New horizons for community-based eco-tourism in northeastern botswana

 

 

Project Location Funding Level Funding Period
Lekhubu Island Eco-Tourism Project Mmantshumo Village, Botswana $250,000 FY 2004-2008



Located on a solitary hillside that juts out of Botswana's vast Makgadikgadi salt pans, Lekhubu was once an island surrounded by a large inland sea. Its breathtaking vistas, majestic baobabs and its historical significance to Botswana's San peoples make Lekhubu an important destination for eco-tourists seeking an "authentic experience of Botswana's natural beauty and rich, indigenous culture.

Located on a solitary hillside that juts out of Botswana's vast Makgadikgadi salt pans, Lekhubu was once an island surrounded by a large inland sea. Its breathtaking vistas, majestic baobabs and its historical significance to Botswana's San peoples make Lekhubu an important destination for eco-tourists seeking an "authentic experience of Botswana's natural beauty and rich, indigenous culture.



Southern Africa's eco-tourism industry has enjoyed a tremendous boom in recent years as popular interest in global environmental issues has risen among the citizens of high-income European, North American, and east Asian nations. Yet while many Batswana earn cash income through work as tour guides and service personnel at eco-tourism camps in the Okavango Delta region, there is virtually no local ownership over the dozens of commercial tourist operations that deliver the "authentic experience" of Botswana to a wider world.

 In 1998, ADF helped the Okavango Polers Trust (OPT) of Seronga construct an environmentally friendly overnight campground along the Okavango's picturesque eastern shoreline. The OPT facility boasts beautiful thatched-roof cabins equipped with solar cells that provide guests with heated showers and electric light. The Foundation also provided OPT with capital for a revolving-loan fund that financed the individual purchase of fiberglass mekoro (dugout canoes) by the Trust's 75 members. Each of the polers uses his mokoro use to carry visitors out to remote delta islands.[1]

The baobabs of Lekhubu at sunset.

The baobabs of Lekhubu at sunset.

The new facility has channeled international tourist dollars directly to communities that surround the Delta's panoramic lakes and marshes, and it has helped dozens of families in a remote area of northern Botswana earn enough money to replenish cattle herds devastated by a regional lung sickness epidemic.

Building on this initiative, ADF is now supporting the Gaing-O Community Trust (GCT) of northeastern Botswana's Mmantshumo Village in its efforts to transform one of Botswana's most breathtaking national wonders, Lekhubu Island, into a primary destination for international visitors.

Twenty-thousand years ago, the bare rock kopjes of Lekhubu jutted out of the surface of a large inland sea fed by rainwaters that rolled across the plains of Botswana from the plateaus of central Angola. Over the millennia, increasingly dry conditions evaporated the lake and left behind a broad plain of salt pans known as the Makgadikgadi. Lekhubu is today dotted by massive baobab trees and the archaeological remnants of San hunter gatherers, who used Lekhubu's sight lines to locate game and its hillocks to commune with the divine.

An outcropping of rocks perches above the Makgadikgadi salt pans at sunset.

An outcropping of rocks perches above the Makgadikgadi salt pans at sunset.

Concerned that unregulated tourist activity on the island would ultimately destroy its historical, cultural and natural resources, Mmatshumo's 1,600 residents formed a committee to protect the island and its surrounding pans from further encroachment, and with assistance from the Government of Botswana's National Monuments, Museum and Art Gallery (NMMAG) and the Permaculture Trust of Botswana, a non-governmental organization promoting sustainable use of natural resources, GCT was formed through broad-based participatory development process.

With support from ADF, GCT will seek to make the trust's preservation activities economically sustainable by funding:

The development of two campsites near Mmatshumo Village;

The training of Mmatshumo residents in business management, financial management and tourist management, and project monitoring and evaluation methods;

The purchase of campsite materials, facilities for cooking and waste disposal, and a vehicle for transporting fresh food and water to the island;

Market research and market advertising and outreach; and

The development of a Web site that will allow international guests to book reservations directly with GCT.

It is expected that these inputs will allow GCT to double the total number of visitors to Lekhubu from about 3,200 in year one of the project to nearly 6,500 in year five. The income that the trust generate from camping fees and the sale of guided tours, food, drink, firewood, and other essentials is expected to triple current earnings and provide residents of Mmatshumo with sufficient financial resources to protect the biophysical and archaeological resources of the area and generate permanent employment for dozens of local residents in a region that has not directly benefited from Botswana's impressive rate of economic growth over the past two decades.

[1] In Setswana and other Bantu languages, noun declensions are indicated with prefixes rather than suffixes. Therefore, the singular for dugout canoe is mokoro, while the plural ismekoro. Similarly, prefixes in Bantu languages are used to modify the attributes or characteristics of nouns. For example, Botswana indicates the nation of Botswana while Batswana indicates the people of Botswana, or the larger group of Setswana-speaking peoples who live across contemporary southern Africa.

1400 I Street NW, 10th Floor | Washington. D.C. 20005-2248 | P: 202-673-3916 | F: 202.673.3810