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

turn places the Okavango Delta under threat, as without borehole water, an
alternative source will have to be developed for Maun, such as the extraction of
water from the Okavango, through the construction of a dam in the Delta to meet
Maun's water needs.
The next section details the current and future threats facing the Okavango Delta
and its resources.
8.4 Threats Facing the Okavango Delta
In the comfort of the many lodges and camps that dot the mainland, floodplains and
islands of the Okavango Delta, it is all too easy to take the continued existence of
this wetland for granted. It is also easy to ignore the countless threats that face this
place which, when compared to Botswana's major socio-economic problems such
as uncontrolled HIV/AIDS, widespread poverty, drought, declines in the diamond
industry, etc., seem relatively minor. The dangers facing the Delta are, however, all
too real, and in light of them it seems miraculous that the region has survived in its
present state, at all. Its continued survival is by no means guaranteed, as it is largely
through, what one observer has termed 'benign neglect', that the Delta has emerged
in the latter part of the Twentieth Century into world focus as one of the last
remaining pristine wilderness areas on earth (Bailey, 1998).
Although much of the Okavango Delta's environment is as natural as it ever was, the
Okavango faces pressure from, not only cattle ranchers, but also several other
factors and processes. These include changes to water and sediment flow, pollution
and changes to nutrient levels, loss of vegetation, soil erosion and fires. However,
the greatest threat to the Okavango Delta lies beyond its fences and national
boundaries, as Botswana's neighbours covet the precious commodity of water,
which the Okavango carries through Namibia on its journey to the Delta (Bailey,
1998; Mendelsohn and el Obeid, 2004).
In recent times, two major studies have been undertaken to investigate the
possibility of large-scale utilisation of Okavango water. The first of these was by the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the early and middle 1970s,
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