Outcomes of social and environmental change in the Kalahari of Botswana: the role of migration

Migration now features prominently both in poverty-reduction discourses, as a 'tool' for reconciling rural populations with available resources, and i n sustainable livelihoods debates, as a 'coping strategy' employed in rimes of livelihood stress. This paper assesses the contemporary significance of migration as populations are affected by the dual impacts of natural envir onmental variability and structural land-use change in the Kalahari of Bots wana. Three study areas, located across the arid to dry-sub-humid climatic gradient, were investigated. These had been redesignated as commercial ranc hing areas under the Tribal Gracing Lands Policy of 1975. Under this policy , pre-existing populations were to be resettled in specially designated Ser vice Centres that were expected to reduce poverty and improve livelihood op portunities and household food security. The findings of this study reveal that the policy was accompanied by extensive population displacement rather than migration per se as ranch owners exercised their exclusive rights to the land. While some ranch populations moved to Service Centres, lack of in frastructure and alternative livelihood opportunities forced many of them b ack into ranch areas It here many now live as squatters dependent on the go odwill of ranch owners. Thus the policy has not resulted in envisaged seden tarisation but instead has produced a population of transients involved in a number of highly localised moves. The mobility patterns of absent househo lders provided some evidence to suggest that, despite rapid urbanisation, r ural to urban migration from the study areas was limited as were associated remittance flows, suggesting that TGLP areas may not be currently integrat ed within a national migration system. There were significant differences i n the implementation of the policy between study areas and these difference s have had a considerable bearing on the population's ability to respond to environmental variability. In one of the Study Areas (Ncojane), severe dro ught has resulted in a more flexible implementation of ranches: fences had been taken down, and people and cattle were able to more between ranches in search of water and veld products. Population mobility here was thus a sig nificantly coping strategy, ironically where commercial ranch owners had re verted back to the old cattle-post system which emphasises circulation and reciprocity.