8. One may distinguish three areas of government activity which are important for natural resource management:
a. incentives or discentives for resource management, usually provided at the national level;b. regulation of access to natural resources by means of land and water-use planning. Such planning is mostly carried out at the national and/or district level; and
c. direct support for the resource users, mostly at the local level.
Sustainable resource management requires reinforcing actions in all areas; sustainable resource management can easily be frustrated by conflicting signals to natural resource users. Below, we briefly characterise Botswana's overall resource management policies and other relevant sectoral policies.
Natural resource management
9. Assisted by the diamond boom and the related rapid increase in government revenues, the Government of Botswana has been able to develop various support programmes for sectors such as livestock, arable production and non-agricultural production. Until recently, the country did not have a comprehensive environmental policy. In December 1990, Parliament passed the new National Conservation Strategy. Its content was, however, unknown when this paper was being prepared. 3 Prior to the establishment of this policy, there were, however, a number of regulations to improve natural resource management. Economic instruments are rarely used for the purpose, and where they are used, instruments such as subsidies, prices and taxes are in most cases geared toward encouraging short-term production increases. Such a short-term timeframe has potential negative environmental effects. Recently, policy changes have been proposed, including targeting of subsidies (e.g., to specific areas or groups) and more attention to potential environmental impacts of subsidies (MOA, 1990). Pending the implementation of the new environmental policy, one should be alert to the prevailing weaknesses in the management of natural resources, to the potential neglect of cross-sectoral effects, as well as to the inadequate coordination between sectors and the pursuit of ad-hoc solutions to environmental problems.
10. Land-use planning at district level is being strengthened at a rapid pace, and opportunities to control land use are improving substantially. However, water-use planning still appears primarily aimed at meeting demand, and is in effect rarely used to control societal activities (with the exception of the borehole-spacing policy discussed below). Until recently, the government has been hesitant to design policies for specific regions or population groups. Consequently, some programmes do not address essential regional issues or issues relevant to specific strata (e.g., arable support programmes in Western Botswana).
Instruments for rangeland management
11. Most instruments used to promote proper rangeland management are of a regulatory nature. Two laws guide access to and management of rangelands. First, the Tribal Land Act of 1970 regulates the allocation and management of tribal land. The Act gave substantial powers to district Land Boards (LBs), which may allocate land, cancel land rights and impose restrictions on land use. In addition, they may grant rights to groundwater (mostly boreholes) which is vital for cattle during the dry season. The LBs continued to apply the traditional rule that boreholes be 8 km. apart. This rule has been useful in limiting the extent of overgrazing; however, it has not proved adequate in preventing overgrazing from occurring because the number of livestock remains uncontrolled and the rule does not incorporate regional differences and inter-annual variations in carrying capacity. Further, the Tribal Land Act does not either restrict or regulate the movement from freehold and leasehold land into communal land (so-called dual grazing rights).
12. Second, the Agricultural Resources Conservation Act of 1974 provides some opportunities for the rehabilitation of degraded rangelands by means of stock control and conservation orders. The act also creates opportunities to control the harvesting of scarce natural resources (e.g., thatching grass and certain wood species) by issuing licenses at a fee. The Agricultural Resources Board (ARB) is responsible for its implementation, but this body has so far not issued any such orders; instead persuasion and education are emphasised, but (for the time being?) without clear successes.
Livestock policies
13. The livestock sector attracts substantial government subsidies, and benefits from the high-priced EEC market in which Botswana has been allocated a beef export quota are directly passed on to cattle sellers: both factors add to the perceived comparative ecological advantage of the livestock sector (see Presidential Committee on Economic Opportunities, 1982: Fidzani, 1985). An effective veterinary service and good marketing facilities have contributed to the rapid expansion of this sector. During the 1980s, the slaughtering capacity for beef export purposes has expanded substantially with two additional Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) abattoirs in the north, making it more attractive to northern farmers to sell cattle to the BMC.
14. Because of government subsidies livestock holders do not pay the direct users' costs. Moreover, the livestock holders and sector are not charged for the external environmental costs such as rangeland degradation and costs inflicted on other economic sectors (Perrings et al., 1988). During the 1980s, crop and small stock prices have been raised substantially, but the impact on investors' behaviour cannot yet be established due to the serious drought during 1981 to 1987.
15. In 1975, a White Paper on the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) appeared with the dual aim of preserving rangelands and simultaneously increasing livestock production. TGLP's main components comprised a comprehensive land-use planning exercise, and the designation of tribal land for commercial (leasehold) ranching. TGLP also included additional elements for boosting commercial production on the ranches as well as livestock production in the communal areas. The latter was to be achieved by a reduction in stocking rates following the movement of large herds from the communal to the leasehold areas (Government of Botswana, 1975).
16. TGLP has been plagued by numerous problems, and it is generally considered unsuccessful in meeting its original objectives (for more details see Sandford, 1980; Bekure and Dyson-Hudson, 1982; CARG, 1984). For example, stocking rates did not drop in communal areas. The opposite most likely occurred because people had to move herds from the leasehold to the communal areas, and ranchers probably used their exclusive land rights only to increase their herds. Moreover, there is no evidence that livestock production increased. Assistance to livestock production in the communal areas has been limited. Trials with a top-down approach of community-based rotational grazing failed because, among other things, communities were unwilling to set aside part of "their" grazing land for exclusive use by a few community members (Sweet, 1987). Presently, bottom-up experiments are being carried out to establish alternative grazing management schemes.
17. In line with the deep-rooted, but yet unproven, conviction that fencing is necessary to boost livestock investments and better management, fencing of communal grazing land by individuals or communities has recently been proposed (MOA, 1990); we do not know whether this proposal has been translated into definitive government policy.
Policies towards other rural sectors
18. Presently, crop production and non-agricultural activities are the main alternatives to livestock production. Nonagricultural activities may comprise a wide range of activities such as beer brewing, construction work, firewood sales and formal employment in the public and private sector. Formal employment opportunities are concentrated in urban areas, hence many rural households have some members in urban areas. The terms of trade for crop production developed negatively until 1979 (as compared to livestock production). Stagnation of the arable sector has led to government schemes to increase crop production, mostly by means of subsidies for investments and recurrent costs. Most of these programmes did not take the natural resource base into account, and there is no conclusive evidence that yields per hectare have increased
19. Since 1980 the Financial Assistance Policy (FAP) offered substantial subsidies for productive activities other than livestock production; arable activities were only eligible for FAP support if they were not covered under other government assistance programmes. FAP's major objective is to reduce the country's economic dependence on the mineral and livestock sectors. The non-agricultural sector grows rapidly, but remains subject to serious constraints such as the competition from South Africa and the small domestic market. The growth of this sector has been unable to alleviate mounting pressure on natural resources in the rural sector.
