Study site description: Boteti, Botswana

Table of Contents

1. Responsible IP partner
2. General Information
3. Bio-physical description
4. Land and resource use
5. Socio-economic description
   1. Population density and structure
   2. Level of education
   3. Sources of income and key livelihood supports
   4. Impacts of land degradation on the livelihood of people
   5. Major challenges of existing land resource management
   6. Major drivers of main land degradation processes
   7. Institutional and legislative setting
6. Relevant end-users / stakeholder groups
7. Past and on-going projects
8. Cited references

Impacts of land degradation on the livelihood of people

The study area is squeezed between two game reserves. Recently, large chunks of land have been hived off from communal rangeland area to create private leasehold ranches. The net effect of this situation is to reduce the amount of land available for free ranging livestock and arable farming, resulting in overstocking, overgrazing and livestock-arable production land use conflicts. This, in combination with adverse physical environmental (especially climatic) factors, accounts for the low productivity of agropastoralism in the area. Game reserves and ranches have also reduced the area from which to collect bush (veld) products for household functions (Government of Botswana, 2003). Overgrazing, indiscriminate cutting of trees for construction, firewood and fencing, as well as livestock trampling of the soil and the relatively high seasonal winds account for the dust storms frequently experienced in the area.

Figure 7: Dust pollution in Boteti (J.R. Atlhopheng)