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

The process of acquiring a concession area or smaller piece of land for the
development of tourism/commercial hunting ventures in the Okavango Delta from
the Tawana Land Board is fairly straight forward. Firstly, once a concession
area/area of land becomes available (once its current lease agreement expires), or
once a 'new area' is earmarked for tourism development, the Tawana Land Board
selects a lessee through an invitation to tender, generally extended to the current
lessee, local communities living in/near the area that are interested in developing
community-based tourism projects, or established safari/hunting operators and
companies. A technical committee, comprising central and local government officials
from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Department of Tourism, District
Administration, District Council, and Tawana Land Board assesses and ranks the
proposals of all tenders received. Once a lessee is chosen, resource management
rights, together with a security of tenure through a fifeteen year lease is awarded to
the operator, company or local community. With regards to concession areas, the
central government, through the Department of Wildlife and National Parks allocates
a wildlife offtake quota (for hunting or capture purposes) for that particular area.
Given that both the Tawana Land Board and the Department of Wildlife and National
Parks are government authorities, land and wildlife remain centralised in the Delta,
and the use of this land and wildlife is therefore ultimately controlled by the
government.
Most safari companies or operators that are awarded concession areas in the Delta
use their land to develop upmarket tourist or commercial hunting ventures, providing
luxury tourist accommodation facilities, tourist activities such as wildlife viewing
opportunities, boat trips, fishing activities and scenic flights over the Delta. Most
operators that focus on 'photographic safaris' do not use their wildlife offtake quotas
and many choose to sell their quotas to commecial hunting operators, or through the
sale of live animals to game farmers. Most commercial hunting operators use their
quotas through the sale of hunting opportunities to wealthy clients, which can bring
in/generate substantial sums of money.
With regards to local communities in the Okavango Delta, areas of land are also
leased, together with resource rights and wildlife offtake quota for concession areas
to a community-based organisation, representative of the entire community, for a
203