I am finalising the CBNRM Bottlenecks which began last week. Inadequate product diversification and development within CBNRM projects is one of the bottlenecks experienced in the CBNRM programme in Botswana. That is, much of the tourism product under the CBNRM programme is not diversified. For decades, the CBNRM programme in Botswana narrowly focused on wildlife resources as the main tourist product and mainly practiced trophy hunting and photographic tourism.
The narrow focus on wildlife and trophy and photographic tourism as the main tourism product underestimated the potential value of resource management linkages with other natural resources such as veld products and cultural activities. In addition, a complete wildlife economy is not realized.
The weak generation of economic benefits and distribution by Community Trust Boards to households and members of their communities is a big challenge. In this regard, the CBNRM programme is characterized by a weak economic generation of benefits hence appears as a failure in generating benefits to communities.
In years where economic benefits are generated, there are few and characterized by the lack of a distribution manual of guidelines to members hence the lack of a fair distribution model of the economic benefits members. The poor distribution of CBNRM financial and employment benefits threatens the critical issues affecting the sustainability of the programme.
There is little or no financial, employment and food benefits that communities derive from CBNRM at a household level result in Boards of Trusts being perceived as a corrupt elite that is interested in their individual benefits. This as a result has resulted with Boards in and out of court defending motions of no confidence.
There is an inability to link CBNRM benefits to Natural Resource Conservation. One of the goals of the CBNRM is to have community participation in natural resource management. The assumption is that local involvement and ability to derive economic benefits from their resources in their local environment, they will develop positive attitudes towards natural resources hence use them sustainably. The CBNRM programme has achieved very little in conservation especially in Controlled Hunting Areas.
Finally, there is competition and contradictions between trophy hunting and photographic tourism and agricultural production. Trophy hunting was re-introduced in Botswana in 2019. However, some of the CHAs like Okavango Community Trust (OCT) and Okavango Kopano Mokoro Community Trust (OKMCT) moved away from trophy hunting while Sankoyo Community Trust, Mababe Zokatshma Community Trust, Chobe Enclave Community Trust (CECT), Nata Community Trust, PALEKA and other re-introduced trophy hunting.
Some of these contradictions are partly determined by tourism companies working with these Trust rather than science. However, trophy hunting when carried out following the sustainability ideals, it can be a conservation tool. Trophy hunting and photographic tourism are two separate land use options which can complement each other rather than compete with each.
The adoption of the CBNRM Bill in the Winter parliament was partly informed by these bottlenecks. Government assumes that the Bill will address the bottlenecks to promote rural development and conservation in the country.
