Girraffe family at the Manong Game Farm @FAO/Kewaone Ntshonga

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with government of Botswana recently launched the Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Community Conservancy Project in Habu village to complement existing efforts of sustainable wildlife management and improve livelihoods of the rural populace of the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area.

The four-year project, which is funded by French Development Agency (AFD), will support the development of community conservancies and implementation of activities such as wildlife monitoring, anti-poaching, grassland management, livestock husbandry and Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC). The SWM project will be led by FAO and implemented on the ground by Wildlife Entrust Africa who have vast experience in wildlife management within KAZA.

In his remarks, the FAO Representative Dr Rene Czudek applauded the AFD for availing funds to support conservation as this is in alignment with FAO’s Country Programming Framework (CPF) and the United Nations agenda 2030 and also contributes to the attainment of several Sustainable Development Goals. The project will benefit at least 1,500 people in Habu and other parts of the KAZA area.

“It is our hope that this pilot project with the Habu Community will showcase the benefits of Community-Based Natural Resources Management under a community conservancy model, and that this will inspire a growing network of areas under similar management in Botswana and across the KAZA landscape,” said Dr Czudek.

The Minister of Environment Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Hon. Philda Kereng also applauded partners for mobilising project funds in a bid to reconcile the challenges of wildlife conservation with those of food security in the Okavango Delta. The project will promote sustainable and legal exploitation of animal populations resilient to hunting by the rural population.

“Sustainable Wildlife Management approach can reconcile issues of food security, community wellbeing and biodiversity conservation. This project will support and take one step further community led efforts to integrate wildlife, livestock and rangeland management,” said Minister Kereng.

When highlighting some of the interventions already in place to mitigate HWC, the Community Trust Manager Mokadi Masedi noted that the Habu area has not had any Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak ever since the community and scouts started herding and grazing management which limits interaction between livestock and wildlife. He added that incidents of elephant attacks on humans had also declined as the animals now realise humans pose no harm to them. Scout patrols also assist the Department of Wildlife and National Parks to assess all claims of predator attacks on livestock as people used to falsely seek compensation from government whenever their livestock went missing without any evidence of predator attacks.

Ultimately, the SWM project will contribute to the creation of policies aimed at fostering community conservancies’ development, sustainable hunting, wildlife conservation and enhanced institutional and legal frameworks needed to implement those policies. The project is already promoting a similar approach in Zambia and Zimbabwe. The project will also aim to share successful models and practices among sites and to promote them to policy makers as well as public and private investors.