04 Jan 2017

As the need for leisure increases in this country, many people have chosen few places to hang out and pass time as a way of escaping from boredom especially during holidays.

These are usually beautiful places which are next to big rivers such as Thamalakane, Okavango, and Chobe. Because of the scarcity of these places, people usually congest them resulting in massive littering that threatens to reduce the beauty of these places.

One such place is called Big Tree located in the banks of Thamalakane River in Maun just behind Botswana Housing Cooperation houses in Chobe.

The spot is so popular such that droves of fun lovers across the country congest it every holiday to have fun and pass time. This festive season, the situation was worse as traffic leading to the spot was worse than that of rush hour in Gaborone. In the aftermath, cans and bottles of beer, plastic bags and all sort of dirt were left behind.

However, Maun Administration Authority (MAA) senior council secretary, Mogomotsi Seemule admitted that as council they recognise the growing interests of people in having fun.

“We have also realised that people choose places that are next to rivers for their leisure and that is why as custodians of the Big Tree. We have placed dustbins so that people can dispose their garbage in them,” she said in an interview.

Unfortunately, Seemule said fun lovers never utilise such dustbins as they opt to throw litter all over the place. “We are extremely concerned about littering at this spot,” she said.
 Seemule said as much as they want people to have fun, they also do not want the environment and the river that was adjacent to the place to be contaminated.

“The place belongs to council and it is in our interest to see it clean and attractive,” she further said.

To fight this situation, she said they were planning to designate Big Tree as a picnic spot so that it could be managed appropriately.

Seemule said the idea would be engaged through expression of interest by people who could manage the place satisfactory.

“We want a person who will do so without tempering with the natural environment by erecting permanent structure as we want to retain the place as natural as it is,” she said.

Seemule said Maun had Thamalakane Master Plan and a consultant would be engaged to explore and advice on how best the river could be used, therefore it was impossible to erect a permanent structure at the Big Trees as the master plan might change the use of land there.

In the meantime, she said the council want to develop something systematic and controllable at the Big Tree.

She said the cleaning of the spot currently rest on them as council. She encourage people to excise decency and responsibility all the time to keep the place clean.

Conversely, Botswana Tourism Organisation‘s tourism development manager, Bigani Sethume concurred that patrons were fond of littering the places.

She said they were working with the council to keep the Big Tree clean.

”Our wish is to conserve these places in their natural state. We do not want to put more resources in them so that they can remain as natural as they are,” she said in an interview.

Meanwhile, a lot of people interviewed during the New Year’s Eve at the Big Tree said the place was beautiful and costs nothing to access. They said they were attracted by the beauty and the serenity of the spot.

Some of them called on the council to place portable toilets at the place. ENDS