the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

Botswana. Only certain people travelled there: those pushed away from their homes
in other parts of southern Africa, explorers such as Serpa Pinto and David
Livingstone and traders in search of slaves and ivory. The area was sparsely
populated, partly for reasons of disease, warfare and slavery. Leadership systems
were generally weak, and most inhabitants of the area are descendants of groups
that moved into the Basin quiet recently. Outsiders either ignored or neglected the
area, much of which was called the 'as terra do firm do Mundo' - the place at the
end of the earth (Mendelsohn and el Obeid, 2004).
Even though the Okavango was remote and neglected for much of human history,
some people inhabited the Basin for hundreds of thousands of years. The earliest
conclusive indication of human life comes in the form of stone tools found at several
places. These all date from the Early to Middle Stone Ages, produced between at
least 200 000 up to 35 000 years ago. Climatic conditions during the past were often
quiet different from those of today, and patterns of settlement changed accordingly,
with people being more widely distributed during wetter periods and then more
concentrated near river water in arid phases (Mendelsohn and el Obeid, 2004).
Livelihoods during this past period, were based on hunting, fishing and gathering,
and most researchers agree that people living during the more recent Late Stone
Age would have been so-called Khoesan people. Some Khoesan remained as
hunter-gatherers, who were the ancestors of modern San people, but others
switched to livestock farming. Farming may have began in the Okavango as long as
2000 years ago after Bantu farmers arrived in southern Africa from east and west
Africa. The remains of livestock, crops and pots used to store grain at these sites are
often accompanied by evidence of iron workings, which too was an innovation
brought south by Bantu immigrants. Glass beads, copper and cowry shells indicate
that the inhabitants of the Okavango then had widespread trading contacts across
much of southern Africa (Mendelsohn and el Obeid, 2004).
The very first of the Okavango Delta's modern-day inhabitants were San or
Bushmen (known locally as Basarwa). Most were hunter-gatherers, but some of
these original settlers, a group called the Banoka (or river Bushmen), which later
gave rise to the Xanekwe and Bugakwe groups, chose to live along the region's
waterways where they turned to fishing for their livelihood. Originally confined to the
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