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

sells them in retail shops both locally and internationally. The establishment of a
Botswanacraft shop in the village of Etsha 6 in mid-1980s, as well as the influx of
Hambukushu refugees from Angola to the village of Etsha 6, was to have a major
impact on the production of traditional crafts, particularly baskets, and the use of
plant resources in the Okavango Delta area. Today, Botswanacraft oversees a wide
range of activities from the production of handicrafts in isolated rural areas, such as
in the Okavango Delta, to the marketing of these same crafts in various countries
oversees (Terry, 1984).
There are two major centres of craft production in the Okavango River Basin. One is
in the Kavango area in Namibia, which focuses on wood-carvings, while the other is
in the Okavango Delta, where there is the large and internationally renowned basket
industry, created to a large extent, by Botswanacraft, and maintained by the growing
tourism industry in the Delta. There are approximately 1500 basket weavers in the
Okavango Delta today, most of whom are women, mainly of Hambukushu and
Wayeyi descent, who collectively earn about US $ 120 000 per year from the sale of
their crafts. The main centres of basket production are in the Etsha area and
Gumare. Baskets completely dominate craft production in the Ngamiland District,
however, wooden carvings and traditional San crafts are also produced, but to a
lesser degree (Makhajwe et aI, 1995; Mendelsohn and el Obeid, 2004).
As Botswanacraft's market for baskets and other crafts expanded from the 1970s
onwards, more and more baskets were being produced by the women of Etsha. With
the arrival of tourism in the Delta from the late 1980s the demand for baskets and
traditional crafts by tourists, exploded. This led to the over-utilisation of the
resources used in making baskets, through non-selective harvesting in the area
surrounding Etsha. According to the 224 tourists interviewed in the Okavango Delta
between 2003 and 2004, 173 individuals, or 77 percent, stated that they already
had, or intended to, purchase a basket or other piece of craftwork while they were in
the area. This demonstrates the extent of the demand for local crafts by tourists in
the Okavango Delta area. Most of the remaining 51 tourists, or 23 percent, stated
that they would buy local crafts if they came across one they particularly liked, but
did not come to the Delta with the intention of buying local crafts.
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