Community Empowerment Through Community-Based Tourism: The Case of Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust in Botswana
5.3.2 Formation Process of a CBO
Before a community can use natural resources for commercial gains, a CBO has to be formed, a community management plan has to be developed, and legally registered (DWNP 2010). The first step involves community mobilization in which all stakeholders are involved and their views and needs are taken into consideration. At this stage many issues are supposed to be discussed, including “the concept of CBNRM and what it entails, its advantages and disadvantages and procedures for obtaining leases, sub-leasing to safari companies, entering into joint venture partnerships and legal requirements such as licenses, taxes and permits” (DWNP 2010: 11). Table 5.1 summarizes the institutional arrangement of CBNRM.
Table 5.1
Main features of CBNRMs institutional arrangement
Feature | Description |
|---|---|
Main focus | CBNRM main focus is biodiversity conservation and community development |
Actors involved | Donors/NGOs (e.g. USAID, AWF, KCS, CWF) assist with funding; Government Departments (e.g. DWNP, DoT, BTO) assist with strategic and policy device instruments; and community as the beneficiary |
Legal entity | The arrangement is defined as a representative and accountable to the community. It is legitimate and legally recognized by the country laws, as it is registered as a deed of trust, thus it is responsible for all the decisions it makes on behalf of the community |
Ownership | Land is owned by the government, the community has only user rights |
Management | Partnership between community and private sectors |
Sources of finance | Donors and community-private joint venture capital funding |
Contribution to conservation | Conservation of biodiversity, endeavour to reconcile human-wildlife conflicts and promotion of wildlife-community coexistence |
Contribution to livelihood | Income generation from the sale of wildlife quota, photographic tourism, payment of fees, employment, purchasing of local produce, investments in agriculture, better housing |
The mobilization stage is followed by the socio-economic survey, where details on the socio-economic conditions of the community, including their history, existing institutions, educational background, household incomes, employment status, ownership of assets, lifestyle and type of skills are collected (DWNP 2010).
The third stage involves the formation of the CBO. The CBO must be a Representative and Accountable Legal Entity (RALE) (Arntzen et al. 2003). A RALE is defined as an organization that is “representative and accountable to the community and also responsible for all the decisions it makes on behalf of the community” (DWNP 2010: 11). Therefore, it should act in the interest of the community, inform members of all decisions taken, operate democratically and be responsive to the needs of the community (Hancock and Potts 2010).
Furthermore, a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has to be formed, which is made up of government officials. The TAC has to be satisfied with how the RALE is set up (Hancock and Potts 2010). A constitution governing and regulating the CBO should also be developed (DWNP 2010). Next, natural resource use planning and user rights are obtained by the community. The community has to develop a land use management plan in line with government policies and laws (Hancock and Potts 2010). In order to obtain access to a Controlled Hunting Area (CHA), a management plan has to be submitted to a land authority (Gujadhur 2000). Also at this stage, the community has to come up with an inventory of all natural resources in their area, resource utilization options, zoning of the CHA into concessions for commercial photographic tourism and hunting areas (DWNP 2010). This process attracts a lot of external assistance in terms of funding and training as communities are inexperienced in coordinating and managing such activities (DWNP 2010).
Lastly, monitoring has to be put in place to ensure CBOs have information on the distribution and availability of natural resources in their area as well as the impact of their activities (Rozemeijer 2001).
5.4 Methods
5.4.1 Research Design
This chapter adopts a case study approach. Case studies require a problem that seeks a holistic understanding of the event or situation in question using an inductive logic from specific to more general terms (Patton 1990). The Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust (CECT) was selected as a case study because it was the first community project in the country and has been adopted as the model for implementing CBT elsewhere in Botswana. It is thus an instructive site to understand the nature and dynamics of community empowerment through CBT development. Some questions that the study addresses include: How does CBT empower communities? Does the community perceive itself as empowered? Is CBT informed by contextual settings? The answers to these questions provide a platform through which an assessment is made of whether community empowerment through CBT is feasible.
To obtain as complete a picture of the participants as possible, the interview selection process was guided by purposeful sampling. A total of 34 participants were interviewed between June and September, 2011. Respondents included CECT staff, board members and community leaders (i.e. the village chiefs, village development committee chairpersons, farmers’ association chairpersons, councilors, lodge managers, tourism and wildlife district officers). Purposeful sampling was chosen to aid the selection of information-rich stakeholders whose participation could illuminate the questions studied.
This study employed semi-structured, open-ended interviews administered in a face-to-face fashion to enable eliciting in-depth responses and extensive probing (Bailey 2007). A voice recorder was used to record the interview process. The data were transcribed verbatim. With the aid of Microsoft Word, through the use of track changes and comment boxes, text units were highlighted and labeled as codes to identify analytical categories. As suggested by Denzin and Lincon (2000), a codebook was developed consisting of code categories which were defined to help to consistently and systematically code all transcripts. The development of codes was guided by content analysis based on an inductive approach (Glasser and Strauss 1967). As suggested by Glasser and Strauss (1967) the idea is to become grounded in the data and to allow understanding emerge from the close study of texts. This grounded theory approach was only used to help analyze data, not to create theory. After the coding, themes were developed in order to answer this chapter’s research questions.
5.4.2 Study Area
The CECT is a CBO, consisting of five villages, namely Mabele, Kavimba, Kachikau, Satau and Parakarungu. The villages are located on a belt that runs along the Chobe Basin, forming an enclave surrounded by Chobe National Park. The Enclave villages are located within two controlled hunting areas: CH1 and CH2 where photographic and hunting tourism are practiced (see Fig. 5.2).
The enclave villages are accessible by a road that passes through the Chobe National Park. The estimated population of the enclave community is 4,108 (Kachikau: 1,356; Kavimba: 549; Mabele: 773; Parakarungu: 845 and Satau: 605 respectively) (Botswana 2011). The CECT community has a mixed economy based on three main domains: subsistence livestock rearing, crop production and wage employment. The cattle population owned by the CECT community is estimated at around 9,000 (informal interview, Department of Veterinary Services Coordinator). The local soil is dry, sandy and has poor crop yields mainly due to the arid desert environment.
CECT as a CBO is run by a board of trustees elected from each participating village. In total there are 15 board members (i.e. two members are elected by the general membership from each village and the chiefs by virtue of their positions are ex-officio members). The board is elected for a term of 3 years in office. The board works closely with all the village development committees (VDCs) which are responsible for the development of villages. Thus, income generated by CECT is allocated to VDCs to decide on what development to undertake.
The commencement of CBT can be traced back to several meetings held in 1989 to find ways to reduce human-wildlife conflicts and promote benefits through wildlife utilization (Jones 2002). The main agents for such change were NGOs – the Chobe Wildlife Trust (CWT), Kalahari Conservation Society (KCS), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and donors, such as the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) (Jones 2002). The government of Botswana was also actively involved in the provision of policy guidance. Due to community deficiency in technical expertise, community mobilization and wildlife utilization, NGOs and external funding from donors were identified as a remedy (Hazam 1999).
In 1991, a team of external advisors from the government’s Natural Resources Management Project (NRMP), funded by USAID, began working with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) to assist government in the implementation of CBNRM activities (Jones 2000). More specifically, the NRMP team began a series of meetings, first at district level, then with chiefs, headmen and village development committees (VDCs) and then the general village populations (Jones 2002). The WWF and CWT jointly drafted a proposal for support to the communities, highlighting issues like limited funding, need for technical assistance and capacity building to make CBT work (Jones 2000). Nevertheless, villagers were suspicious about the involvement of NGOs, particularly CWT. They expressed concerns about who would control the project and who would benefit (Jones 2002). Due to lack of consensus on what CWT would support and with advice from the DWNP/NRMP extension team, the DWNP director asked CWT to suspend its involvement and interest in the project in 1993 (Jones 2000). This affected the facilitation of the project especially on community capacity building. Without facilitation on capacity building and mobilization, in 1993, CECT was granted its first wildlife hunting quota and decided to put the quota out for tender by the private sector (see Sect. 5.5.2 for more details). Table 5.2 summarizes the overview of the main events in the development of CECT.
Table 5.2
Main events in the development of the institutional arrangement
Year | Main event |
|---|---|
1989 | Community mobilization: several meetings held to find ways to reduce wildlife-human conflicts and promote community beneficiation through wildlife utilization |
1990 | Funding made available through WWF and USAID |
1991 | A team of external advisors from the government’s NRMP began working with the DWNP to assist government in the design of CBNRM activities |
1992 | Discussions continued with the five CECT villages on the dynamics of participation. The main facilitators were NGOs (e.g. CWT) and KCS |
The WWF and CWT jointly drafted a proposal for support highlighting CBT limitations | |
1993 | CWT’s involvement in the project was suspended due to lack of consensus on its participation role |
The TAC was formed to advise the CECT. | |
A constitution governing CECT was developed | |
CECT was legally registered, given operating license and granted its first wildlife hunting quota | |
Due to lack of capacity CECT decided to put the quota out for tender by the private sector; an arrangement that still exists today |
Up to date, CECT manages the annually issued wildlife hunting quota in CH1 and photographic tourism in CH2 (see Fig. 5.2). How these CBT activities have empowered the communities is detailed in the next section.
5.5 Results
5.5.1 Political Empowerment
There seem to be two opposing insights on issues of what community political empowerment is. On the one hand the five villages have formed a formal institution to lead and facilitate community participation in tourism development and conservation. The creation of this new institution is interpreted as an indication of devolution of power from the central government to the community level. Indications of empowerment are that the community can now decide on what to do with funds generated from CBT. For example, every year when the income generated from CBT is ready for distribution, each village holds a forum to propose projects for funding. For example, in 2008 the community decided to buy each village a tractor; a total of five tractors with trailers and plowing equipment were purchased to boost agriculture and two general shops to provide service to the community. Before the general shops were built, the community used to travel more than 100 km to the town of Kasane to access shop services. In 2009 the community took a decision to fund three mechanized corn grinding mill projects, one cement brick molding project and five large size tents with chairs to help the community with shelter during wedding and funeral ceremonies. An annual general meeting is held where the board reports back to members on the operation, financial status of the project as well as discuss and take decisions whether the welfare of the project has politically and socially empowered the community.