Power dynamics and new directions in the recent evolution of CBNRM in Botswana

Abstract

Recently, the limited control of Botswana's community conservation organizations, or trusts, over resources has been further eroded. Community trusts now exist solely to disburse funds allocated by central government. The absence of any rights to control access to or use of their resources suggests the complete collapse of Botswana's original community‐based natural resources management (CBNRM) model. This collapse could facilitate fresh approaches that return to the original intentions currently lost behind the CBNRM acronym. Access and control can be more clearly framed through broader environmental stewardship frameworks that include moving below the homogenized community identity to specific resource user groups; broadening the conservation focus beyond monetized wildlife to include other resources and ecosystem processes; and establishing formal conservation agreements separately for specific resources, with the trust coordinating adherence to the rights and responsibilities held by individual users on the one hand, and government or public agencies on the other.

Wildlife impacts and vulnerable livelihoods in a transfrontier conservation landscape

“…However, the conservation areas forming our 3 study sites varied in their governance and management relevance. For example, de facto decision making is most strongly devolved in Namibia, where area chiefs retain some authority(Cassidy 2020),( 2010) and trophy hunting provides the principal and sustained revenue source. In contrast, the highly centralized governance system in Botswana devolve little functional authority to its community‐based areas (Gupta 2013), and trophy hunting represents an uncertain revenue stream because it was only recently reinstated following a 5‐year moratorium.…”

Adaptation and evolution of institutions and governance in community‐based conservation

“…Drake et al (2021), Kicheleri, Mangewa, Nielsen, Kajembe, and Treue (2021), and Salerno et al (2021) each report dynamics from long‐running wildlife‐based CBC interventions in Africa, representative of the early CBC model from the 1990s, and show varied outcomes on community governance and institutions, with a lack of community agency being a common thread among interventions. Cassidy (2021) and Nelson, Mupeta‐Muyamwa, Muyengwa, Sulle, and Kaelo (2021) go further to argue that there has been a trend toward governments recentralizing control over wildlife in Africa, against the core tenet of CBC, although there may still be examples of strong community institutions enduring under the right conditions. Strong state policy yielding varied outcomes is also illustrated through a rapid move to decentralized forest management in Indonesia (Meijaard et al, 2021), where some communities could secure forest and livelihood gains, but many could not.…”

“…However, these contributions are careful to note that significant challenges remain for CBC in the region, and that CBC institutions are unlikely to change following the programmatic design anticipated by interventions. Cassidy (2021) details the process of increasingly centralized control of CBC in Botswana, yet they also note potential for a path forward that involves a polycentric or modular approach to enable and incentivize local institutions to engage as independent actors in wildlife management.…”

“…Focusing at the national level, Cassidy (2021) provides a critique of CBC in Botswana, arguing that any real decision‐making authority that communities once had over wildlife and resources has been eroded by the central government, with CBC now existing only in name and to disburse funds. And yet, local governance institutions in Botswana hold potential to contribute to conservation goals while provisioning local benefit from lands and resources, if communities were to be meaningfully integrated into policy and management.…”

More robust local governance suggests positive effects of long‐term community conservation

“…For instance, conservancies in Namibia retain relative autonomy of decision-making at the community and CBC level, such as in managing lands and wildlife for consumptive and nonconsumptive tourism (Naidoo et al, 2015), though the central government still maintains some authority (Hoole & Berkes, 2010). Botswana, by comparison, is undergoing a recentralization of control over wildlife and natural resources, with implications for the limited role local CBC governance can play in supporting livelihoods (Cassidy, 2020). And as is the case in Tanzania, even within a particular national context, CBC initiatives experience a diversity of opportunities and constraints, such as in endowments of wildlife, economic development potential, and existing social structure, all of which shape the interactions among communities, CBC interventions, and central states (Shackleton et al, 2010).…”