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The ‘trapped’ Western panhandle villages

Stuck between rampaging wildlife and a few income options, the people of four villages in the Delta’s Western panhandle are pioneering sustainable wildlife solutions. If only the Land Board would play its part, they say.


MBONGENI MGUNI writes
Mmegi 18 Apr 2025


Villagers in Tubu in the Western panhandle are getting desperate. Whilst other areas in the north-west enjoy healthy seasonal incomes from their controlled hunting quotas, Tubu villagers believe their allocation is too small, especially when compared to the damage wildlife, particularly elephants, cause to their limited attempts at subsistence agriculture.

Controlled hunting quotas are designed to ensure communities benefit from the values of the wildlife resource. The revenues received by communities from the quotas also strengthen the sense of stewardship of these animals for their conservation.

As attacks and damage increase, with limited

alternative revenues, the frustration is growing in Tubu.

“In Tubu, we are not seeing any value or benefit in wildlife,” Bakae Semakata, an elderly community member told a recent sustainable wildlife management meeting held in Gaborone. “When wildlife kills my cattle, I even feel that they should be exterminated.

“Others say we are benefiting through the elephant quota but it is not enough.

“We have many elephants there but we only get three in the quota, yet these are the same elephants that we spend money fixing our fields and tractors only for them to damage.”

Another community elder from neighbouring Nokaneng expressed the same feelings. “If you have been taking care of wildlife for a long time and don’t see value from it, you get depressed. “Elephants smell the water in the village and come for that and come for us too, yet those of us who are farming do not really get anything.

“Those areas that are getting 15 elephants in their quota do not even have that 15 – we have them!”

The issues coming out of Tubu and Nokaneng are common and familiar to communities living in the north-west, the wildlife rich wetlands where citizens reside next to iconic species such as elephants.

The area is the epicentre of the country’s Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC) where wildlife, particularly elephants, do regular battle with villagers in the fight for survival.

Controlled hunting activities were designed to boost incomes in areas of lower photographic tourism potential, helping communities rely less on the farming activities that are susceptible to HWC.

Last season, community hunting quotas around the country generated P42.9 million which community trusts invested in various developmental and revenue-generating projects.

However, in the Western panhandle, frustrations are running high. Years ago, the area’s four villages, Gumare, Habu, Nokaneng and Tubu, developed a sustainable management plan aimed at addressing HWC, climate change, environmental management, and employment creation.

The initiative was developed by the Habu community who successfully secured P2.5 million in funding from the National Environment Fund for various interventions aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Habu village kgosi, Mod Masedi, explained that of the initial funding, P1.2 million had been disbursed.

“We did a study to try and map all the cattle posts so that we could have planned grazing and avoid HWC.

“We developed a programme on community capacity building and also land use zoning as well as sustainable environmental management and water development because without water, these animals get closer to the people and so we even drilled boreholes for wildlife.

“We came up with plans for diversified socio-economic development because our area is mostly cattle farming but we want to move towards different business models to engage our youth. “We now have 50 community scouts who are youths and they have been in place for the past five years. “These scouts have basic wildlife management skills as well as cattle husbandry and when they see predators, they report and take GPS.

“They take coordinates when they see poachers as well and report to the Botswana Defence Force,” he said.

Habu was able to secure the buy-in of the other three villages and through numerous meetings, the area developed plans for a community multi-purpose land use plan featuring various revenue generating initiatives as well as an expansion of the Habu interventions across the region.

The Tawana Land Board was requested to approve the plan and release the land, enabling the four villages to access the balance of NEF funding and progress with the plan. Other donors are also waiting on the approval of the plan to release their funds.

“The community multipurpose land use will not only ensure achievement of community socio-economic direct benefit aimed at perpetuating the survival and functioning of wild species and ecosystem but shall entail trading off short term and direct resource use and socio-economic benefits in exchange for more diffused, longer-term societal gain such as maintaining biodiversity, ecosystem services, and economic aesthetic benefits,” the plan reads.

Years since the four villages agreed upon and submitted their plans, the land board is yet to release the land required for the plan, raising frustrations in the area.

Community leaders say the land board has grown silent despite numerous efforts, including correspondence.

As a result, the fate of the P1.3 million left in funding is now at risk, together with the plans for socio-economic development and sustainable wildlife management.

“This is tribal land that the land board is holding on our behalf,” Masedi said.

“Perhaps we should just break the law and do our own thing because how can we be waiting for these many years just to develop a cultural village?

“Why are we suffering? Ngamiland used to be one of the richest places in Botswana and now it is one of the poorest because of this.

“We are likely to lose the second part of the funding and the 50 youths employed are going to go onto the streets.

“Guys, come on! Can we get a better resolution”? At the sustainable wildlife management meeting in Gaborone, government officials did not have responses to the communities’ questions and fears.

The land board has equally been difficult to reach.

The communities that are most at risk from wildlife have developed their own solutions to sustainably live side by side with the animals, but the answers from the bureaucrats are still pending.