The Realities of Ecotourism Development in Botswana - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 183

ecotourism in Botswana is embedded in this approach. That is, there is a thin line
that can be drawn between CBNRM projects and ecotourism projects in
Botswana. Ecotourism activities in Botswana largely involve game viewing, bush
walks, safari hunting, camping, lodging, boat driving, mekoro (dug-in canoe)
safaris, story telling, dancing and many others. Some scholars have a narrower
definition of ecotourism that restricts it to tourist visits to nature-based areas and
excludes small-scale enterprises which rely on nature's resources to produce
artefacts such as baskets and the collection of veld products like devil's claw,
which are produced for sale to tourists and the tourist market. In addition, safari
hunting has been excluded by a number of scholars on the grounds that it is not
an ecotourism activity. However, in Botswana, rural communities which have
ecotourism projects use hunting as one of the main activities in their areas. Safari
hunting on a remote community level is conducted at a small scale and involves
selective and seasonal hunting; which animals are to be hunted is determined after
an annual total population survey of existing game is carried out. Considering
that these activities are produced on a small scale by rural communities in order to
make a living from tourism development, the definition of ecotourism in this
chapter is broadened to include these products and operations.
Many tourism operators in Botswana and around the world have misused the
term 'ecotourism', mostly for marketing purposes. Some operators who practise
mass tourism describe their businesses as ecotourism in order to attract tourists.
In Botswana, there are two forms of tourism developing in parallel to each other.
The first form is enclave tourism (Mbaiwa, 2005). Ceballos-Lascurain (1996)
defines enclave tourism as tourism that is concentrated in remote areas where the
types of facilities and their physical location fail to take into consideration the
needs and wishes of surrounding communities. The goods and services available
are beyond the financial means of the local communities and any foreign currency
generated may have only a minimal effect upon the economy of the host location
(Ceballos-Lascurain, 1996). Enclave tourism is well developed in the Okavango
Delta and is dominated by foreign safari companies and practitioners.The second
form is ecotourism implemented through the Community-Based Natural
Resource Management (CBNRM) programme. The CBNRM began in the mid-
1990s as a strategy to foster rural community and natural resource conservation
in remote areas. Botswana adopted an Ecotourism Strategy in 2002 to strengthen
local participation in tourism and conservation. Among some of its goals, the
strategy aims to: contribute actively to environmental conservation; involve local
communities in tourism planning, development and operation and contribute to
their well being; and promote nature-based tourists who are environmentally
friendly (Department of Tourism, 2002). The objective of this chapter, therefore,
is to explore in general the realities of ecotourism development in Botswana. The
chapter will focus on the success achieved and the problems associated with
ecotourism development in the country. The chapter will finally make suggestions
on how some of the problems of ecotourism development can be minimized in
Botswana.