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From "Project" to "Context": Community Based Natural Resource Management in Botswana

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  • Larry A. Swatuk

Abstract

Community based natural resource management (CBNRM) programs presently proliferate across the Global South. In Southern Africa, CBNRM overwhelmingly focuses on wildlife conservation in areas adjacent to national parks and game reserves. The objects of these development activities are remote communities that exhibit the highest levels of poverty in the region, the consequences of which are sometimes resource degradation. CBNRM seeks to empower and enrich the lives of these communities through the active co-management of their natural resource base. Almost without exception, however, CBNRM projects have had disappointing results. Common explanations lay blame at the feet of local people who are seen to lack capacity and will, among other things. This paper contests this explanation by subjecting the particular case of Botswana to a deeper, critical political ecology analysis. Drawing on insights from Homer-Dixon regarding resource capture and ecological marginalization, and from Acharya regarding the localization of global norms, the paper argues that CBNRM is better understood as a discursive site wherein diverse actors bring unequal power/knowledge to bear in the pursuit of particular interests. In Botswana this manifests at a local level as an on-going struggle over access to land and related resources. However, given that CBNRM is supported by a wide array of international actors, forming perhaps the thin edge of a wider wedge in support of democratization, good governance and biodiversity preservation, locally empowered actors are forced to adapt their interests to the strictures of emergent structures of global governance. The outcome is a complex interplay of activities whereby CBNRM is realized but not in a form anticipated by its primary supporters. Copyright (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Larry A. Swatuk, 2005. "From "Project" to "Context": Community Based Natural Resource Management in Botswana," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 5(3), pages 95-124, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:5:y:2005:i:3:p:95-124
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    Cited by:

    1. Service Opare, 2011. "Sustaining water supply through a phased community management approach: lessons from Ghana’s “oats” water supply scheme," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 13(6), pages 1021-1042, December.
    2. Poteete, Amy R. & Ribot, Jesse C., 2011. "Repertoires of Domination: Decentralization as Process in Botswana and Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 439-449, March.
    3. Sebele, Lesego S., 2010. "Community-based tourism ventures, benefits and challenges: Khama Rhino Sanctuary Trust, Central District, Botswana," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 136-146.
    4. José Álvarez-García & Amador Durán-Sánchez & María De la Cruz Del Río-Rama, 2018. "Scientific Coverage in Community-Based Tourism: Sustainable Tourism and Strategy for Social Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Pienaar, Elizabeth F. & Jarvis, Lovell S. & Larson, Douglas M., 2014. "Using a choice experiment framework to value conservation-contingent development programs: An application to Botswana," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 39-48.
    6. Júlia Marins Costa & Larry A. Swatuk & Alexandre Ferreira Lopes, 2022. "Identifying stakeholders and discussing a strategy for the participatory management of a protected area: the case of Engenho Pequeno, in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(11), pages 13260-13281, November.
    7. Mbaiwa, Joseph E., 2011. "Changes on traditional livelihood activities and lifestyles caused by tourism development in the Okavango Delta, Botswana," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1050-1060.

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