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

other hand, veterinary officers were constantly complaining about wildlife which
carried foot-and-mouth disease, anthrax, nasal catarrh, lumpy-skin disease, rabies,
lung sickness, rinderpest, nagana and a host of other ailments, all of which could,
and were, being transmitted to domestic livestock. Official reports resounded with
their complaints, and individual vets opposed the establishment of the Nosop River
Game Reserve, Chobe Game Reserve, Moremi Wildlife Reserve and Nxai Pan
National Park, as well as advocating the elimination of wildlife in cattle areas.
Without veterinary objections, a Department of Wildlife Conservation may have been
established years earlier in Botswana (Campbell, 1997).
Increased complaints by farmers in central and northern Botswana that growing
elephant populations were destroying crops convinced the Protectorate
Administration that official control of "...these marauding brutes" was necessary
(Campbell, 1997, p.22). In 1956 the Game Control Unit was established by the
Protectorate Administration, and a game officer, Major Bromfield, was appointed and
stationed in Francistown, with the task of controlling elephant crop raiders. However,
he had wider interests than just the control of elephants, and managed to gather a
small staff and persuaded the Protectorate Administration to establish a legitimate
wildlife department in Botswana, undertake a total review of the wildlife laws, hold a
conference on wildlife conservation for the future, change the licensing system and
initiate safari concession areas and safari hunting. He was naturally disliked by
many veterinary officers (Campbell, 1997). Prior to 1956, there was no control over
the utilisation of wildlife beyond the licensing of non-citizen hunters.
In 1964, the Game Control Unit changed its name to the Department of Wildlife,
National Parks and Tourism, as the activities of the department grew to include
limited commercial tourism ventures. In 1966 Major Bromfield retired and the Wildlife
Department headquarters were moved to the Ministry of Commerce in Gaborone. A
qualified veterinarian was appointed Chief Game Warden, more staff were hired,
and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks began to take shape. Arguments
with the Veterinary Department continued, but now at a lower level. However, the
new Department had little status and an impossibly huge task: to create in a few
years, in a country devoted to cattle raising, a conservation organisation born a
century too late (Campbell, 1997).
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