A place in the delta

By Mesh Moeti

A concession in the Okavango Delta is a highly priced possession. According to a recent study carried out under the ambit of Okavango Delta Management Plan (ODMP), tourism in the delta and its environs is estimated to generate an annual gross income of P1, 115 million, making a direct contribution of P401 million in terms of direct value to GDP. An estimated 80 percent of tourism value accrues to photographic tourism companies, 15.5 percent to hunting safari companies, and only 3.1 percent goes to communities through Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) arrangements.

In the rising tide for meaningful citizen participation in tourism, the delta is prime target. It’s remarkable that what used to be peripheral pronouncements by the early pioneers of citizen economic empowerment is now a sentiment that is freely expressed by officials in government offices.

District Tourism Officer, Lesedi Ntshekisang, points out that while a lot of citizens are employed in the industry, they hold marginal jobs.

“Batswana are not participating as we would wish them to when we talk of meaningful citizen participation,” she says.

This kind of talk is, obviously, a source of discomfort for the long established players.

Grant Woodrow heads one of the major and influential players in the industry – Wilderness Safaris. While he says he appreciates the demand for more Batswana to enter the industry, he points out that the industry is still in its infancy, and overtime it will develop into a citizen-dominated sector. He cautions that in the meantime, the industry must be allowed to grow.

He cites the recent development by University of Botswana to offer tourism courses as one of the factors that will lead to the industry being led by citizens “in the near future”.

“Empowerment is important, and we need to empower at every level, but it has to be done in a sustainable manner,” says Woodrow. “The spotlight is in the delta, but there is a change at all levels – and it’s happening at an acceptable rate. Such change must be managed well. We have serious competition as a country from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Southern Angola, Mozambique and Namibia. We need to ensure that we are strong to compete with this growing competition. These emerging alternative destinations are going to put serious stress on our industry”.

Map Ives – Wilderness Safaris’ environmental manager- is a native of Francistown who came to Maun in 1980. In that time, he has seen a number of worthy changes in the industry. He has seen more Batswana become involved in tourism at various levels, a far cry from 27 years back when citizen faces where those of the night watchman and the cleaner. He thinks if information could be put in historical context, it would shed light to “politicians, traditional leaders, and the average voter”.

Ultimately, Ives warns, change for change’s sake is not sustainable.

There is a point where Ntshekisang, the district tourism officer, agrees with Woodrow – and that is the relative infancy of the industry. She mentions it as a contributing factor to the low numbers of Batswana in the Industry. There are others, such as the high capitalization requirement, lack of product diversity, and general unawareness about the industry.

“We need to do a study to see how to eliminate barriers, and see meaningful citizen participation,” she says.

She says government is walking the empowerment talk. For instance, to qualify for future concessions, companies will have to demonstrate citizen involvement scheme, and skills transfer. She cautions that even with the best of intentions, Batswana would remain minor league players if they don’t get their attitude right.

“I still think Batswana lack the passion to go an extra mile. This industry is about service; it’s about the exceeding customer’s expectations,” she says.

In Sankuyu, a small village of about 700, the villagers have gathered at the kgotla for consultative meeting on one of their assets. The village is a beneficiary of the Community Based Natural Resource (CBNRM) initiative. The villagers’ interests are vested in the Sankuyu Tshwaragano Management Trust, which has three concessions for photographic as well as hunting safaris. The Trust is in a joint venture (JV) partnership with an established tour operator.

Today’s meeting is meant to solicit the villagers’ views on a request by the JV partner for rights to one of the campsites that belongs to the Trust. With a few objections, the verdict is finally reached – in favour of upholding the partner’s request.

The Sankuyu Tshwaragano Management Trust is Botswana’s most celebrated community-based initiative, in a country where projects of similar nature often collapse due to financial mismanagement.

The previous evening, we met the Trust’s trainee operations manager, Skipper Mareja, in Maun where the organisation maintains its major office. A past beneficiary of the scholarship programme that the Trust runs for the village’s children, the 26-years-old is being groomed to assume overall management of the organisation’s business activities. For now, he is content to bide his time as number two to an expatriate pro.

He explains the Trust’s twin organs: business arm (Trust Enterprises), and the social welfare aspect (Trust Activities). The Trust Enterprises wing’s mandate is to generate money, improve the products, and market them. Trust activities arm, on the other hand, disburses money voted for to finance community projects and programmes. The programmes that have won Sankuyo Tshwaragano Management Trust national acclaim include the funeral assistance scheme (P3 000 for a deceased adult, and P1 500 for a child aged under 12), and a biannual living allowance of P1500 for unemployed villagers aged 50 and above. It has built houses for all council-registered destitutes in the villages, and an entertainment centre that even has digital satellite television sets. On each compound stands a green dysfunctional toilet – the enviro loo – all constructed at the cost of P200 000. The Trust has recovered from the setback, and next year plans to install a water-borne system in each household.

The village leader is Gokgathang Timex Moalosi, who assumed this position in 1999, after 14 years working for various safari companies as a professional guide.

Now in his 40s, Moalosi has experienced sweeping changes in the villagers’ lifestyle in less than a generation. He recalls that in his youth, the community lived off subsistence farming. But as the wildlife increased people were impoverished. Elephants destroyed crops, while lions killed livestock. When government raised the buffalo fence, it effectively meant that the community could not bring any more livestock into the controlled area. Overnight, people who had been self-sufficient became destitute-until government introduced the CBNRM programme.

“The programme has created employment opportunities, leading to acquisition of skills about the tourism industry. Even more importantly, the standard of living in the village has improved a great deal,” says Moalosi.

As the village’s traditional leader, he is an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees.

The CBNRM programme is not without its critics. There are growing voices that say it contradicts one of the founding principles of our modern republic, which is that all natural resources belong to the entire nation, not the communities that live next to such resources. Diamonds are often given as an example of a natural resource that was exploited for the benefit of the entire nation.

Moalosi does not hide his impatience with this logic.

“Diamonds don’t stop anyone from cultivating their fields, and keeping cattle. Diamonds don’t kill anybody. People should differentiate between the various resources. Here, we talk of animals that have negatively impacted on our lives. We no longer plough because of elephants. We no longer rear livestock. Now, on what grounds would people from areas with mineral deposits be entitled to preferential treatment? Do you know that each time a new mine opens, government builds a road, and connects water and electricity to the place? Here, we have no electricity and telephones. People shouldn’t talk as if there is no money that goes to Bank of Botswana from tourism-related activities. Chobe National Park makes P17 million each year. Moremi Game Reserve makes P7 million, Nxai Pan generates between P3 million and P4 million. The communities of Sankuyo and Mababe only make P1 million each. How many camps are in the delta, and how much tax do they pay to government? What percentage accrues to communities under CBNRM programme? It’s only two percent. Is that what people are crying about? Look at the contribution of tourism to the national coffers, and compare that with the amount that goes to communities,” says Moalosi.

He warns that if the current benefit were taken away, communities would have no incentive to conserve wildlife.