fee. But for many San, these resources cannot be equated with money. "Is sitting back and putting money in the bank empowerment?" asked KB, a young San leader. "Is it worth giving up your rights for a few hundred Pula each?"
San are not attempting to turn their backs on the capitalist economy, but to engage with it on their own terms. Many have had years of experience working in the expatriate-dominated tourism industry, and want to use these skills, alongside their own vast knowledge of the environment, to set up their own community-based tourism enterprises. In contrast to the current model of tourism in the area, which caters primarily to high-end foreign clients on luxury safaris, these enterprises would center on activities like bushwalks, sleeping in traditional beehive-style shelters, and entertainment in the form of dancing. Such a set-up would not only bring tourist dollars into San pockets, but also--crucially--allow San to retain a sense of control over their land and natural resources. It would also give San an opportunity to present themselves and their culture to tourists and the outside world.
There is little chance that Kebuelemang and his people will be allowed back into the park from which they have been excluded for four decades. They also face an uphill battle in implementing their own visions under CBNRMP rather than being co-opted into following a government blueprint. But the CBNRMP’s enduring legacy may be one not envisaged in its original design. CBNRMP has prompted, for the first time, dialogue between local people and government officials on the keenly-felt issue of land and resource rights. The program’s introduction has prompted local political organizing--a first for many San villages--in order to motivate for these rights.
Despite its shortcomings, CBNRMP does allow San to gain a form of land rights in a national legislative framework that has until now recognized pastoralism and agriculture but not foraging as legitimate forms of tenure. Placing land and resource rights firmly on the agenda between San and government officials may be one of the most important--if unintended--outcomes of the CBNRM. It may be a crucial tool in reversing decades of erosion of San land rights. As Roy Sesana, leader of the San organization First Peoples of the Kalahari, has said: "Our human rights are our land. The government can’t do anything for us if they take us off our land."
