Escaping cruel irony in Ngamiland
Boniface Keakabetse | Friday June 26, 2015 15:16
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) administrator, Helen Clarke came bearing gifts for the battle-weary residents of Ngamiland during her recent visit. Namely a shiny, new Sustainable Land Management (SLM) project which aims to defuse the ticking timebomb that is Ngamiland’s deteriorating ecosystem. At the heart of the district’ woes is an expanding population whose numbers are weighing on the finite natural resources. The resources themselves are divided between the tourism and pastoral sectors with frequent turf wars between the two.
Being a semi-arid region, Ngamiland’s grazing land is historically limited and cattle farmers who cannot afford to buy feed for the livestock have frequently been accused of leading their beasts to pastures beyond the buffalo fence.
By grazing their stock in areas designated for wildlife, the farmers have also been blamed for the frequent outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease that have plagued the district’s ranching industry over the years.
Conflicts between livestock owners and wildlife operators have been regular, accentuating the environmental problem in the district.
The FMD outbreaks have ironically contributed to cattle overstocking in the area, as farmers have been barred from taking their livestock to slaughter.
For more than 15 years, there has been limited cattle offtake from the district due to FMD, putting a massive strain on grazing pastures.
Rampant veldt fires fuelled by the dry, semi-arid climate in the area, are recurrent, consuming swatches of grazing land and increasing pressure on its competing uses.
A picture of the crisis can also be seen in wildlife numbers in the district.
According to Statistics Botswana, Ngamiland has the country’s broadest diversity of wildlife species, but these have come under strain in recent years. According to the report, the antelope family has suffered the most over the decades, presumably because the genus has not enjoyed the protection accorded to endangered species such as rhinos.
Between 2003 and 2014, the report notes, Ngamiland lost 3,692 gemsbok, 3,128 tsessebe, 987 steenbok, 266 hartebeest, 126 waterbucks and gemsbok.
The P39 million SLM project is intended to turn around the crisis.
“The project will improve effective range management in over one million hectares to support the livelihoods of communities in Ngamiland,” says Clarke as she launched the SLM project offices.
“We understand that Ngamiland people have been raising cattle for a long time and there are challenges in the region such as human wildlife conflict, FMD and others.
“These have had a great impact on farmers as they are not selling to the European market and these predicaments have contributed to the poverty in the region.”
SLM project coordinator in Ngamiland, Tiego Mpho, explains that the project will be implemented from 2014-2018 and is aimed at strenghtening capacity, improved policymaking and the institutional framework for environmental management.
It strives to enhance communities’ capacity for management of the ecosystem.
The project is divided into three parts, which comprise the commercial ranches in the protective zone of the Hainaveldt, the development of Lake Ngami Community Trust and addressing bush and fire encroachment at Tsodilo Hills.
“The Tsodilo Hills component involves the establishment of a ‘first of its kind’ fire detection system which is part of a fire management strategy,” he says.
“The system will cover and monitor 40 percent of the district’s rangeland against fire outbreaks.
“Areas to be covered include Hainaveldt, Tsodilo Hills and the Moremi Game Reserve area.
“It will detect fires though remote sensing and communicate warning messages by email and short message service to the identified fire and disaster management authorities.”
According to Mpho, the high incidence of fires in Ngamiland has been identified as one of the major threats to the savannah ecosystems, which threaten the wildlife and livestock sectors.
Two and half million hectares of rangeland burn down every year in the district and the system is intended to protect the fragile ecosystem.
Another component of the project includes the setting up of a fish processing plant in Sehitwa along Lake Ngami, which will be the country’s biggest. The capacity of the Lake Ngami Community Trust will also be bolstered to make the organisation more effective.
“We are currently helping the Trust to apply for funding from donors in order for them to set up camping sites around Lake Ngami. The aim of this is to improve effective utilisation of the abundant fish resources on the Lake,” Mpho explains.
The SLM project will also undertake a holistic baseline profiling of the Hainaveldt ranches region to identify the extent of overstocking, grass degradation and overgrazing. The target is to improve range management in the area.
“It has been discovered that some of the farmers at Hainaveldt, who were established there in 1975 under the Tribal Grazing Land Policy are not implementing improved range management as per policy,” Mpho says.
“Some of the farmers reportedly rear cattle in the farms as if they are in cattle posts with limited mobility and rotations resulting in degradation.
“In communal areas or cattle posts the project will pilot a pastoral system based on a combination of herding, kraaling and livestock movement.”
For his part, Hainaveldt Farmers Association chair, Phillip Wright explains that when the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) farms were established the idea was to improve the beef sector in the country.
However, he says, farmers were never given the requisite training by the government.
“Policy pronouncements on issues of stocking rates and range management were never well understood by farmers,” Wright says.
“The SLM project will solve some of these concerns.” Farmers in the area are keen to see the project’s success as it represents a new lease of life for a district plagued by natural and manmade disasters.