Mmegi

UK showdown exposes urgent need for CBNRM law

To the streets: Members of community trusts that live alongside wildlife recently marched in Gaborone, asserting their rights to earn value from the country’s natural resources 
PIC: MORERI SEJAKGOMO
To the streets: Members of community trusts that live alongside wildlife recently marched in Gaborone, asserting their rights to earn value from the country’s natural resources PIC: MORERI SEJAKGOMO

Experts have said the showdown in the Westminster over hunting is exposing the urgent need to transform the Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) policy into a law, a call that has been repeatedly made over the last decade.

CBNRM is a conservation-based development approach that recognises that natural resources coexist with people who rely on them for their subsistence.

A CBNRM Act would have been a powerful tool in the arguments presented by the communities who spent this week in London lobbying the House of Commons and the House of Lords on the anti-hunting bill being considered by the UK. Professor Brian Child who specialises on inclusive wildlife economy, which emphasises involving rural people through CBNRM, explains the critical importance of CBNRM.

Editor's Comment
Human rights are sacred

It highlights the need to protect rights such as access to clean water, education, healthcare and freedom of expression.President Duma Boko, rightly honours past interventions from securing a dignified burial for Gaoberekwe Pitseng in the CKGR to promoting linguistic inclusion. Yet, they also expose a critical truth, that a nation cannot sustainably protect its people through ad hoc acts of compassion alone.It is time for both government and the...

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