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

area in Angola. There are also Hambukushu people in southwestern Zambia. Some
Xanekwe and Wayeyi people also live in northern Namibia. Today, people from all
five ethnic groups live throughout the Okavango Delta. Historically though, Bugakwe,
Dxeriku and Hambukushu lived in the Panhandle and eastern edge of the Delta
(Tlou, 1985; Barnard, 1992). The Xanekwe lived in the Panhandle and along the Jao
and Boro Rivers in the central and western Delta, as well as the area along the
Boteti River (Barnard, 1992). The Wayeyi lived along the Jao River in the northern
Delta, on the northwestern side of the Delta around Seronga and on the southern
edge of the Delta, around Maun, and a few Wayeyi still live in their putative ancestral
home in the Caprivi Strip (Figure 5.7) (Larson, 1988; Bock, 1998; Bock and Johnson,
2002).
However, due to the development of the Moremi Game Reserve and other wildlife
reserves, the implementation of policies restricting hunting in the Okavango Delta,
the conversion of communal land into Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) and the
subsequent growth of mass tourism, large-scale migration occurred throughout the
Delta - particularly from rural areas to Maun - to such an extent that today, most
towns and villages have up to nine or more different ethnic groups residing in them.
A number of people from other ethnic groups such as Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and
Batawana now also live in parts of the Okavango Delta. There are also several other
Bushmen groups represented by a handful of people. These groups were decimated
by diseases of contact in the middle part of the Twentieth Century, and most of the
remaining members have intermarried with the Xanekwe. Hence, most of the larger
towns and villages in the Delta region comprise groups of Hambukushu, Basarwa
(San), including Bugakwe and Xanekwe; Wayeyi; Dxeriku; Bakgalagadi; Basobia;
Barotse; Ovaherero and Batawana (Figure 5.7). There is also a growing White and
Asian community in Maun and Shakawe (Makhwaje et aI, 1995; Bock, 1998).
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