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

conservation area. This led to conflict between local communities and the
Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Today, local people are still allowed to
enter the Moremi Game Reserve to collect veld products or to pass through it on
their way to other villages, but they have to pay gate entrance fees. This naturally
restricts the access of the reserve to local people in the area (Mbaiwa, 1999).
The recent extension of the Moremi Game Reserve boundaries into communal land
has led to further conflict with local communities living on the reserve boundaries.
The local people expressed concern that these extensions were made without their
consultation, and hence deprived them of more land and its resources (Mbaiwa,
1999).
According to Mbaiwa (1999), 71.6 percent of the 95 individuals interviewed in the
three villages of Sankuyo, Mababe and Khwai, stated that they received no benefits
from tourism in the area (e.g., income, employment, improved infrastructure).
Actually, these respondents felt that tourism in the area is destructive in that tourists
take pictures of their children and huts without permission, their vehicles make noise
and some pass through their villages at high speeds. Only 28.4 percent of them
stated that they got benefits from tourism through the sale of their craft work.
Tourism, therefore, is viewed by the people as an economic activity that yields
revenues only to the government and private safari operators. This suggests that the
people's perceptions towards tourism remains largely negative as they derive little
benefit from it (Mbaiwa, 1999).
From the above findings, it can be concluded that the attitudes and perceptions of
the people of the Okavango Delta area are predominantly negative towards wildlife
conservation. Despite this, there is also evidence that people's attitudes are slowly
beginning to change in the Delta. Some people in the area do attach some value to
wildlife as a useful and necessary resource.
7.2.3 5takeholders and Resource Use Conflicts in the Okavango Delta
Conflicts over resources arise when several interest groups attempt to use the same
resources for different outcomes in the same area or geographical location. In the
Okavango Delta there are two main groups of land and resource use stakeholders:
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