The environmental impact of livestock ranches in the Kalahari, Botswana: Natural resource use, ecological change and human response in a dynamic dryland system

This paper examines the ways in which a policy aiming to improve both use o f an extensive dryland natural resource, and the well-being of rural people s in Botswana, has impacted on the environment and upon indigenous land-use activities. The impacts of the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) have been spatially and temporally variable. Previous assertions about its contribut ion to desertification may have been overstated, although environmental cha nges have certainly resulted from policy impacts. Effects upon traditional indigenous population coping strategies for environmental variability are c onsidered both in terms of subsistence activities and the ability to respon d to drought events. It is concluded that the policy has not met its enviro nmental, pastoral production or societal objectives, largely because it was founded on unestablished assumptions. Large-scale environmental degradatio n and desertification, however, cannot yet be attributed to the TGLP, but i t can be contended that the policy has reduced both environmental and socie tal resilience to natural environmental variability. Copyright (C) 2000 Joh n Wiley & Sons, Ltd.