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

Arguments for and against CBNRM indicate that much is still not known about the
success and sustainability of the CBNRM programme in East and Southern Africa
(Mbaiwa, 2004).
7.3.2 Socio-Political Benefits of CBNRM
Access to, and control over, natural resources by local communities involved in
CBNRM projects has become the catchphrase in community-based natural resource
management. In the Okavango Delta access to, and control over, resources by rural
communities is carried out through the decentralization of land and its resources to
rural communities. This has so far been achieved through the adoption and
implementation of several government policies and strategies, such as the Wildlife
Conservation Policy of 1986, Tourism Policy of 1990, National Conservation Policy
of 1990, Tourism Act of 1992 and the Wildlife Conservation and National Parks Act
of 1992, which laid the foundation for CBNRM in Botswana (Rozemeijer and van der
Jagt, 2000). According to Rozemeijer and van der Jagt (2000), each of these
documents calls for the increased opportunities for local communities to benefit from
wildlife and natural resources through tourism development. These government
documents should therefore be seen as having played an important role in
facilitating the decentralization of land and its resources to rural communities for
tourism purposes (Mbaiwa, 2004).
The Wildlife Conservation Policy of 1986, in particular, is generally regarded as the
blueprint upon which CBNRM has been designed. It proposed the division of all the
nine districts in Botswana into Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs). The concept of
WMAs in Botswana arose from a need for conservation and the controlled utilisation
of wildlife and other natural resources outside of national parks and game reserves,
along with the desirability of creating buffer zones between parks and reserves and
areas of more intensive land use. WMAs are therefore zones between protected
areas and surrounding areas, especially human settlements. The primary land use
option in WMAs is wildlife utilisation and management. In most WMAs, the Botswana
Government has granted local communities the right to use the wildlife resources
subject to government regulations such as the requirement to form a trust, to
prepare and adhere to a management plan for the area, and the need to apply for a
hunting quota. Other types of land use are permitted, provided they do not threaten
320