Rangeland tenure and pastoral development in Botswana : is there a future for community-based management?

CASS/PLAAS occasion paper seriesCopublished with Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of ZimbabweThe paper addresses transformations in land tenure systems prompted by decades of government and donor-driven programmes and policy in Botswana, that have resulted in shrinking commonage/communal land through the exclusion of extensive tracts of land transferred to private interests. In particular the implementation and impacts of two policies are examined: the Tribal Grazing Lands Policy (TGLP) (1975) and the ongoing National Policy for Agricultural Development (NPAD) (1991). Approaches such as those established by Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) are one route to promote sufficient recognition of collective rights to prevent further loss of commonly-held lands to private interests