Study site description: Boteti, Botswana

Table of Contents

1. Responsible IP partner
2. General Information
   1. Site selection
   2. Local partners
3. Bio-physical description
4. Land and resource use
5. Socio-economic description
6. Relevant end-users / stakeholder groups
7. Past and on-going projects
8. Cited references

Site selection

This study site was chosen because it was the focus of Botswana's 1993 case study for the Intergovernmental Convention to Combat Desertification (INCD). It was picked then because it was one of the areas identified as "desertification" hotspots in the country and was also identified on the GLASOD map as an area of extreme human induced wind erosion (Gov. of Botswana, 1994). The Boteti area has consequently been one of foci of efforts to "combat desertification" and, between 2002 and 2007, was one of the sites for the Indigenous Vegetation Project (IVP), a five-year Botswana Government-GEF-funded pilot project for "community-driven rehabilitation of degraded rangelands" which could be replicated "throughout the arid zones of Africa" (IVP flyer). DESIRE is expected to build on these past and on-going efforts, which are all in line with the recently adopted National Action Programme to Combat Desertification (Department of Environmental Affairs, 2006, Botswana National Action Programme to Combat Desertification).