Weaknesses of existing land use practices
The study area used to be well endowed with a variety of wildlife such as wildebeest, various antelopes, zebras and predators. However, wildlife populations have rapidly declined in recent years especially outside the game reserves. Rapid decline of wildlife is caused by factors such as: serious droughts, reduced flooding of the river, increased hunting of wildlife and increased competition with human activities, especially livestock production, some of which reduce the wildlife migratory possibilities. Particularly significant in this regard is the creation of animal disease control fences which have effectively curtailed migration between the dry south and wetter north. Wildlife utilization (e.g. hunting, tourism) is significant as the Boteti River is located between two Game Reserves, and the study area is on an important migration route for wildlife. Therefore, competition for river water between wildlife and livestock intensifies during droughts.
Equally challenging are the declines in biomass production during the cyclical droughts. It is worth noting that a semi-arid environment has a variable carrying capacity for livestock. When the rains are good and the vegetative reproduction is very high, the stocking rate typically increases with the good veld or range. It is when droughts set in, that the original livestock starts to overgraze the range, leading to land degradation. Thus the degradation issue is two-pronged: the onset of droughts coupled with high stocking rates which are not adjusted by the farmers to match with changing climatic factors.
