Rethinking community resource management: managing resources or managing people in western Botswana?

Increasingly complex discussions concerning North-South relations and globa l environmental strategies are producing debate about the links between pov erty and the environment. This paper looks specifically at societal-environ mental interactions under the simultaneous impacts of climatic variability and structural land-use changes. The context of these changes is provided b y the establishment of Wildlife Management Areas in Botswana in 1986. The p aper examines the extent to which the recent implementation of community-ba sed natural resource management projects in the Kalahari Wildlife Managemen t Areas are changing access to, and use and management of, the natural reso urces of the rural populations living within these areas. These changes hav e important implications far the dynamics of livelihood strategies and thus the viability of resource-based livelihoods in the Kalahari environment.