Forest resource use
The forest resources offer several benefits, which include timber for building houses and fencing; veld products like fruits, medicine and firewood; habitat for various wildlife; windshields or breaks in this predominantly plains area is an ecotone characteristic of the area (the mophane woodland). The study area has a wide variety of veld-products which are collected. These include wild fruits, nuts, berries, melons, honey, tubers and vegetable leaves used as medicine. Plant products also include thatching grass, poles and branch fences. Gathering of veld-products is important because the area has a low population density, so these resources are still relatively abundant.
The vegetation resource in the Boteti area has always been relatively abundant but is suffering from decline, mainly due to heavy resource use pressure. Resource use and over-use is typically determined by the resources potential on the one hand, and on the other hand on the number of resource users, the scale of their resource exploitation activity. The major systems of resource use in the study area are listed below.
