Villagers threaten court action over fencing in Boteti
Baboki Kayawe | Friday August 4, 2017 15:18
Old wounds were opened this week when Khama told Parliament a fair number of the community was addressed on the issue. The crux of the long-standing issue between villagers in the periphery of the park and government is that consultations regarding the expansion of the fence will negatively impact on their livelihoods as the Boteti River will be enclosed in the park.
Responding to a question in Parliament this week from Francistown South legislator, Wynter Mmolotsi, who had sought an explanation to the circumstances that led to the relocation of people away from the Boteti River, and the subsequent fencing off, Khama said, “there are no plans to relocate communities adjacent to the fence as they will benefit from utilising the river like they did before and for fishing purposes.”
However, a task force elected by the affected villagers to take up this matter says a chunk of land from the Boteti West area, particularly Khumaga, will be lost to the expansion of the fence, leaving residents with no land for sustenance. The secretary general of the task team, Bapaletswe Motamma told Mmegi that government made a unilateral decision and they are surprised that Khama still insists consultation has been made.
He said this decision threatens the relocation of some residents as the Makgadikgadi boundary fence encroaches 50 metres further into the communal land. Following the erection of a game-proof fence to demarcate the boundary between the Makgadikgadi National Park and communal land in its vicinity, that was completed in the late 2000s to address long standing issues of livestock encroachment into the national park, the fence was dilapidated further worsening the human-wildlife conflict it was intended to curb.
As a result, the communities pleaded for the refurbishment of the fence. Moreover, owing to the land scarcity in the area, the constituents approached government asking for a piece of the state land. They had appealed for the realignment of the buffer fence 10 kilometres away from Khumaga village into the park, in order to address this matter but their request was in vain.
“We are surprised that the fence expansion is ongoing, though we have noted our dissatisfaction. Even recently, in mid -July, we told President Khama in a Kgotla meeting that we are baffled by the development because as the community, we have not been consulted on the matter. We are eagerly awaiting government to thoroughly engage us,” said Motamma. “We had hoped for the better, but we are really left with no option but to proceed and take the issue the legal way.
We thought government will do the right thing, but honestly the only way to address this is through the courts which we are approaching before end of September,” he added. Addressing this issue, Khama said to prevent destabilising livelihoods, there will be gates along the fence positioned at strategic points, which will be used by communities to have access to the Boteti River.
“Furthermore, water will be reticulated for their livestock,” he said. He explained that human-wildlife conflict is a serious concern in the northern part of the country and mostly occurs outside protected areas hence the decision to expand the boundary fence. Increased wildlife population coupled with increase in human population has led to conflict between the two as a result of competition for space or land, he added.
Khama further said in recent years government introduced different mechanisms to reduce human-wildlife conflict. One of them is constructing a non-lethal electrified fence around protected areas. “Hence the decision to re-align an electrified disease control fence adjacent to the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park to address the long-standing issues of problem animals, livestock encroachment and livestock disease control,” he said.
Khama further said the main objective for erecting the Makgadikgadi fence is to address the human-wildlife conflict issue by preventing wild animals encroaching into the communal land and on the other hand livestock from encroaching into the National Park.
“Wild animals are destroying crops and preying on livestock and also posing a danger to human life as there are high numbers of incidents in the Boteti Sub-District caused by wild animals,” Khama said.